Scribble

David Rind

00:00:00

This is One Thing, I'm David Rind, and somehow this is a real question. Do Republicans want to be associated with a Holocaust denier?

Will Sommer

00:00:09

After Trump took over, there was really no sense of like where the principles are or what line is too far to cross and who does not belong in the party. Stick with us.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani

00:00:21

If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.

David Rind

00:00:31

Election night 2025 was a great one for Democrats. Concerns about the economy and President Donald Trump's policies powered them to wins up and down the ballot, including in New York City, where voters elected a Democratic socialist for mayor in Zoran Mandani.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani

00:00:46

So Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.

David Rind

00:01:02

But there are still big questions about whether candidates like Mondani are the answer to the party's nationwide brand problem. And with the midterms now less than a year away, Republicans have plenty of questions of their own.

President Donald Trump

00:01:14

I don't think it was good for Republicans. I don't think it's good. I'm not sure it was good for anybody. But we had an interesting evening and we learned a lot.

David Rind

00:01:23

Do they need to focus more on affordability? Will Trump's policies continue to be a drag? And then there is a much bigger, more existential question gripping the Republican party right now. How much hate can we tolerate?

Dana Bash

00:01:36

'There's deep concern in some corners of the GOP about what they see as a frightening rise in raw anti-Semitism on the hard right.

David Rind

00:01:45

Over the past few weeks, former Fox News star turned conservative firebrand Tucker Carlson's interview with a known white supremacist and Holocaust denier has set off a civil war within the MAGA movement. The conflict has forced some of the most influential voices in the party to grapple with some really tough questions about its future.

Megyn Kelly

00:02:03

To me, it's so sad to see like the right on right violence, you know, rhetorical violence, because we need each other. Those two are both huge powerhouses.

Ben Shapiro

00:02:14

'Neo-Nazis and their propagandizers are not Republicans. They're not America first. They're are not MAGA. They sure as hell aren't conservative.

David Rind

00:02:24

Let's bring in Will Summer to break this down. He's a senior reporter at The Bulwark, where he covers the far right and writes the false flag newsletter. So Will, I want to timestamp this conversation. We're talking on Thursday morning here, but can you take us back? How did this all start?

Will Sommer

00:02:39

'OK, so two weeks ago, Tucker Carlson invited on Nick Fuentes, who's a very popular right-wing, far-right, white nationalist podcaster who, even as he's grown more powerful, has kind of been kept on the fringes of the MAGA movement.

Nick Fuentes

00:02:54

Who cares? You know, enough with the Jim Crow stuff. Who cares. Oh, you had to drink out of a different water fountain.

Will Sommer

00:03:01

'He was really racist. I mean, he marched in the Charlottesville march in 2017. I mean he uses racial slurs. He'll use the N-word. He's a Holocaust denier.

Nick Fuentes

00:03:10

The Jews. They are responsible for every war in the world. It's not even debatable at this point.

Will Sommer

00:03:18

He's like a David Duke level racist and one that really the Republican party has not had to grapple with in a long time.

Tucker Carlson

00:03:25

Nick Fuentes, thank you for doing this.

Nick Fuentes

00:03:26

Yeah, thank for having me.

Tucker Carlson

00:03:27

I wanted to meet you. I've heard about you.

Will Sommer

00:03:30

Tucker Carlson inviting him on his show for what was a very kind of friendly sort of image laundering interview, I would say.

Tucker Carlson

00:03:37

You said yourself, you showed up in college, like one set of views, they evolve as you interact with reality, as the reality of self changes, as like you learn things, you grow, like whatever people change.

Will Sommer

00:03:48

'Enraged a lot of people on the right because they see suddenly this this guy who's really racist anti-semitic extremely anti-israel is gaining a foothold within sort of respectable republican politics.

David Rind

00:03:59

Right. So he had been kind of fringed before, but now when you see someone like Tucker Carlson, very much a prominent voice in the Republican Party, having him on for this pretty friendly interview, that's what got people in the Republic Party like, oh, what's going on here?

