62. The MAGA Civil War Over Nick Fuentes

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Tim & April Show

Episode 62: The MAGA Civil War Over Nick Fuentes
Date: November 11, 2025
Podcast Host: The New Evangelicals
Hosts: Tim Whitaker & April Ajoy

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Tim and April confront the explosive recent controversy on the American right: Tucker Carlson’s decision to platform Nick Fuentes, a notorious figure promoting Christian nationalism, white supremacy, Holocaust denial, and extremist misogyny. They analyze the deep fractures within the MAGA and conservative movements—especially around the limits of platforming, anti-Semitism, and the ongoing debates over Christian Zionism, all while rooted in The New Evangelicals’ mission of love, justice, and compassion.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Setting the Stage: Why Talk about Nick Fuentes Now?

• Tim (07:02): “When it comes to Christian Nationalism and the trajectory, we've been pretty freaking spot on... I remember covering Nick Fuentes when Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke at his rally... Then he got dinner with President Trump... And now here we are devoting a whole show to this dude because he's growing and growing, especially in the wake of Charlie's death.”
• For years, Fuentes was considered fringe, but his audience and influence have grown rapidly. His recent interview with Tucker Carlson punctuated this mainstream shift, sparking controversy even among hardline conservatives.

2. Who is Nick Fuentes?

[07:35–10:50]

• 27-year-old far-right activist who hosts “America First,” openly promotes white supremacist, misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ and anti-Semitic views, and denies the Holocaust.
• Associated with the “groypers” movement, now targeting even other right-wing figures as too moderate.

3. Platforming Hate: Tucker Carlson & Fuentes

• [15:12] April: “There are certain people it's not worth platforming... I don't think you should ever debate a Nazi because we should just treat those views as stupid, problematic, as terrible. There's nothing to debate.”
• Tucker Carlson’s interview with Fuentes is explored via key clips, illuminating how Carlson softballs extremist guests, giving them reach with minimal challenge.

4. Holocaust & Stalin Admiration: What Was Said

Holocaust Denial (11:26–13:00):

• Nick Fuentes: Relays how telling his parents “the Holocaust didn’t happen” shocked them, frames Holocaust denial as “just asking questions”—a recurring tactic.
• Tim: “He conflates criticizing Jewish people with Holocaust denialism. They’re not the same thing at all… the amount of evidence we have about the Holocaust is overwhelming.”

Stalin Admiration (19:09–19:45):

• Nick Fuentes: “It’s Joseph Stalin’s birthday. Oh, I'm a fan. Always an admirer...”
• Tim: “Joseph Stalin is one of the worst people… responsible for the gulag system, millions killed… If you admire Stalin, what is it about mass starvation, purges, concentration camps you want to import?”

5. Tucker Carlson’s Selective Challenge

• Comparison—Ted Cruz Interview (21:29–23:02):
  Carlson grilled Cruz on his Christian-Zionist reasoning for supporting Israel, but let Fuentes’ extremism slide.
• April: “Tucker can push his guests if he wants to. He just didn’t want to challenge Nick.”

6. Misogyny & Anti-LGBTQ Views

Andrew Tate, Marriage & Gender Politics (25:08–29:17):

• Fuentes: Bemoans “Christian men worshipping their wives,” rails against egalitarian marriage, argues marriage isn’t about friendship: “Your wife’s not your best friend… your best friendships are with other men.”
• April/Joke (27:56): “It’s so funny to me that the little men who have the most to say... are single… They're blaming male loneliness on women...”
• Commentary: Tim and April directly challenge his credibility and point out the real-life damage of such doctrines.

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Key Quotes & Notable Moments

• Nick Fuentes, Holocaust Denial ([11:31]):
  • “I came home... and I was like: Mom, Dad, Hitler was awesome. Hitler was right. Holocaust didn’t happen. And my parents were like, we cannot believe what you’re saying.”
• April ([15:12]):
  • “There’s nothing to debate… when we’re talking about basic human rights… whether or not people deserve basic human rights and not to be slaughtered for who they are.”
• Nick Fuentes on marriage ([26:08]):
  • “She’s your wife; she’s not your best friend… There’s a difference. When you talk about your best friend, you’re a peer, you’re an equal, and I think your best friendships are with other men.”
• Tim ([27:56]):
  • “This bro is a 27-year-old single virgin lecturing people about what a marriage looks like.”
• Ben Shapiro (on Tucker, [65:08]):
  • “Tucker Carlson acts as an ideological launderer for other people’s evils... You bring your dirty, ugly ideologies to Tucker Carlson’s rhetorical car wash... and voila, hideous ideas suddenly become mainstream.”
• Tim ([68:07]):
  • “The overall point of how Tucker operates. Bullseye.”
• April ([69:09]):
  • "How far are we in hell where we have to applaud someone for condemning a Nazi? That’s the bare minimum.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 07:35–10:50: Tim’s summary of Fuentes’ evolution, background.
• 11:26–13:00: Clip & discussion: Fuentes on Holocaust denial.
• 15:12: April: “There’s nothing to debate…” on debating Nazis.
• 19:09–19:45: Fuentes/Tucker clip: Stalin admiration; Tim’s analysis.
• 21:29–23:02: Tucker/Ted Cruz clip; contrast with Fuentes interview.
• 25:08–29:17: Misogyny, Andrew Tate, marriage “advice.”
• 33:25–36:12: Testimonial on the harm of “ex-gay” and conversion therapy culture.
• 37:35–40:32: Fuentes on how Mark Levin radicalized him to Great Replacement thinking.
• 55:06–59:27: Discussion on Christian Zionism, historical background.
• 65:08–66:59: Ben Shapiro’s indictment of Tucker Carlson.
• 71:40–77:31: Heritage Foundation (Kevin Roberts) defends Tucker; analysis of conservative priorities.

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The MAGA “Civil War”: Why Are Conservatives Feuding?

• Deep rift over where the lines are drawn: Is there a limit to platforming extremism?
• Many conservatives condemned Tucker for hosting Fuentes—but, as April observes ([45:24]), “A lot of them are using Nick’s beef with Charlie Kirk as a reason… I would take more issue with the anti-Semitism and the white supremacy…”
• Tim ([46:02]): “People are upset not because of his comments… it’s because of Charlie Kirk.”
• Heritage Foundation comes out defending both Carlson and the right to critique Israel, using the moment to rally conservatives against internal “cancelling.”
  • Kevin Roberts ([72:05]): “Christians can critique the state of Israel without being anti-Semitic… My loyalty as a Christian and as an American is to Christ first and to America always.”
  • April and Tim call out the idolatry and contradiction of this stance, noting the lack of such tolerance for Christian progressives/queer allies.

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Issues: Christian Zionism & Anti-Semitism

• [55:06]: The Fuentes/Carlson discussion exposes both the lethal outgrowth of Christian Zionism (timed with current violence in Gaza), and its unique roots in American Protestant theology—not Jewish thought.
• Tim: “Even the idea of Zionism doesn’t come from like… the Yom Kippur War. It goes way before that… largely Christian evangelicals and white Protestants.”

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Cultural Hypocrisy & Shifting Standards on the Right

• Selfie Stick Hypocrisy ([46:49–51:03]): Tim & April play a montage of the right’s meltdown over Obama’s selfie stick (deemed 'undignified'), contrasting it to the tolerance of Trump’s and MAGA figures’ extreme, sometimes criminal behavior now.
• April ([50:05]): “They lost their minds when Obama wore a tan suit… Trump gets away with reposting AI videos of him taking dumps on protesters.”
• Tim and April highlight that current moral panics are not about values, but about which in-group maintains control: “If Trump does something, he’s always going to get a pass because he gives them power” ([54:06]).

