Fuentes’ recent podcast tour is instructive. Skipping over legacy right-wing media spaces like Fox News and Newsmax, he appeared on a number of right-leaning online shows this year, including some that aren’t ostensibly political. This list includes the shows of Patrick Bet-David, Glenn Greenwald, Russell Brand, and Piers Morgan. And of course, there was the interview with Carlson, which Fuentes subsequently called “so friendly.”
Fuentes has also appeared with streamers like Adin Ross, Sneako, and the Nelk Boys, giving him a chance to regale an audience of often young men with friendly banter. More are likely coming, as Asmongold, a streamer with one of the largest and fastest-growing channels on YouTube in 2025, has said he’ll eventually collaborate with Fuentes. And Asmongold has been blunt about why, saying: “Nick brings in views. … That’s why he gets invited.”
He’s correct on that. Fuentes does bring in numbers for these shows.
According to a Media Matters analysis, Fuentes has appeared on at least 20 right-wing and right-leaning online shows since July, and his appearances on these shows have garnered at least 28.4 million views on YouTube, Rumble, and Kick.
For some of these shows, including The Tucker Carlson Show, PBD Podcast, Raw Talk, and Dave Smith’s Part of the Problem, the videos with Fuentes are among their most viewed. On Carlson’s channel, the interview with Fuentes is one of the top five most viewed videos. And just hours after Piers Morgan livestreamed a contentious interview with Fuentes, the video had already jumped to the fifth most-viewed livestream on Morgan’s channel, and it has since become the most-viewed livestream.
Some voices on the right see this happening and demand harsher questions to Fuentes in the interviews or claim that Fuentes is somehow hiding his noxious views when he’s on other podcasts and that hosts need to call him on it. But they seem to misunderstand the medium and the incentives involved.
Fuentes is truly of the internet; he knows that the real currency is attention, at all costs. A harsh interview now may well lead to a soft interview later. It’s all part of the wash. For Fuentes’ part, the new attention from right-leaning shows is paying off.
Fuentes’ popularity appears to be accelerating. Search mentions of Nick Fuentes have been spiking in the country. Since early June, Fuentes has added nearly 450,000 followers on his Rumble channel, a roughly 300% increase from 150,000 followers in June to nearly 600,000.
There are good-faith skeptics in terms of Fuentes’ popularity. Some have pointed out that his engagement may be inauthentic and the volume of social mentions of Fuentes is underwhelming. I have no reason to doubt their findings, but in my view it is missing the forest for the trees. President Donald Trump reportedly hired actors to cheer for him in Trump Tower when he launched his first presidential campaign. The fake supporters didn’t stop him from winning two elections. Fuentes similarly benefits even if the support is fake. In this media environment, the appearance of support is often more important than the support itself.
Fuentes is in other ways a completely different sort of figure than Trump. Whereas Trump loves to talk about how much he loves his followers, Fuentes appears to hate many of his — or at least has no problem bickering with those among them that he doesn’t find useful.
Part of what makes Fuentes who he is is his political vision and dedication. He’s not firstly concerned with increasing the number of views of his streaming show or becoming the most mentioned host on social media. He’s focused on maintaining his movement and growing as a political force.
There are some questioning whether Fuentes is “filling the void” after Kirk’s death, but I don’t think that’s quite right, at least in the way that Kirk did. Filling the void would mean trying to advance the interests of the GOP establishment by meditating between various factions. That does not seem like the type of power Fuentes has much interest in, at least for now. (Though he is notably among the various figures on the right criticizing Candace Owens’ conspiracy theories about Kirk’s murder.)
Instead, he’s mostly taking advantage of the power vacuum to get more supporters for himself and advance his political vision. And to do that, he needs to keep waging war on the Republican elites and the right-wing establishment to which he says Trump and his MAGA media allies have largely capitulated. As Eamon Whalen wrote, “Kirk said it was his life’s mission to smooth the divisions within the conservative movement. Fuentes wants to inflame them.”
Fuentes launched a “Groyper War Two” aimed at Donald Trump and JD Vance in the midst of the 2024 campaign. Initially dismissed as something of a failure, it instead put Fuentes at the front of the line on the right as Trump’s second term headed toward lame duck territory — after all, most of the competitors in that sort of space had tied their fortunes to Trump’s. David Gilbert wrote in WIRED that “his influence has skyrocketed, despite—or perhaps because of—his criticism of Trump’s failed campaign promises around the Epstein case and mass deportations, as well as his support for Israel.”
The current fragmented right-wing ecosystem will bring all the potential audience Fuentes could ever want right to him. He just needs to be there, as the alternative to whoever people perceive to be the right-wing establishment.
Fuentes himself says as much. In a recent stream, he argued:
Great Job Media Matters for America & the Team @ Media Matters for America Source link for sharing this story.
