Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes and the Right’s ‘Groyper’ Problem

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

News, Government, Society & Culture

4.3 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2025

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Is this the future of MAGA? Tucker Carlson’s interview with the white nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes has caused a firestorm on the right. Carlson and Fuentes’s friendly chat about American Jews — whether they fit into this country or were loyal to Israel above all — was the kind of conversation that for decades would have been unimaginable among mainstream figures in politics. And by crossing that line, Carlson was making a statement — about the power of Fuentes’s movement and the future of MAGA. To help me think through this, I wanted to talk to the political writer John Ganz. He’s studied the roots of antisemitism on the right and has followed the evolution of MAGA closely. He’s behind the newsletter Unpopular Front and the author of “When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s.” This episode contains strong language. Mentioned: “Unpopular Front” by John Ganz “Finding Neverland” by John Ganz “Groyperfication” by John Ganz Book Recommendations: Taking America Back by David Austin Walsh Furious Minds by Laura K. Field Prophets of Deceit by Norbert Guterman & Leo Lowenthal Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Ashley Braun. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The If by the stroke of good fortune or just being a normal person, you had not heard of Nick Fuentes until this month.
0:39.4	Chances are you've heard of him now.
0:41.0	Nick Fuentes is odious and despicable.
0:42.9	He's what I would call a racist racist.
0:45.3	Nick Fuentes has said a long list of very vile things.
0:49.5	Big time.
0:50.1	He's a bugger eating white supremacist Holocaust denier.
0:55.0	The reason everybody's talking about Fuentes is Tucker Carlson, who is arguably at this point
1:00.0	the most significant media figure on the American right, hosted Fuentes, a person he has
1:05.8	feuded with in the past for a very friendly two-hour chat about the problem of Israel, but the problem of American
1:15.0	Jews and whether or not they fit in this country or their loyalties or elsewhere.
1:19.4	Putting aside the tribal interest for the corporate interest, that's absolutely the case.
1:23.5	And that's the only way the country is going to stay together.
1:25.4	Exactly. That's my concern.
1:27.1	And I absolutely agree with you.
1:28.8	I would say, though, that the main challenge to that, a big challenge to that, is organized Jewry in America.
1:36.0	It was the kind of conversation you would not have heard among mainstream figures on the American right in recent decades. But something has changed.
1:48.1	What we are watching is a very old strain of the right vying for control of its future.
1:53.9	This right goes back to Pat Buchanan. It goes back to Charles Lindberg. The idea that the right
1:58.6	should be an ethno-nationals coalition, which doesn't have room for immigrants, very much does not have room maybe for Jews, that is really not comfortable with anyone who's not what they call a heritage American, who doesn't really bow at the altar of that politics and the primacy of white Christians
2:22.5	as a people controlling this country. This has been a logic and an ideology that Trump has broken
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from New York Times Opinion, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of New York Times Opinion and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.