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The Stakes: Normalizing Extremism & the Cost to Democracy

• April ([87:58]): “Here she is [Megan Basham] defending Heritage Foundation for defending Tucker Carlson for platforming a frickin neo-Nazi.”
• Tim ([87:58]): “We are in the upside down. You wonder how Germany got where it ended up… You are watching it in real time.”
• The hosts close with a call to vigilance: this isn’t just theoretical—the movement of Holocaust-denial and anti-intellectualism into the mainstream is urgent and dangerous.

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• The right-wing is fracturing over how extreme is too extreme.
• Platforming white nationalist, anti-Semitic, and misogynist views—rather than being condemned for their substance—is often debated as an issue of personality or internal loyalty.
• The episode challenges listeners to be alert to incremental normalization of fascism and hatred within mainstream conservative spaces.
• Tim and April urge their audience to stay engaged, informed, and to pursue faith and politics marked by genuine justice, inclusion, and care for the marginalized.

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Further Listening/Action

• Visit thenewevangelicals.com or join TNE Connect for resources and ongoing discussion.
• April ([90:10]): “Like, subscribe, leave us a review… We'll see y’all live every Thursday at noon.”

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End of Summary

Transcript

[April Ajoy]

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[Melinda Hale]

Book [e-mail] hey everyone, Melinda Hale here, the executive director of the New Evangelicals. I just want to take a moment to say thank you for listening to the Tim and April Show. This show and everything that we do at the New Evangelicals exist because of people like you. We can't do any of this without your support. Every conversation you hear, every resource we create, every piece of educational content that helps people rethink faith through the lens of love and justice is all made possible through our community. Now, if you believe in what we're building, a faith that unites instead of divides, I'd love to invite you to become a monthly supporter. Even just $5 a month helps us to continue to bring you shows like this one, expand our educational tools and create spaces for honest hope, hope filled conversations. You can join us by going to thenewevangelicals.com support and becoming a monthly donor. Thanks for being a part of this movement and for building a better path forward together.

[April Ajoy]

You're listening to a new Evangelicals production, the Tim and April show, where we unravel faith, politics and culture.

[Tim Whitaker]

Wow. Okay, wow. April started off real hot before we started recording.

[April Ajoy]

I'm just ready.

[Tim Whitaker]

You're ready. Well, welcome in, friends. Welcome to the Tim and April show. I am Tim Whitaker.

[April Ajoy]

I am April Ajoy.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, we got a real doozy today, don't we? I feel like we say this all the time, but maybe we should just say now. Trigger warning. Very misogynistic young race.

[April Ajoy]

All the things friends, everything is in this episode.

[Tim Whitaker]

Not everything.

[April Ajoy]

Not from us.

[Tim Whitaker]

No, no. Good.

[April Ajoy]

From our clips.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, we should be very clear about that.

[April Ajoy]

We're about to get real misogynistic up in here.

[Tim Whitaker]

We've had a change of heart. We're moving over to Rumble.

[April Ajoy]

Oh, gosh. Can you imagine?

[Tim Whitaker]

Well, I mean, let's face it, April, the grift is there, right? Like there is a world that we could grift where it's like we were one of those woke liberal Marxists who were trying to destroy America and then we became a true Christian and now we're fighting against it. See us live now only on money.

[April Ajoy]

If you make that turn.

[Tim Whitaker]

I know.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's what kills me. All these people, especially in the beginning of that deconstruction. Thing we all went through, right Online, all these people were like, oh, you're just deconstructing because you want more money, because it's easy and comfortable. And I'm like, I am broke. I am broke as hell. Starting a nonprofit on the Internet, begging people for $5 a month donations. Trust me, if I wanted to grift, I would go into megachurch world or go over to Rumble. I would do the. I would do the Russell Brand thing. Right? Russell Brand started Real Left, Real, you know, take down the system, and now he's touring the world with Sean Foyt and Tucker Carlson.

[April Ajoy]

Right, Right. Because I do think there's so few people that move from, like, actually left to the right that when it happens, they just elevate the same thing with, like, ex gay, ex trans, which you're not actually ex. Those things. You're just suppressing yourself. But they elevate those people. Like, like, for example, I used to work for CBN, right. The 700 Club. Not to go on a little tangent, because we do have a lot to get into, but they had this. This story of X transgender person. He was going by Jeffrey. She was going by Jeffrey at the time, and they totally elevated him. And. And she. Who was he at the time. It's a confusing. But regardless, they had this ex trans person that was running this whole ministry and they made this whole segment on the 700 Club. It was like, from transgender to transformed. And, like, this was the main person that they would talk about for years. And then they went back. She went back and is now living as a trans woman again and is just that. I can't keep up the lie anymore. There was never any retraction from cbn. The last I checked, that episode, like, their story was still out there. But, like, if you're a Christian in those circles and you only see quote, unquote testimonies of people claiming to be ex queer, you think, oh, well, my son just needs to pray the gay away. But it doesn't work. And if you go and watch this Netflix documentary called Pray Away, it shows so many people that ran conversion therapy ministries that claim to be ex gay, that admit, of course, they were still gay the whole time. They were just heavily suppressing that.

[Ben Shapiro]

And.

[April Ajoy]

And, you know, there. Anyway, this is a topic for another show.

[Tim Whitaker]

The title of this episode and what we're talking about are not the same thing. This is the banter section. We're allowed to banter, Darn it.

[April Ajoy]

Well, yeah, because they're trying to make. Or maybe they did make it already. Conversion theory legal again?

[Melinda Hale]

Yeah, of course they may.

[April Ajoy]

They banned it because it was causing so much harm. Anyway, we should do an episode on conversion therapy.

[Tim Whitaker]

We should. They are committed to dogma and not over to research and science. And this is exactly what happens. I mean, long. You know, it's just that simple. So. And you're right, they will pick. They will pick these fringe people who. Who are ex. Whatever so called, and they become the new token X gay person that gets paraded around the circuit and gets talked about as the proof that God can break anyone, including your child, free from the addiction or from the sinful lifestyle of the homosexual agenda.

[April Ajoy]

Right, right. But like, on our side, like, I. There are. I know so many people online that are ex. Conservative.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

Yes. Like us. Like, you know, I mean, we also lost our livelihood when we stopped being conservative.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah. And a lot of our. Of our friendships too, by the way. Can I just say one more random thing? This is so random. I'm sorry. My little guy, our youngest, is getting some cavities filled because we gave him too much candy. And my wife sent me a picture of him with his little. The little mask on for like the laughing gas. And I'm just looking at it. I'm like, he's so cute. So I just had to say that. So he's adorable. He's currently getting some cavities, Philip. Okay, well, I have no segue into this from that.

[April Ajoy]

From cavities to the cavity of our nation.

[Tim Whitaker]

Nice baptism. Bravo.

[April Ajoy]

We need to fill those cavities, get them out.

[Tim Whitaker]

Well, we're talking about Nick Fuentes today. I never thought we'd have to devote a whole show to him, but here we are. Here we are.

[April Ajoy]

And you and I have talked about him for a while.

[Tom]

Even when he.

[April Ajoy]

And we would talk about him, and a lot of times we'd get comments that were like, oh, he's so fringe. Like, don't waste your time.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, he's not so fringe.