Will Sommer

00:04:13

'Yeah, I mean, Nick Fuentes, his profile and his platform has been growing for years, but really, in particular, the number one, the war in Gaza, which has alienated a lot of young Republicans from Israel, as well as the assassination of Charlie Kirk, who is sort of Fuentes' arch-enemy and sort of very much his mirror image. And yeah, I think it's radicalized a lot young Republicans. Um, and it's also created an opening for Fuentes to get a lot more attention and sort of now appear more as the, as the face of young conservatism. Um, so he's been tangling with people like Tucker Carlson. They've had these kinds of spats, uh, earlier this, this fall and Tucker essentially seems to have said, you know, I'm better, it's better for me to be on this guy's side than to be fighting with him. And so he sort of welcomed him into the tent.

Ben Shapiro

00:04:59

Tucker Carlson last week was aided, abetted, celebrated for normalizing Nazism within the Republican Party by the mainstay organization of the traditional right, the Heritage Foundation.

Will Sommer

00:05:09

'And so then, a few days later, this creates sort of this furor, including some of the criticism aimed at the Heritage Foundation, which is this sort of critical, behemoth, right-wing think tank in the Republican Party. Probably the most famous thing the Heritage foundation did recently was Project 2025, and that criticism was directed at Heritage because they sponsor Carlson's show. And then Heritage kind of quietly edited one of its pages about this sponsorship to remove mentions of Tucker Carlson, which prompted people to say, well, maybe Heritage is distancing themselves from Tucker.

Kevin Roberts

00:05:40

their attempt to cancel him will fail.

Will Sommer

00:05:43

Kevin Roberts, the president, came out and put out this sort of very aggressive video saying, you know, if you're mad about this interview, you're part of this venomous coalition, sort of sowing discord within MAGA ranks.

Kevin Roberts

00:05:53

I disagree with, and even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says. But canceling him is not the answer either.

Will Sommer

00:06:01

Now, Kevin Roberts later says that his chief of staff has resigned. Kevin Roberts in a video that was leaked. On Wednesday told his staff essentially that his chief of staff almost duped him into putting out this video supporting Tucker Carlson. Roberts claims he doesn't know really anything about Nick Fuentes and still doesn't. He says he doesn t pay attention to the news that much, which is sort of a bizarre excuse for a guy who is controlling such a powerful political institution. But that's his explanation.

Dana Bash

00:06:28

Kevin Roberts says he regrets his initial defense of Carlson's interview. CNN has learned he apologized to Heritage staff members this week saying, quote, I made a mistake and I let you down and I'd let down this institution and I'm sorry, period, full stop.

David Rind

00:06:48

'Obviously, this particular person, Nick Fuentes, is particularly noxious. I could understand why figures on the right might not want to be associated with him. But are we seeing more of the ideology that he traffics in pop up amongst right-wing figures?

Will Sommer

00:07:04

And, you know, I mean, to be frank, also a lot of the racism, I mean, we can take a look at a couple examples.

Candace Owens

00:07:09

There will be no narrative that I will not prod when it comes to figuring out why people are lying about the state that Charlie was in when it came to the topic of Israel. Again, you can.

Will Sommer

00:07:22

'In right-wing media, Candice Owens is a sort of ideologically somewhat simpatico with Nick Fuentes. She's sort of a Ben Shapiro protege who broke from him and became much more anti-Semitic.

Candace Owens

00:07:33

I just wanna be clear, anything happens to me, blame the Zionists, like 1,000% blame the zionists.

