For weeks, President Donald Trump stayed silent as the MAGA world descended into heated infighting over right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes. But on Sunday, the President decided to wade into the controversy.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
“If he wants to interview Nick Fuentes, I don’t know much about him, but if he wants to do it, get the word,” Trump told reporters. “People have to decide.”
“Meeting people, talking to people for somebody like Tucker—that’s what they do. You know, people are controversial,” he continued.
Fuentes, an anti-Semitic commentator who has expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler, posted a clip on X of Trump speaking to reporters, with the caption, “Thank you Mr. President!”
Carlson’s interview with Fuentes on his podcast in late October has divided the right, with some defending Carlson for conducting it and others expressing outrage.
It’s not the first time a meeting with Fuentes has ignited intraparty tensions. Trump had dinner with Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, along with the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kayne West. Many Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, denounced Trump at the time for welcoming Fuentes to his Florida club.
The President has said that he didn’t know Fuentes would be joining him and Ye at the dinner and that he didn’t know Fuentes before then, a claim he repeated on Sunday.
Trump and Carlson, meanwhile, traded barbs this summer after they disagreed on another issue that proved divisive on the right: potential U.S. military intervention in the Israel-Iran conflict. On Sunday, though, Trump said Carlson, a former Fox News host, has “said good things about me over the years.”
Here’s what to know about the controversial interview that has split the right.
Who is Nick Fuentes?
Fuentes, the 27-year-old host of a livestream show called “America First,” has risen as a prominent, divisive figure on the far-right in the years since Trump’s first election. Notorious for his promotion of white nationalist views and Holocaust denialism, among other controversial positions, he has built a growing following of racist, anti-Semitic supporters known as “groypers.”
In addition to his expressions of admiration for Hitler and a number of other anti-Semitic views, Fuentes has faced backlash for racist and misogynistic comments, including voicing support for Jim Crow segregation laws and posting on X after the 2024 election, “Your body, my choice. Forever.”
He was kicked off a number of platforms, from Facebook, to Airbnb to Spotify, with the companies citing violations of their policies, including those barring hate speech. In 2021, he was removed from Twitter after the company said he repeatedly violated its content moderation rules, but Elon Musk, who later acquired the platform and renamed it X, eventually reinstated him.
What happened in the interview?
The interview on Carlson’s podcast, “The Tucker Carlson Show,” was released on Oct. 27. The conversation lasted more than two hours.
During the discussion, Fuentes made several anti-Semitic comments, including claiming at one point that an “organized Jewry in America” was “the main challenge” to achieving a unified American society.
Carlson disagreed with Fuentes’s questioning of Jewish people’s loyalties to the U.S. , noting that many Jews have criticized Israel. He didn’t respond to Fuentes’ comments about “organized Jewry in America,” however, and complimented Fuentes at other points in the conversation.
What has been the response from the right?
Carlson’s conversation with Fuentes has sparked backlash from many Republican lawmakers and right-wing figures.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas blasted Carlson for the interview, calling him a “coward” and “complicit in evil” during a speech in front of the Republican Jewish Coalition in late October. The Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro also slammed Carlson earlier this month for the interview.
But others in the party have defended Carlson, including Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that she does “admire” Carlson for “interviewing many people.”
Kevin Roberts, president of the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation, condemned the “venomous coalition attacking” Carlson in a video posted on Oct. 30.
“I disagree with and even abhor things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer, either,” Roberts said.
The video sparked outrage from staff members at the think tank, as well as some Republican lawmakers. Amid the backlash, Roberts has apologized and said that he “didn’t know much about this Fuentes guy,” and that the remarks in the video were penned by a staffer who has since resigned.
A Heritage Foundation board member, Robert P. George, posted on Facebook on Monday that he had resigned, saying that even though Roberts had publicly apologized for some of the remarks in the video, George couldn’t be part of the think tank without a “full retraction” of it.
The post Trump Defends Tucker Carlson Interview With White Nationalist Nick Fuentes: What to Know About the Controversy Dividing the Right appeared first on TIME.