[Tim Whitaker]

I don't want to look. I don't want to be one of those people that's like, we told you so or that we're always right. Certainly April and I have our blind spots, but when it comes to Christian Nashee and the trajectory, we've been pretty freaking spot on. We have been pretty freaking spot on. I remember covering Nick Fuentes when Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke at his rally, and I was like, guys, this is the beginning of him becoming mainstream. No, he's fringe. He'll never get picked up mainstream. Then he got dinner with President Trump and I was like, guys, he's sitting down with a sitting Kanye West.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

And they went, oh, well, he didn't know who he was. I'm like. But his team absolutely did. You know, you're telling me that no one knew who this random guy was that got access to the president or the, at the time, the former president at Mar A Lago. And now here we are devoting a whole show to this dude because he's getting. He's growing and growing, especially in the wake of Charlie's death. So really quick, let me give the audience. I'm going to just read from this guy's Wikipedia just the first few paragraphs so you understand who he is. Then we'll kind of get into what's happening and just fair warning, friends, it's kind of complicated. This is when you're going to need to put on your nuance hat and your both and hat and see that there's overlap but also differences. So stay with us. But Nick Fuentes, he was born in 1998, so he's 27 years old. This is according to his Wikipedia. He's an American white nationalist political commentator, activist and live streamer. He hosts America First, a livestream podcast promoting Christian nationalism, white supremacy, misogyny, anti LGBTQ rhetoric and anti Semitism and including Holocaust denial. He supports. His supporters are known as groipers. Now, we kind of talked about this when Charlie's assassination first happened and there was. Everything was so unclear, but there was some potential indications early on that the shooter might have been tied to the GRAPER movement. This is. Nick Fuentes is like bubble that he has kind of created. So his supporters are known as grapers. Fuentes was raised in Illinois. He attended a typical high school and he held pretty mainstream conservative views. He began political activism in 2016 after graduating and starting and started the America first live stream in 2017. In 2019, his followers began to heckle Charlie Kirk and his organization, Turning Point usa and referred to as. Referred to it as the graper war. In 2020, seeking to establish a white supremacist conference to rival the Conservative Political Action Conference, Fuentes began holding an annual American First Political Action Conference, Afghanistan. This is the conference that Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke at a few years ago. Okay. In November 2022, Fuentes and Kanye west had a private dinner with Donald Trump. The meeting was condemned by some American political commentators due to Fuentes and West's anti Semitism. In August of 2024, Fuentes launched their Griper War 2 against Trump's presidential campaign. Memes, trolling and protests were used to push for more extreme right wing positions. Okay. So essentially, Fuentes thinks that people like Charlie Kirk are too moderate, they're too neo con, maybe too, you know, too in the middle. So they're pushing to. Their goal is to push things farther to the right. And there's a lot of anti Semitism inside of this. Okay. He was also at the Unite the right rally in 2017, which is where people were chanting, jews will not replace us. He spoke at events preceding the January 6th. You know, a capital attack. So he's been around, kind of in the shadow for a long time, but growing. He's been growing a very loyal base, I would say is a fair way of putting it. Usually younger white men who have a lot of resentments towards women, towards Jewish people, pretty much anyone who's not like them, they do not like. And we have some clips that we'll play throughout the show to kind of prove that.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, and he is Young. He's 27. He. If you remember, right after Trump won the 2024 election, he had made a video taunting women and said, your body, my choice. He's a Holocaust denier. He. He really has said, like, truly horrendous things.

[Tim Whitaker]

Why don't we just play the one about the Holocaust and just. And just, this is. This is a. This is him. Okay. And then we'll get into some of the other stuff and why we're talking about this, because it is important. All righty, Here we go. Wait, that's not it. That's it. Okay, here we go.

[Tom]

Documentary. I came home, I told my parents, I'm like, mom, dad, the Holocaust didn't happen.

[Nick Fuentes]

And they were like, we did not.

[Tom]

Raise you this way. I remember coming home from college and my. My second semester. You know, I got home in the spring and I was like, mom, dad, Hitler was awesome. Hitler was right. Holocaust didn't happen. And my parents were like, we cannot believe what you are saying. We did not raise you like this. I'm like, I can't believe you're not being chill about this. I was, like, shocked because my parents aren't even that political. I mean, my parents are, like, vaguely conservative, you know, like. Like boomers are.

[Nick Fuentes]

And.

[Tom]

And I thought they'd be down to fuck about it. I was like, yeah, guys, guess what? You're never going to believe what I discovered. And they were so not cool about it.

[Nick Fuentes]

They were pissed.

[Tim Whitaker]

They.

[Tom]

They were like, we will not tolerate that in our house. I'm like, they got you too. They Got to you too. I remember being like. And I had to, I fought with them for a long time about. That's why I tell you, don't red pill your parents. Because I, I played that game.

[Tim Whitaker]

There you go.

[Tom]

I was like, mom, dad, you don't think it's a little bit weird that we can't criticize Jews? You talk about anything else, anybody else, any other event, but you talk about this one, it's. They were not buying it. They were not. They were not. They did not bite.

[Tim Whitaker]

So I want to be clear about something here. Notice how he conflates criticizing Jewish people with Holocaust denialism. They're not the same thing at all. Right? We have, I mean, I think what shocks me about people like Nick and by the way he's laughing. So what he'll say is, well, I was just joking. It's just a joke. But what's funny about that? Like, what is funny about the Holocaust? Like what? Where's the joke to be made? Talking about how your parents were upset that you said Hitler was awesome. Which, by the way, we have leaked text messages from other people in the GOP saying the same thing. But I digress. It's really important to recognize that the amount of evidence we have about the Holocaust and World War II and the crimes against humanity that the Nazis committed is overwhelming. We have video footage, we have their own writings. We have, I mean, there's a 52 hour long audiobook that is a detailed, with receipts, play by play, of how Hitler rose to power, what happened during the Nazi regime, et cetera. Not only, by the way, Jewish people, millions of people, period, died in World War II. And that's not to say, I don't think anyone would ever say that the US always acted purely in any war. That's never going to happen. We all understand that. Okay, but to make it seem like, well, I think maybe, you know, the Jews maybe are kind of responsible for some of this. Or hey, why can't we critique the Jews? Maybe the Holocaust didn't really happen. That's just, it's anti intellectualism. Like it really is. I don't know. I mean, to give you an example, I went to a very small Christian private school, tiny and conservative. And in my English homeroom, we watched a video of firsthand footage of, of Jewish people being lined up naked. And this was, this was in black and white. My teacher had to get permission from our parents. So we can see the video of them being stripped down naked and thrown into chambers and burned to death. And then the charred Bodies came out on the other side. This wasn't doctored footage. It wasn't AI. It was real. And it's just really interesting that we're now talking about this man who espouses these views because he's, he's getting more and more popular in the, in the, the maga. Right. It's really unbelievable.

[April Ajoy]

Well, and I think most people, and I was raised very conservative as well, and we were very anti Hitler, as you do. Like, it is so wild to me to see this shift from Nazis are clearly bad. That was like a universal agreeing thing we could all come together and unite on. Except for Nazis, obviously. And then now this guy. Well, you know, which when we've talked about him before, people like, oh, he's French. That's not really mainstream. But the reason why we're talking about him today is because Tucker Carlson a couple weeks ago interviewed Nick on his show and it's actually caused quite a bit of a riff within right wing spaces because there's, there's a lot of people that are condemning Tucker for platforming someone like Nick Fuentes. Because I would agree, like, one thing my, my dad used to say that I've stuck with me is like a skunk can get in a fight with a possum, right. And even if the possum wins, he still comes out smelling like a skunk. And so just basically there are certain people that is not worth platforming. It's not worth getting into the weeds with because, like, I don't think you should ever debate a Nazi because we should just treat those views as stupid, as, as problematic, as terrible. There's nothing to debate. There's nothing to debate humanity of Jewish people. There's nothing to debate when we're talking about the humanity of queer people, of women, of like, just when we're talking about basic human rights and whether or not people deserve basic human rights and not to be slaughtered for who they are. There's. That's not a debate. That's not someone he's like, well, let's just hear what he has to say.

