There’s a fight being waged for the soul of the right. It has taken the form of a reckoning over podcaster Tucker Carlson’s cozy interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes last week. Carlson, an able debater, gave basically no pushback to Fuentes, a man with avowedly pro–Adolf Hitler, proudly antisemitic, racist, segregationist views, and instead raved about how Christian Zionists disgust him.
The interview sparked a backlash, one that rapidly escalated after Kevin Roberts, president of the storied Heritage Foundation, came out in defense of Carlson and the interview last Thursday. After that, all hell broke loose. Lawmakers such as Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, Mitch McConnell, and Byron Donalds were joined by right-of-center influencers Ben Shapiro, Scott Jennings, and The Babylon Bee team in denouncing Fuentes, and Carlson for hosting him uncritically. (Roberts first blamed a subordinate for his ill-considered defense of Carlson, then apologized.)
