Robert Draper

So he began to gain some traction then, but by and large was held at bay from the right.

And that continued really to be the case even when he had dinner with Kanye West with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

These were the sort of sporadic appearances by Fuentes, but he was still viewed as not a major figure.

No, and that's a salient point, Natalie.

Trump's refusal to say, and by the way, had I known, I would never have brought him at Mar-a-Lago, was very much in keeping with the statements made by Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman from Georgia.

and Congressman Paul Gosar, when each of them in 2021 and 2022 appeared at Nick Fuentes' America First conferences.

So what's going on here?

Why the refusal to condemn Fuentes outwardly?

What that's about is that they all recognize that Fuentes, for whatever else he was or wasn't, commanded a sizable following of young, male, almost entirely white, disaffected conservatives,

is a key part of the Trump coalition.

And no one wished to condemn Fuentes for fear of condemning his followers.

That's right.

They want him out of the tent, but they still want his people.

And so he's presented the conservative movement with something of a conundrum throughout.

Mainly then the view of Fuentes was hopefully he will just go away and these young disaffected male conservatives will find another big brother figure.

So that was the state of play until around August 19th.

and early September of this year, when Tucker Carlson happened to make a sidelong comment about Fuentes on his show, saying that Fuentes was just some kid living in his basement saying obnoxious things.

And Fuentes saw that as an opportunity to issue days and days of rebuttals on his own podcast, which in turn really ratcheted up his following.

Hmm.

And brought attention not just to Fuentes vis-a-vis Carlson, but Fuentes in general.