[Tim Whitaker]

No, Right, right. And Tucker is very intentional with how he softballs certain people on his show and how he doesn't. Right. If Tucker was going to have on Nick and was going to challenge him on a lot of the bullshit that he espouses. Okay, yeah, like expose him for, for the fraud that he is. But that's not what's going on with Tucker. Tucker plays this game of like, I'm just asking questions, like, I'm just curious but he won't push back on anything. Right. Unless he wants to. Like, we have the clip of Ted Cruz that we'll play a little bit later on of him challenging Ted Cruz hard on his loyalty to Israel. Right. Which, by the way, rightfully so. But when Nick says things that are abhorrent, Tucker's like, oh, we'll just circle back to it. Side note, they don't circle back to it. Or he'll just play softball. Oh, I didn't know that. That's really informative. Yeah. I just want to get your view. So this. When we say platforming, it's not like you can't talk to people like this. You can do whatever you want, but if you're going to softball them, you're essentially giving them a platform to get new people to think about the views that they hold. And again, guys, World War II is not even 100 years behind us.

[April Ajoy]

Right.

[Tim Whitaker]

We're not even 100 years post one of the biggest mass atrocities in human history. And the rhetoric and the propaganda that started it is rearing its head in the United States. Wow. Wow.

[April Ajoy]

I know.

[Tim Whitaker]

Jesus, it's wild. So do you want to. I mean, where do you want to go? Do you want to play a few of these clips from the interview? Like, how do you want to. How do I navigate this, April?

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, let's just play a couple of the clips, just so you can see, and then we'll. We'll do the comparison to the Ted Cruz clip once we. Do you want to just do that now, since you brought it up, Ted Cruz?

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, we do that one first. Yeah, well, let's.

[April Ajoy]

Let's show. Let's show the clip with Nick and Tucker first on Stalin.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay.

[April Ajoy]

And then we'll sidebar that with.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[April Ajoy]

Ted Cruz.

[Karamo]

Yeah.

[Kevin Roberts]

Yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

Cool. Let me pull that up here. All right, so this is. This is Nick Fuentes on Tucker Carlson's show. By the way, Tucker Carlson's show is one of the biggest shows in America anywhere. So this platform is humongous. And here's Nick talking to Tucker.

[Nick Fuentes]

So it was like mid December, mid late December. It's actually funny. It was December 18th. I remember because that's an important date to me. And it's Joseph Stalin's birthday. Oh, I'm a fan.

[Interviewer]

You're a fan of Stalin's.

[Nick Fuentes]

Always an admirer. But we don't need to go into that, I guess.

[Kevin Roberts]

Let's.

[Interviewer]

Okay, let's get back. We'll circle back to that.

[Nick Fuentes]

It was weird because the reason I mentioned that it was almost like. Because I woke up that day and I was like, oh, it's December 18th. And I was just, like, very acutely aware of, like, today's, like, a strange day. This is the day that the attempt happened.

[Tim Whitaker]

So just so people understand, Joseph Stalin is one of the worst people again in modern human history, responsible for things like the Gulag system. I mean, he's killed millions of his own people. He, at one point tried to work with Hitler. Then they had a huge rift because Hitler backstabbed him. Like, this is not, like, what, Not a good dude. If I was talking to Nick, right, Because I'm always curious, I would ask him, like, tell me, what about Stalin makes you an admirer? Like, do you think that we should be killing our own citizens? Do you think that we should put certain types of people in concentration camps? Do you think that we should, like, you know, invoke mass starvation? I mean, by the way, Stalin was a communist, so do you want communism? Like, help me understand what makes you look at Stalin and go, that's a guy that I look up to. Is it the Great Purge where Stalin initiated this purge, aiming to rid the Communist Party of some of his biggest detractors and rivals? Hundreds of thousands of people were arrested by Stalin's secret police. Many were executed. Is that what you want, Nick? Like, do you want our United States government to go through and find people that disagree and throw them into the prison system and then kill them? Help me understand what it is about Joseph Stalin that you find admirable. And notice how Tucker goes. We'll come back to that. And they never did, by the way. So here's a massive moment where Tucker could really push him, and he just lets him skate by as, oh, yeah, no, it's all good.

[Melinda Hale]

Yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, that's funny. Lol. What is funny about that?

[April Ajoy]

Compare that to his interview with Ted Cruz. Yes, it's a. This is a weird episode for us because we are going to be talking about a lot of people that we vehemently disagree with on most, but we're going to find ourselves agreeing with some of them on certain things, but for different reasons.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

Then why they're saying.

[Tim Whitaker]

So you had that clip of Stalin and. And Tucker with Nick. Here is Tucker talking to Ted Cruz. Listen to this. Growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible, those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed. And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things.

[Interviewer]

Those who bless the government of Israel.

[Tim Whitaker]

Those who bless Israel is what it says, doesn't say the government of. It says the nation of Israel. So that's in the Bible. As a Christian, I believe that.

[Interviewer]

Where is that?

[Tim Whitaker]

I can find it to you. I don't have the Scripture off the tip of mine, but. So you're quoting a Bible phrase, you don't have context for it, and you.

[Interviewer]

Don'T know where in the Bible it is. But that's like your theology. I'm confused. We are commanded as Christians to support the government of Israel.

[Tim Whitaker]

We are commanded to support Israel.

[Interviewer]

Is the nation referring to in Genesis? Is that the same as the country run by Benjamin Netanyahu right now?

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes, it is. Okay. Wow. No, it's not.

[Melinda Hale]

Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

I mean, here's an example. Right? Here's an example. Like, I agree with Tucker Carlson on this. And you know, we've condemned Christian Zionism many times because that has led to a lot of innocent people dying because of this blind loyalty to support Israel no matter what. Because of what the Bible says, which is also taken out of context. And like, literally, they just turn a blind eye to everything Israel does because of what the Bible says. So there we agree with Tucker, but we agree with Tucker. Like, Tucker's reasons, reasonings for getting there are pretty. Are actually anti Semitic. Not. Not because he's pro Gaza or wanting to save innocent people.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah. And again, we're trying to highlight how Tucker can push his guests if he wants to. Right. Tucker can challenge people if he wants to. He just didn't want to challenge Nick on a comment that he looks up to Stalin and he admires Stalin. Think. I mean, I, I want. I need the audience to really understand how far we've come in less than a decade since Trump came into the political spotlight. Okay. I remember when the Proud Boys was like, the Proud Boys, they're an extremist group. Like, no one would work with them. And now it's no big deal. Now they're just kind of in the air that we breathe. Where, yeah, this dude from the Proud Boys, he was pardoned by Trump. Now he's doing these rallies. Nick Fuentes is another one where it's like, wow, this guy is denying the Holocaust. That's crazy. Because that's like fringe, fringe, fringe stuff. And now we're having a whole damn episode about it because Tucker Carlson platform, this dude and softballed him all the way and didn't tell him who knew.

[April Ajoy]

Who he was, of course was. Because there's. There's plenty of articles out there. We're exposing the insane crazy. Like out there. Horrible things that Nick Fuentes has said also. Like, he also did the same thing when he interviewed Vladimir Putin.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes.

[April Ajoy]

When he interviewed Andrew Tate. Just little softballs. Like he. He does softball to actually terrible people. Which, I mean, Ted Cruz isn't. I don't think is a great person.

[Tim Whitaker]

I would say Ted Cruz is great, but, you know, he's. I wouldn't say. I also would not say that he's Andrew Tate. Right. I mean, as far as we know, there's nothing on video of him assaulting a woman in a bedroom, unlike Andrew Tate. Right. Like, there's no sex trafficking charges that Ted Cruz has faced, unlike Andrew Tate.

[April Ajoy]

So he's just, you know, it's fled Texas in the middle of ice crisis. Different kind of ice, like actual frozen ice.

[Tim Whitaker]

Do you want to. I mean, they actually talk about Andrew Tate a little bit. And this kind of shows, I think, some of Nick's more misogynistic views. Should we get into that?

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

Again, friends, just trigger warning. This is. This is wild stuff. About two minute, two and a half minute clip.