Will Sommer

00:07:39

'She blames Israel for just about everything that happens. But because, I mean, she has like, each video will get 10 million views. So I mean this is an enormous platform that has a lot of reach, I would say, also outside of the Republican Party. And then I think also at the staffer level within the Republican party, we're seeing increasingly these sort of scandals where, for example, there was the Young Republicans group chat leak a few weeks ago where the Republicans were- trading all these racist and pro-Hitler comments. Paul Ingrassia, who was a Trump nominee in the administration had to withdraw after his sort of perhaps edgy jokes, I think he would say, but I think disturbing messages about Hitler and Nazis were also posted, were leaked. And so I think you can see there that there is this, you know, this kind of this far right, this sort of Fuentes style of politics, this, that is sort of racist infused and. And anti-Semitic that is growing increasingly popular among young Republicans, who are the people who will become both the staffers and the future politicians for the party.

David Rind

00:08:40

Okay, so that's the problem, but when we come back, is there any solution? Stick around. I guess I'm wondering, in light of all that, is the genie out of the bottle here? It seems like these voices are getting more of a sway within a certain subset of the mega bass. So even if you stop platforming them, they're gonna continue to be influential, right?

Will Sommer

00:09:04

'Yeah, I mean, I do think that this is the concern a lot of people in the Republican Party who are Jewish or are just opposed to this kind of this new strain of anti-semitism people like Nick Fuentes are forcing on the party, that they're concerned that this is becoming more of sort of an acceptable view to hold within the party in the same way that, you know, you might want tariffs or you might wanna want free import, something like that.

Sen. Ted Cruz

00:09:25

'In the last six months, I've seen more anti-Semitism on the right than I have in my entire life. This is a poison, and I believe we are facing an existential crisis in our party and in our country.

Will Sommer

00:09:38

And obviously they realize that that is sort of a Rubicon that's going to be very hard for the party to go back on once it's crossed.

Sen. Ted Cruz

00:09:43

If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and that their mission is to combat and defeat global jewelry. And you say nothing, then you are a coward.

Will Sommer

00:10:02

'You know, unfortunately, I think these groups have a lot of momentum. I think, I mean, for one thing, you know, Tucker Carlson and Heritage are facing a lot of heat over the Fuentes interview, but it's worth noting that a few years ago, Donald Trump himself dined at Mar-a-Lago with Nick Fuentes. Right. So it, and obviously they can't, they can criticize Trump. And so. There's sort of this situation in right-wing media where, and in the party more broadly, after Trump took over, there was really no sense of where the principles are or what line is too far to cross and who does not belong in the Party. And so it has become very murky. You can see the Heritage Foundation president is saying... You know, well, we're OK with this interview because we don't want to support cancel culture. We don't wanna anyone to be canceled. And that's that language that they're used to of sort of saying, you know, you can say edgy things, you can't say even racist things, but your career shouldn't be ended over it. And yet, for a lot of Republicans, they kind of they want to end the current is a career. They want to stop his rise. But they're they're use to this sort of using this cancel language that prevents them from doing.

David Rind

00:10:59

'Right, you see people like Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell speaking out very forcefully against this rise of anti-Semitic support within the party. But it's worth pointing out that a lot of MAGA's loudest voices thrive on division and hateful rhetoric, whether it's demonizing immigrants, a more recent example leaning on Islamophobia to criticize Sarram Mamdani in New York City, painting transgender people as inherently different. So I guess I'm wondering if you're really buying that this is some big moral reckoning? The Republican party's going through or something else.

Will Sommer

00:11:32

'I mean, it is sort of rich in the case of, for example, someone like Ben Shapiro, who runs the Daily Wire, sort of right-wing media empire. You know, he's saying, well, we need to stop Nick Fuentes because he's very critical of Israel and Jews. And, you know, fair enough to him. On the other hand, the Daily wire was running a whole campaign to pardon the police officer who killed George Floyd and to get him out of jail. So this idea that this kind of racism, this bigotry is somehow not all over right- wing media, I think is ridiculous. I mean I think part of the problem is that in the Trump era, so much of conservative media, and I keep coming back to the media because it's so powerful in the trump administration, I mean they can get people pardoned, they can't get policies changed, all this stuff. People aren't chosen, you know, they're often successful because of their charisma, their flash, their willingness to kind of engage in these fights, in this drama, and who comes out ahead. Right.

