Why it matters: The MAGA fight, ignited by ideological differences over Israel, pulls on a lot of -isms — nativism, antisemitism, racism, sexism and Trumpism.
That dynamic was clear this week when white nationalist Nick Fuentes appeared on Tucker Carlson’s podcast for an amiable two-hour interview.
- Critics blasted Carlson for platforming Fuentes, a Holocaust denier who on Carlson’s podcast referred to “organized Jewry.”
- Allies of Turning Point USA — the group founded by the late Charlie Kirk and embraced by Trump and Vice President Vance — were particularly blunt in hammering Carlson. They noted that Kirk befriended Carlson but sought to distance MAGA from Fuentes.
The fight has broken out beyond grassroots MAGA, forcing a reckoning in longtime GOP institutions over what rhetoric is tolerable.
- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) shot back: “If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool and that their mission is to combat and defeat ‘global Jewry’ — and you say nothing — then you are a coward.”