[Nick Fuentes]

Andrew Tate's a Muslim polygamist who is very chauvinistic. And, and you could even argue as someone who has ran an only fan site himself, like, is not an observer, let's say, of Christian sexual morality. No, but men are going with him because he's putting women in their place. He's talking about patriarchy and women's place in a society like that. Whereas Christian men, Catholics, Protestants alike, are both kind of tone policing the men. And they, they worship their wives. They worship the women, put them on a pedest. They, you know, they, they kind of get bossed around, they get henpecked by the women.

[Interviewer]

I think we're required to love our wives. Like that's. I mean, all over the New Testament, husbands love your wives, wives respect your husbands. That seems like a very natural balance to me.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[Nick Fuentes]

And. And I think that you have to love your wife as your wife.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Nick Fuentes]

A lot of men.

[Interviewer]

As opposed to what, your mom?

[Nick Fuentes]

Well, no, like, like your buddy? No, because I hear this all the time and I, I hate this. Guys will say, I, I married my best friend and I think, you know, she's your wife, she's not your best friend. Because there's a difference.

[Interviewer]

What is the difference?

[Nick Fuentes]

I think that when you talk about your best friend, you're a peer, you're an equal, and I think your best friendships are with other men.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay, I gotta pause here. There's something I haven't told the audience. Yet this bro is a 27 year old single virgin lecturing people about what a marriage looks like.

[April Ajoy]

Oh my God. I also, I wish I would have thought about it beforehand, but there's a clip of him that went viral a few years ago and I actually responded to it. But he was saying that it made him gay. Is it. He was basically saying, is it gay to date women? He's like, dating women is gay. He's lit. He has said that this dude can.

[Tim Whitaker]

All the way off. Like, I'm not sure what else to say. Like, just off, dude. You don't know what you're talking about. By the way. I want to be clear. Relationships, marriages can look different. Different dynamics. Your marriage looks different than mine. I'm. That is not the point. Right. There are definitely dynamics where some people are like, look, I don't want to be in charge of stuff. You be in charge of it. But the difference is that it's consensual and, and that it's not mandatory and that it's worked out between two people who both want the same thing. Nick's idea is that women are not equal to men, especially in a marriage. They are underneath the man and the man is the top dog. That doesn't really work usually for most people. Again, unless they both parties want it. That can be a thing. But this idea that Nick, like, is giving marriage advice from someone who's never even, like, I think even dated a woman is. It's just kind of funny to me.

[April Ajoy]

Dating women is gay.

[Tim Whitaker]

It's gay.

[April Ajoy]

Dude, I know you look that up. There's definitely a clip out there of him saying that. It's always just. It's so funny to me that the men, the little men who have the most to say about women and marriage and what the right way is to do are single. Like. Like it's like they're talking about the male loneliness epidemic and blaming it on women.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

Like, no, it's because y' all are just assholes. No one wants to be around you. Like, what woman wants to. Just a volunteer? Like, even the whole thing. Like, oh, no, you can't. Your wife can't be your best friend. That is just saying, like, she views his wife as an object, as basically just a sex object. And you and I have been married a while, not together with different people.

[Tim Whitaker]

But like, to be clear.

[April Ajoy]

Like, marriage is so much more than sexual.

[Tim Whitaker]

Oh my God, sex is such a small beat.

[April Ajoy]

Like, it's important, but it's such a small piece of your life. Like, it is important. I think to marry your best friend, like, Beecher was my friend before we ever started dating. Because that is what I. To me, it makes our marriage work, is that we are best friends and that we talk about everything and that we're equal and we're co partners and sex is a great part of that. That is. That is a lovely cherry on top, but it takes so much more than just sex.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, I've been married. We're gonna hit 10 years in July. And yeah, I mean, it takes work, communication, it takes a sense of. I mean, Sarah is my best friend. Like, it's not even a question. She knows. She knows me better than anyone. We spend the most time together. We built a beautiful life that we absolutely love. We have a great marriage. Most of our time is not spent in the bedroom. Right. But our sex life is great, like, because we're best friends, because we communicate. We've communicated all through our marriage about everything. And it was always a combination of, what do we do together? How. How should this work? Now, of course, are there times where there was friction? Of course, but we talk through it, right? And look, we. We can reverse this. If I was single and I dated a woman and she was like, I think that you're not equal to me and I have the Lord over you, I'd be like, yeah, I'm out. I'm not really interested. So I'm just saying, like, like, like it. It's pretty obvious when you. When you flip the script, men that. Would you want someone telling you that, like, I'm sorry, you're not equal to me. I'm actually above you. You have to follow my lead and just kind of submit to me. I mean, again, like, no, thanks, I'm good. So you wonder why we have this men like Nick, who are who they are, and when you say things like this, or you say things like, the Holocaust didn't really happen, or you say things like, my body or your body, my choice. You wonder why women don't like you. Like, dude, it's not that. For someone who claims to be a big brain thinker, it's not that freaking complicated. Like, you're just kind of. You're just kind of a dick. Like, it's not complicated. Maybe these dynamics don't really work. You know, maybe telling women that you're subordinate to me, you're underneath my thumb. I'm in charge of you. And can I tell you something that I haven't told anyone before? This is a. This is a secret. I know.

[April Ajoy]

Okay, well, this is about To a lot of.

[Tim Whitaker]

Here's all I'm going to say.

[April Ajoy]

Okay.

[Tim Whitaker]

I know people in my life who I've met in church world and stuff who would not be this extreme as Nick, but would have this view of like, well, look, I submit to my husband. My husband's in charge, but I watch their marriages. They live out a very egalitarian marriage. Meaning they might say that. But you watch it and you're like, actually you guys are pretty much co parenting, you're co leading, like you're really working together and it's not as, as subordinate as you make it sound like it.

[April Ajoy]

That is so true. Have you never heard that phrase, like so many, like complimentarian pastors I've heard make this joke, like, yes, the husband is the head, but the wife is the neck that turns the head. Like, I've heard that joke so many times. Everyone even admits, like, it's not actually. I mean, there are some extreme cases, right. That are super. That end up, you know, venturing into abuse.

[Tim Whitaker]

Oh, when you have that, when you're.

[April Ajoy]

Promoting that and people take it as face value, which at face value that does definitely lead to abuse.

[Tim Whitaker]

Definitely.

[April Ajoy]

The point is most of the people that are preaching that, as you say, aren't actually following what they're saying.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right. Because most people don't want to be under the thumb of someone else. Doesn't matter who they are, what their gender. Right.

[April Ajoy]

And I think most men don't want a doormat.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right? They want, they want to be. Look, if we believe as Christians that all humans are made in the image of God and are worthy of dignity and respect, that includes your partner. Right? So why would I not want to treat my partner with dignity and respect? Why would I not want to do that? This idea that Nick is promoting, it's just, it's, it's like rhetoric. It doesn't actually work in real life because when that happens, usually abuse happens. And we have tons of those stories that we've talked to, interviewed TL Evings, maybe the most, you know, famous example of this. You wrote a book, a well trained life like this. This world of the patriarchy and women are subordinate. If you live it out, it tends not to work, especially for women. So, yeah, anyway, little, little tangent there. I mean, we can stop this clip here. He keeps going, but what else is there to listen to?

[April Ajoy]

Stupid misogyny.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, we want to give people a taste of like what this guy's advocating for on camera. And again, this is like his polished version. This, he, this is his biggest audience there's some other clips floating around that we intentionally did not play of him saying, well, you can google it yourself and find out if you're that curious. But.

