CNN Panel Throws Down Over the Rise of Nick Fuentes in MAGA: JD Vance Needs to ‘Condemn This’

CNN’s NewsNight panel debated on Thursday night Tucker Carlson’s friendly interview with white supremacist and anti-Semite Nick Fuentes. The panel discussed Carlson’s explanation for the interview he gave to Megyn Kelly in a podcast published just hours prior to the discussion.

Carlson defiantly defended platforming Fuentes in such a friendly manner.

CNN host Sara Sidner began the conversation asking, “How destructive this might be for MAGA?”

New York Post correspondent Lydia Moynihan replied, “Yeah, look, I mean, I think obviously everyone was shocked and appalled that he would do an interview with somebody who—we don’t even need to go through everything that Nick Fuentes has said. I am, though, encouraged to see the backlash that all of this is having, that people at Heritage are standing up and condemning that, and of course, that’s what Charlie Kirk did so well—was call out that kind of horrible rhetoric and destructive ideology.” Moynihan added:

And so I think there have been so many voices on the right who’ve been ready to stand up, condemn it and say this does not have a place in the conservative movement. And I think we’ll see what happens at Heritage, but I think it’s good that Kevin Roberts said, “Yeah, I screwed up.”

Sidner turned to defense attorney Arthur Aidala and noted, “Yeah, it took him three times to do it though. He was very much pushed. And this definitely does have a place somewhere in the conservative—go ahead.”

Aidala replied, “I was there last night. I do a—were you there? Yeah, I was. I do a true crime show with Megyn Kelly. No politics, just legal analysis.”

Sidner and other guests quipped, “I am learning much about you tonight.”

Aidala replied to the table, “Well, I am kind of a criminal defense attorney. I don’t just play one on TV. And he eloquently, I will say, defended himself. Let me be very clear. As a Sicilian-American, I identify so closely with my Jewish brothers and sisters, very, very closely. I fast on Yom Kippur. I have no tolerance for anti-Semitism whatsoever.”

“So I went into last night not with an open mind, but I wanted to hear what Tucker had to say. And I mean, he made it very clear last night that he absolutely believes in the Holocaust, that it took place, that he hates the Nazis. Thank God he made that clear. He said it over—I mean, he spent like 20 minutes on it,” Aidala argued.

Sidner pushed back, “But he was very friendly with Nick Fuentes on the—he did not–”

Aidala jumped back in, “Okay, so here’s his retort. Here’s his retort, and I was very friendly with Vladimir Putin, and I’m just telling you what he said last night. He said, “I was very friendly with Vladimir Putin.” He said—I may mess this up, but I interviewed, I think it was like—I don’t want to mess it up, but some tribe who was—it was a cannibal tribe—that they were eating their own people. They were eating flesh. And I interviewed them, and they were horrible. I interviewed Charles Manson. I’ve interviewed a lot of horrible, mean, terrible people. And I’ve never gotten the reaction, and I didn’t think I was going to get the reaction. And the reason why he brought him on was Fuentes, on his ow,n attacked Tucker Carlson’s father, wife, and child. And Tucker was enraged. And the way he targeted his anger was to have him on his podcast.”

Liberal pundit Adam Mockler interjected, “Wait, so he was so enraged, he decided to have a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes?”

“The problem was—the problem is not that he held the interview, it’s that he normalized this type of ideology. I think the Republican Party is for the first time being forced to face the monster that they’ve created in Nick Fuentes,” Mockler continued, adding:

Throughout my entire youth, I’ve watched Donald Trump normalize—not Nick Fuentes’s rhetoric, but a type of extremist rhetoric that the U.S. has never seen before. Now, that is manifesting in the GOP, or at least Tucker Carlson and big wings of the GOP, welcoming in—Tucker Carlson is welcoming in somebody who believes the Holocaust didn’t happen, or he thinks if it did happen, it was a good thing. He thinks that black people deserve less rights, women deserve less rights.

Aidala hit back, “You can’t say it about Donald Trump. The Republicans do not—about Jewish people with Donald Trump, that’s all I’m saying. He wore a yarmulke at his daughter’s wedding.”

Mockler continued, “The way that Donald Trump speaks about the Democratic Party, the way that Donald Trump speaks about people who disagree with him has normalized this extremist rhetoric. He said that we need to be taken care of in front of the military. But the point is, a lot of young people are being sucked into this Nick Fuentes pipeline. I don’t think the Republican Party—the old guard—is ready for what’s about to smack them in the face with this new guard.”

Sidner followed up, “I want to—I’m just curious—just to follow up on that, Adam, there is a thought that because of what happened to Charlie Kirk and how he was killed, that there are people who were sort of in his tent—Charlie Kirk did not—he hated Nick Fuentes, there was a battle between them—and that those people have now moved to support someone like Nick Fuentes. Do you see that happening?”

Mockler replied, “I agree with that analysis. I’ve been following the rise of Nick Fuentes for a few years. I’ve been tracking it closely. And Charlie Kirk was a bulwark against this type of far-right extremism. Charlie Kirk would unequivocally condemn the Groypers who came to TPUSA. But I’m telling you, we are now seeing this vacuum filled. We are now seeing people on Instagram reels post Nick Fuentes and get half a million likes with Holocaust denial. And my worry is—my worry is JD Vance needs to come out and condemn this. JD Vance, when the young Republican group chat leaked of people who were Nazi supporters, muddied the waters. Do you not see the normalization that’s happening, either of you?”

Watch the full clip above via CNN.