David Rind

00:12:24

Voice in the room.

Will Sommer

00:12:26

Exactly, and right now we see people like Nick Fuentes and Candice Owens really succeeding over other figures like old Fox News people like Mark Levin or someone like Ben Shapiro.

David Rind

00:12:35

So is that something that only Donald Trump could put a stop to if he put his foot down and say, we, we have nothing to do with this guy whatsoever. Like you said, he already dined with them. So it's like, it's hard to untangle that, right?

Will Sommer

00:12:47

You know, I think that's right. I mean, I, I think also sort of this thread of, of Fuentesism, what they call griperism, after this kind of, uh, little cartoon toad, uh Fuentes followers believe in or see themselves in, is sort of spread throughout the party. And so once you start saying, well, we don't like Nick Fuentes, you have to say, okay, well then why did Marjorie Taylor Green speak at a Nick Fuente's conference? Why did former congressman Paul Gosar do that? You've seen JD Vance come out amid this whole controversy, the vice president, and say, essentially, hey, Everyone just stop spreading division. So he's extremely online. He knows about all of this drama. And he's saying, you know, hey, everyone just sort of stop whining about this heritage thing that they're supporting Tucker Carlson. So clearly he's not in favor, I would say, of rooting this out of the party, at least publicly. And so it's unlikely, I think, that Trump would do the same. This is all tech.

David Rind

00:13:36

Place online for the for the most part and in MAGA media like you say so is any of this like translating to voters or the way policy is talked about with

Will Sommer

00:13:49

Yeah, I mean, I think this kind of stuff does end up being carried out in things like deportations where we see the Department of Homeland Security posting memes about, you know, we're sort of maximizing the cruelty or look at these crying immigrants that we're deporting. This informs how these groups think. The Heritage Foundation sets a lot of the policy when Republicans are in office. And so the question of are we going to see Nick Fuentes and his beliefs as, you know, unacceptable versus well, do we welcome them in a little bit? Are they just another faction vying for power? I do think will play out in the future in Republican legislation. In terms of elections, Nick Fuente has said that JD Vance in particular, I mean, JD Vances is obviously headed towards 2028 potentially to run for president. And Fuentes has said that Vance finds himself in a gripper trap. So, you know, he's essentially he's in a Fuentes trap.

JD Vance

00:14:38

Now you ask about, you know, sort of, Jews disagreeing with Christians on certain religious ideas. Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the realities is that Jews do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Obviously, Christians do believe that. There are some significant theological disagreements between Christians and Jews. My attitude is, let's have those conversations. Let's have these disagreements when we have them. But if there are shared areas of interest, we ought to be willing to do that too.

Will Sommer

00:15:04

'Which is, on one hand, he's close enough with these really online right-wing elements that it'll be hard for him that he'll have to, you know, these questions about, well, do you support Nick Fuentes, do support these, these other far-right figures will come up. On the other, he doesn't really want to disown them because then he starts becoming a cancel culture guy and you start looking like a, like a mainstream, like Jeb Bush Republican. And as we've seen with heritage. As soon as you start getting involved in this, like, well, you have to disown this person. Oh, you, you know, you supported them. It's really a vice and it's very hard to get out of without taking, I think, a lot of criticism from both sides.

David Rind

00:15:37

The perils of being extremely online. Yes. Well, thanks so much. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. That's it for us today. If you want even more about this story and the continuing fallout at the Heritage Foundation, head over to cnn.com slash all access. You can find a couple things there. One, a great interview my colleague Ellie Reeve did with Candice Owens, who we mentioned earlier, and my colleagues Andrew Kozinski and Steve Contorno have a great story about all of this. Again, that's cnn dot com slash allaccess. We'll leave a link in our show notes. We're back on Wednesday. Make sure you follow the show wherever you listen. So a new episode will pop in right away. I'll talk to you later.

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