[Kevin Roberts]

My name is Tom, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I donate to the New Evangelicals the Pentecostal Christian fundamentalism of my childhood insisted that I could not be both gay and Christian. For over a year and a half, I participated in an ex Gay Live in program that tried to rid me of my gayness. I left the group as a gay man and rejected my Christianity. But in time I could no more stop being Christian than I could stop being gay. The Jesus heart drew me back to Christian story and symbol. Embarrassingly, not until my mid-40s did the blatant obviousness of it all speak to my heart as if from a burning bush. I get to decide if I'm a follower of Jesus. No one else gets to decide that. For me. That realization was my true born again experience. The New Evangelicals welcomes all seekers and they welcome questions. The fundamentalist idolatry of right belief and its arrogant adherence to a creed frozen in time eclipse the true Christian message. I support the New Evangelicals because they.

[Karamo]

Understand that hey friends, it's Karamo. Talk show host, life coach and your next best friend. You just don't know it yet. I'm hosting a new podcast called started on WhatsApp brotherhoods. We're going around the world to explore male friendships and all the wins, challenges and bonds that are made in WhatsApp group chats. And that's exactly where you can listen to it, right in the app. It's streaming on the official WhatsApp channel. Just open the app and go to the Updates tab to start listening. While you're at it, message your best friend and make sure they listen too. I'll see you there.

[Melinda Hale]

Hey everyone, Melinda Hale here, Executive Director of the New Evangelicals. Thanks for listening to our podcast. I just wanted to take a minute to personally invite you to be a part of our community. At tne, we're creating space for people of faith who care about justice, compassion and living out the teachings of Jesus in real, tangible ways. As a nonprofit organization, not only do we offer thought provoking podcasts, but on our new app and online platform TNE Connect, we offer free educational resources, additional content and a space to connect with like minded people for meaningful conversations and encouragement. So if what we're doing has been helpful to you, if you've learned something, felt, seen or been challenged to grow, head over to theneweevangelicals.com to join TNE Connect or make a donation. Your support means the world to us. Thanks for being a part of the movement.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay, let's, let's move over a little bit here to kind of the controversy that has, I think happened in the right wing media world and really the right wing space. Before we do that, friends, if you're watching this video, thank you so much. Please make sure to give this video a like subscribe to our channel. The Tiffin April show is produced by the New Evangelicals. It's an organization that I founded in 2020 now led by the wonderful Melinda Hale. We have tons of free resources and offerings. If you're looking for a better path forward in your faith, I recommend joining TNE Connect. It's our free community space. Totally off of all social media and meta platforms. It's a private community. It's totally free to join. We do free trainings. We have a book club going right now. We do all kinds of fun stuff. Plus there's a whole social media feed inside the app where you can talk to other people and meet like, like minded folks. So make sure to check it out. Okay. How do you want to tee this up? I'm trying to think of the best way. Why don't we do this really quick? The Mark Levine clip I think is worth playing. That could be a good segue into this.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, I was going to say too. Yeah. They also talk about Christian Zionism too. I don't know if that's true.

[Tim Whitaker]

Oh, yes. Let's play ourselves. Let's play these two clips, then we'll make sense. We're producing on the fly here. So this is Nick talking about kind of what radicalized him into the great White Replacement theory or Great Replacement Theory.

[Nick Fuentes]

I don't know if I've ever even said this on an interview before. I was listening to Mark Levin's show. This goes to show how Normie I was. Actually, I listen him every day.

[Interviewer]

You listen to Mark Levin every day in high school?

[Nick Fuentes]

Yes.

[Ben Shapiro]

Wow.

[Nick Fuentes]

I was a fan. I love the show and I actually liked how he was kind of obnoxious and mean to his callers. Vicious. And I like that. I thought that was funny. But I'll never forget one show, he goes live and he says, America's becoming a majority non white country. Does anybody think that's a good idea? And I was thinking to myself, yeah, that actually doesn't sound so good. I, I didn't really even think that America's becoming majority minority like that.

[Interviewer]

And so you were radicalized on race by Mark Levin.

[Kevin Roberts]

Yes.

[Interviewer]

Are you making that up or that's.

[Nick Fuentes]

That's a real story.

[Interviewer]

So I want to have Fuentes on. Everyone's gonna be like, you, but you're a Nazi, just like Fuentes. Okay. But then I'm like, I don't think Fuentes is going away. Ben Shapiro tried to like, strangle him in the crib in college and now he's bigger than ever. So it probably would just be worth hearing what Nick Fuentes thinks. I just want to be transparent about my. My motives here.

[Nick Fuentes]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So those are my motives.

[April Ajoy]

Where was the motive in that? Just want to hear what he has to say. Like, he literally admits right there that people warned him, people are going to call you a Nazi if you have a Nazi on. Like Nick Fuentes. He is fully aware of who he is interviewing. He full. He's fully aware of what Nazi opinions are. And he's like, I just want to hear what he has to say because he's bigger than ever there. This is all just a power play for views, in my opinion.

[Tim Whitaker]

I also want to know what the issue is with a non white majority country. Yeah, like, can we. I mean, I would love to unpack that with him. He would probably go into race essentialism. That's the belief that races are inherently and biologically different. And yes, some are better than others, which again, is pseudoscience, has been debunked a thousand different ways. But then they'll start pointing to crime rates and statistics. And honestly, we can go through all of that because it's just such hogwash for so many freaking reasons. But I mean, again, like, he sets a prior part out loud and I. How many times, April, have I told you, maybe offline, that talk radio was version 1.0 and people who listened to that and took it seriously are just. Are walking down the road that it leads to. Nick just said it. Mark Levin, the talk radio host on AM radio, radicalized me towards race essentialism or towards thinking that we have a major issue in America because we're on track to be a non white majority country. Why is that a problem? Why? Well, it's only a problem if you think that some people are better than others. As. As race, as race goes, it's only a problem if you think that black people are inherently more lazy and more violent than white people. That's the only reason that becomes a problem.

[April Ajoy]

I think they're also almost admitting something that maybe they wouldn't want to admit, but by saying by. By basically not Wanting white people to become the minority. They're almost admitting that. Oh, are minorities treated differently?

[Tim Whitaker]

Right, right.

[April Ajoy]

Like, are you admitting that maybe it's not fun to be the minority in this country because of systemic racism?

[Tim Whitaker]

Right. Yes. You know, are you admitting that maybe black people actually are over incarcerated and that they're policed differently than you and you don't want to be policed like that? You know, it's interesting when they talk about power and you know, subordination and you know, the patriarchy, it always benefits them. There are always going to be people that are going to say things that benefit them at the expense of others. They're never going to be under the Buddha patriarchy, They're never going to be a minority in the country because they know what it's like to be treated that way.

[April Ajoy]

Right.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

I used to listen to Mark Levin, I listened to Rush Limbaugh, I listened to all the right wing talk radio. I mean, I was very, very, very, very, very conservative.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

But I think this, like Nick Fuentes being radicalized by Mark Levin, I think is a person perfect example of how when you play out a lot of these even more mainstream conservative ideas, it leads to fascism. It leads to Nick Fuentes. If you play that out even. I mean, I've heard that that term too. Well, you know, we got to do something or white people are going to be the minority. I heard that growing up a lot and I was like, oh yeah, we don't want to be the minority. I didn't think, I didn't think anything about like why that was problematic. Like it didn't, like it just never clicked for me.

[Tim Whitaker]

Where does it come from?

