Nick Fuentes—the Hitler-loving racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, homophobic, Christian nationalist, fascist, white nationalist—is feeling emboldened by the recent softball interview he did with Tucker Carlson, which has racked up ten of millions of views on social media in less than a week.
On Thursday night's episode of his "America First" program, Fuentes reveled in the controversy generated by the interview, believing that it highlights his growing influence and ability to shape national politics, especially the 2028 presidential election.
Fuentes highlighted a recent Turning Point USA event at which Vice President J.D. Vance was grilled by audience members about the Trump administration's policies regarding Israel as well as Vance's marriage to an Indian, non-Christian wife, noting that these are both issues that Fuentes and his followers, known as groypers, have been hammering away on for months.
"J.D. Vance is getting squeezed and he's going to have to make a decision," Fuentes gloated. "J.D. Vance, our vice president, spoke at Turning Point USA last night and he held a Q&A session just like [during] the 'groyper wars,' just like Charlie Kirk, and he was met with one groyper question after the other."
"They said, 'Tell us about your connections with Palantir. Why did you marry a Hindu if you're a Christian?' They said, 'Is the United States controlled by Israel?'" Fuentes declared. "And J.D. Vance had to pander to his new groyper base."
"He's getting squeezed," Fuentes smirked. "Because the groypers are on the one hand saying, 'Hey, listen, fat boy, we want America First. You want to run for president? We want to hear you say America First.' And on the other side, he's got his donors and they're saying, 'They're horrible anti-Semites. You have to disavow them. You have to forcefully condemn them. Condemn Tucker, condemn the groypers.'"
"Now, if Vance condemns the groypers, we are deploying to Iowa," Fuentes vowed. "Raise your right hand, 'I swear I'm going to move to Iowa and New Hampshire and Nevada and South Carolina and one primary after the next and we will go to every town hall, we will go to every meet and greet where there's four or five people and we will be there and we'll do it for free.' People will drive there for free and they will follow Vance around and ask him, 'When will you put America First? Why would you condemn the young white men of America and sell out to our elites?' We'll be there! We'll be there in Iowa. We'll be in every primary and caucus state."
"So he doesn't want to condemn the groypers," Fuentes said. "But if he doesn't, then [Miriam] Adelson is going to pull the plug. If he doesn't condemn the groypers, then all the Israel First money is going to pull the plug and J.D. Vance might find himself defunded"
"That's the groyper squeeze," Fuentes taunted. "This is politics."
"This is why we must always demand more," he continued. "People say, 'If we attack Vance, who are we going to get in '28? You're telling us not to vote Republican?' We had to do those things to show that we were serious. We had to do those things. It's not about the votes, it's about sending a message. We had to let J.D. know and the GOP know that our votes are conditional. You want our votes? You have to give us something. And if you don't give us anything, we won't vote for you and we'd be happy to see you lose. That's called leverage. And when you engage somebody on the basis of leverage in a negotiation, that means you're equals. That means you have a seat at the table."
"This is the Vance squeeze," Fuentes declared. "He knows it, they know it, I know it. Soon the whole party's going to know it. This is how the groypers take over."
Fuentes' exuberance about his perceived power in shaping the next presidential election is somewhat undercut by the fact that Vance has no real incentive to court Fuentes or his narrow groyper base given that Fuentes has relentlessly and viciously attacked Vance as a race traitor from the moment he was selected as Trump's running mate.
In fact, it was Trump's selection of Vance that prompted Fuentes to declare that he would not vote for Trump in 2024 and would, instead, wage a guerilla war to undermine Trump's campaign, just like the one he is now vowing to run against Vance. Fuentes, of course, proceeded to follow through on precisely none of his threats against the Trump campaign before abjectly surrendering just a few months later.