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, right. Like I was young and, you know, ignorant, but, but I think that just shows when we call out the, the harm of a lot of this Christian nationalist ideology, a lot of this right wing ideology. Yeah. When you have someone that's maybe more moderate on it, that isn't taking it to the extreme, just like we were talking about with complementarianism, it's not so bad because they're not actually following through what they believe on, like the things that they're saying. But Nick Fuentes is taking those beliefs to its end goal. Like that's where this leads to.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah. I mean, Charlie Kirk, I know that they had a lot of beef, but Charlie Kirk also espoused the Great Replacement. I mean, I have clips of him at America Fest saying the Great Replacement is real and that they are shipping in a bunch of third worlders to change the voting populace. That comes out of the playbook of the KKK. David. David Duke, the grand wizard in the 80s when he was running for government office, said that. That's the thing is, like, people don't realize that these ideas come from somewhere. And when you trace back the great replacement, it comes back. It comes down to white supremacist groups trying to say that the Jews and even the Catholics at times, right. And other, you know, black people, et cetera, are all a threat to America because America is a predominantly white, European, Christian nation. Right. That's the myth that a lot of us, you know, are told or believe, et cetera. It comes from somewhere. So it's not like Nick is just saying things out of the blue that, like, isn't tied to anything. No, it's tied to a tradition. A tradition that wants to promote and elevate whiteness at the expense of their neighbors. They love the status quo because who benefits? Who benefits right now from the status quo? Nick does, Tucker Carlson does, Donald Trump does. That's who benefits. So you want to maintain the status quo as much as possible because they're on top. They will never be supportive of these systems if they're underneath of it. Don't forget, I mean, one example, just to show people how little they will tolerate if they're even seen as people who have been slighted. The January 6th insurrection. Trump lied about the election results being rigged. He lied. It wasn't even a true thing. It wasn't even like the election was stolen and they revolted. They believed a lie. And thousands of them with Trump flags, including Nick, who spoke at some of these events before that, they showed up and they stormed the Capitol building trying to overturn the certification of our elections.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

First time in our history we did not have a peaceful transfer of power. That's how snowflake these people are. They can't even stomach the thought that they've been slighted based on a lie. But they want minorities and black people and Jews and whoever else just to take it as it is, because this is the created order where we just happen to be on top and you happen to be on the bottom. Stop complaining about your place in life. You're. You're whining too much. Just work harder. Yada, yada, yada. It's unreal to watch.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah. And Mark. Mark Levin actually, like, condemned Nick Fuentes, too, and in a tweet. But, yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

Well, I have it interesting, though.

[April Ajoy]

There are a lot of people that are condemning Tucker having Nick Fuentes on, but a lot of them are using Nick's beef with Charlie Kirk as a reason. Like Mark Levin, he says Quinta spent years trashing Charlie and then his wife Erica doesn't stop Kitarlson from platforming him and kissing his butt. So like, like where, like I would take more issue with the anti Semitism and the white supremacy. But sure, because he, because he talked bad about Charlie Kirk is the main reason.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's the thing is like people are upset not because of his comments. Like you said, it's because of Charlie Kirk. Like, wow, it's so telling. It's so telling what gets these folks upset. Maybe this is a good time. I have a surprise video for you. Oh, it's a surprise because I, I really want to hammer home just how, like how far we have come in this country. This is a clip that the Daily show put together and it's, it's, it's back during Obama's presidency. I'm not sure if you're aware there was a huge scandal during Obama's presidency that Fox News and right wing people picked up and really hammered home. They were up in arms over it. I'm gonna play you the video and then I will get your initial thoughts. Are you ready?

[Melinda Hale]

Okay.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

This is real, by the way. This is not AI. This really happened. Keep that in mind.

[April Ajoy]

Okay.

[Tim Whitaker]

I've met Brett Bear and the latest presidential video project.

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

Well, it's getting a lot of attention, but perhaps not in the way the White House intended.

[Tim Whitaker]

The president joking around with a selfie stick. Selfie stick. Selfie stick. Selfie stick. President Obama appeared with a selfie stick.

[April Ajoy]

Critics called it undignified.

[Tim Whitaker]

A lot of conservatives especially said, this is not presidential. This is beneath the presidency. Why is he doing this? He's demeaning the office. Quote, a foolproof way to make yourself look like a self absorbed ass clown. You know, it's sad that Ronald Reagan.

[Melinda Hale]

Wouldn'T even take his jacket off in.

[Tim Whitaker]

The Oval Office, but now we have a commander in chief that's doing jump.

[April Ajoy]

Shots and actually, what is a stick selfie? I mean, it's ridiculous.

[Interviewer]

Tonight's question of the day. What do you think of that selfie?

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, that's your president. It's got a selfie stick. One conservative tweeted, quote, remember when the office of the president had dignity? And another wrote, quote, this definitely is a new low for our juvenile president. Here's the leader of the free world, the guy we trust with the button for the nukes, acting like a 12 year old.

[Tim Whitaker]

It is ridiculous. It is beneath the president. Of the United States. But I think he thinks he can do no wrong. It is not only not befitting, but imagine what Reagan would have done in this situation. You saw that he employed a selfie stick in the White House that's befitting the office. I just don't have words for that.

[Ben Shapiro]

Clip.

[Tim Whitaker]

Are we seeing a changing of the guard? Is the president, Is the office not going to be as dignified as it used to be?

[April Ajoy]

Oh, my.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's a real thing. That's a picture of Reagan.

[April Ajoy]

I. Yeah, I was just thinking that's real. Remember Trump's Gatsby party where he had, like, half naked women in a martini glass and dancing around the men at the tables? And like, can you just imagine the field day that Fox News would have if Obama threw a party like that? If, honestly, if Barack Obama did 1% of the, the wild, like, undignified stuff that Trump does every single day, if he just did 1% of it, like, they would have impeached him.

[Tim Whitaker]

I don't know how to make it any clearer to people who think that we're wrong about this stuff, how wild it is that Trump gets away with reposting AI videos of him taking dumps on protesters. Somehow that's not undignified. But according to.

[April Ajoy]

But Trump is tearing down the east wing of the White House to put in a ballroom. And all the gold he's put everywhere is so tacky.

[Tim Whitaker]

It's the frog in boiling water, Right? We've been raising the temperature. We're used to this now. And you look back at what they got mad about with Obama using a selfie stick, it is truly comical. These people are not. They are not serious people. They are not interested in truth.

[April Ajoy]

They said similar things. They lost their minds when Obama wore a tan suit, too. Yes.

[Tim Whitaker]

Or when he ordered gray Poupon on a burger or when he wore a bicycle helmet. I mean, these are all real things. Like the machine was intentionally manufacturing nonsense, outrage. And now that we have Trump in the office doing some of the most undignified shit you've ever seen, ever, suddenly we're radical leftists and these people are just good patriots trying to save America. What are we doing? So I say that because compare the selfie stick to. Now we have Nick Fuentes, right, being interviewed by Tucker Carlson on one of the biggest shows currently in America via social media and podcasts. And Mark Levin's critique isn't that, look how far we've come. It's, well, this guy trashed Charlie, so I don't like Him. Now we're having a war inside of the maga movement over this thing. And people are taking sides with Tucker. Not just platforming, but giving softball questions to Nick, letting him say some of the most batshit wild stuff. Like, I look up to Stalin.

[Ben Shapiro]

You look up.

[Tim Whitaker]

You admire Joseph Stalin. You gotta be kidding me, right? Like we have the history books, right? Like history still matters here. Apparently not for a lot of people in the maga movement.

[April Ajoy]

You wanna know something that's so weird? And so I went to Fox News Facebook page because I wanted to see what people were saying about Trump's Gatsby party. So, because I wanted to just read the comments to see how they were defending that, because I remember what they said about Bill Clinton, which was which Bill Clinton? Not great. Not, not a fan of Bill Clinton. You know, like he deserved that criticism. But for sure they were like, character matters. And you need a good family man who, who stays away from the appearance of evil, which in their minds, the appearance of evil is just being around a scantily clad woman. Right? Which there were plenty of those at Trump's party. Anyway, so I did a quick little search. I scrolled on their Facebook page and I didn't see a single post or mention about this party. And just now I went to Fox News and searched Gatsby, Mar a Lago. And so far on the first couple pages, I don't see anything. And then I searched Gatsby, Trump. Nothing's popping up either. So did they just not cover it? Like maybe, maybe it's buried somewhere and I can't find it. But I'm literally searching on Fox News and it's. They're just ignoring that that even happens.

[Tim Whitaker]

The same thing goes for the Christian nationalist right. All the people who are like, women shouldn't wear yoga pants in public, women shouldn't, shouldn't show their shoulders, are not going to say a damn thing about that party. You look it up. I challenge people a week after we record this because we always record a week ahead of time. Look up Megan Basham, look through her Twitter, see if she talked about the scantily clad woman at the Great Gatsby party from Trump. Look up at least it shoulders. Look up Tim Barnett. Look up any of those right wing apologist types are always saying how, how terrible it is about, you know, sexual purity and how culture is decaying and how it's so wild that women can wear whatever they want, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Look up those people and see if any of us, Ducky, Ali, Stuckey, look up Matt Walsh. Look up Joshua Haynes, our favorite, you know, slavery apologists over there. See if William Wolf. I can. Al Mower. I can go down the fricking list. See if any of them are going to say a damn thing. No, they would not. Why? You always have to ask why? Because it's not about the values they espouse. They don't care about those things. They care about the power and control those values give them when employed by those people. Right. So if Trump does something, he's always going to get a pass because he's giving them the power and control that they want. The value isn't women should wear clothing. The value is we want to control and be in charge of how and when women can wear certain things. So if a woman at the Great Gatsby Party can dress like that, it's fine because we like Trump. Or maybe it's not our favorite, but we can tolerate it.

[April Ajoy]

We can just turn a blind eye.

[Tim Whitaker]

But if you wear yoga pants and take a picture of it. Oh, my God. How dare you, you Jezebel.

[April Ajoy]

You're in your underwear. I sold that before.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's how it works.

[Kevin Roberts]

Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

And I just want to be clear. I think women should dress however they want and do whatever they want to do. And, like, this is no shade at all to the women. This is just pointing out the clear hypocrisy from the same people that told me I had to cover up my shoulders as a teenager so a man wouldn't lust after me. Like, I literally would get in trouble for wearing a spaghetti strap.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yep.

[April Ajoy]

You know, and now they're.

[Tim Whitaker]

There's, like, I wore a lot of those growing up. Yeah. Okay, let's get into kind of the main hucks here, because we're already over time, as always.

[April Ajoy]

Did we want to talk about the Christian Zionist. Is that the.

[Tom]

This one?

[Tim Whitaker]

Yep. So. So this. This is where things really split. And this is really. I know we're almost an hour in, but maybe this is, like, the main point of us even doing this show to begin with. Let's watch this clip of Nick and Tucker talking about Christian Zionism. And then we're going to get into Ben Shapiro's response to this and kind of help you understand what's going on. Yeah. Okay, here we go.

[Nick Fuentes]

And I think that neoconservatism, where does it arise from? It arises from Jewish leftists who are mugged by reality when they saw the surprise attack in the Yom Kippur War.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, well, that's a lot of it for sure. But then like, how do you explain Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and they're a lot like that John Bolton. I mean, I've known them all. George W. Bush, like the Karl Rove. I mean, all people I know personally who I've seen like be seized by this brain virus. And they're not Jewish. They're. Most of them are self described Christians. And, and then the, the Christian Zionists who are, well, Christian Zionists. Like, what is that? Right? I can just say for myself, I dislike them more than anybody, you know, because.

[Tim Whitaker]

Like what?

[Interviewer]

Because it's Christian heresy. And I'm offended that as a Christian, that's why. So I don't like, why not? Like, I'm pissed at the neocons. Very pissed. I've said that a million times. I've been mad Since December of 2003 when I went to Iraq.

[Tim Whitaker]

No, you're not.

[Interviewer]

I went and hassled, or hassled, asked straightforward questions to Ted Cruz because that seemed like there's a sitting senator who's like serving for Israel by his own description. He seemed like a worthy target. I'm not going after mtg. Who's like the most sincere per. Like, why not go after Ted Cruz? I don't understand.

[Nick Fuentes]

Well, again with Marjorie. I was a friend of hers.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay. God, there's so much to get to. By the way, look up Tucker Carlson on the Iraq war. He was a huge fan of it. So again, he's either just a grifter or an opportunist. I, I don't know. But his, this notion that he's always been against the war since 2003, it's just hogwash. I want to explain to the audience really quickly what's going on here because you need to know some background. Number one, I recommend the book A History of Christian Zionism by Donald Lewis. He actually passed away tragically recently, but he will. In his book, he explains quite clearly how the Zionist project was really born out of white Protestant Europeanism. It wasn't born out of Jewish thought at all. In fact, most Jews were really against the thought of them having a homeland again. And this goes way before the 1940s and even the early 20th century. We're talking back in the 19th century. This idea starts brewing. So even the idea of Zionism doesn't come from like, what, how Nick kind of cites the, the Yom Kippur War. It's not coming from there. It goes way before that. And again, it starts from largely Christian evangelicals and white Protestants. Now Nick is Not Protestant. Nick is Catholic, so I understand why he would see Christian Zionism as heresy, because frankly, I agree with him. But also, it doesn't come from his waters at all. It comes from our waters. Right. April comes from us being taught that, you know, those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed. There's a huge legacy of Christian Zionism in America and it is absolutely tied to the End times theology that many of them hold. Right. They believe that if we don't protect Israel, we can't usher in the end of the world. You can even argue in many different strains that this kind of belief is actually inherently anti Semitic, because a lot of them believe that when God comes back after we establish the nation state of Israel, most Jews will either die or they'll convert. So no matter what, Judaism is getting erased in their end time scenario. So I wanna unpack that briefly and let you know what's going on, because I understand why Nick would look at this and say, this is heresy. This is ridiculous. Also look at what it's causing. Right. Zionism as it currently stands, is causing the genocide of the Palestinian people. Nick and I would agree on that, probably. But the motivation and the ideology behind that is vastly different. Nick would go much more to, like, the Jewish problem or why do Jews seem to run everything? He would kind of go down that rabbit hole because, again, he's an admirer of Stalin. I would say that's not at all what I'm talking about. I'm referring to the nation state of Israel and the IDF and its actions against the Palestinians.

[April Ajoy]

Netanyahu. Right.

[Tim Whitaker]

Netanyahu in its colonization project to take over the Gaza Strip and eradicate the Palestinian people. I don't think that all Jews are responsible for that. I think that the nation state of Israel and Netanyahu, in partnership with our government, based on our end times theology, is responsible.

[April Ajoy]

And to be clear too, we believe Israel has a right to exist, just like Palestine has a right to exist.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

You know, then there's this very long history of that which you can also look up.

[Tim Whitaker]

Nick is also right when he says, why can't we ever critique Jewish people or Israel in particular? I think that's a fair question because I was taught, like, I'm not sure about you, April. I was taught we can never question Israel. We can never question what Israel does. We always have to support Israel no matter what. And that's nonsense. Like, again, I would find overlap there. But the Venn diagram, overlap comes from two completely different worldviews. Of how we get there. Ultimately Nick doesn't, I don't think anyway, based on what he said in the past, I don't think Nick really cares about the people of Gaza. I don't think he cares. I mean, look, look, they're brown skinned Middle Eastern people. They are definitely beneath him in his worldview. Right. They are not nearly as sophisticated and equal and dignified as someone like Nick would be. So our worldview is totally different for how we get there. And that's important because in the right wing spaces, a lot of people have been questioning Israel. Because look, when you see videos coming out of children being maimed to death, when you see the blatant devastation of the Israeli government in the Gaza Strip, when you see the starvation, you have to start asking yourself what's going on here? Because the rhetoric I'm hearing from, you know, both the Democrats and Republicans and Netanyahu isn't really jiving with the reality I'm seeing on the ground in Gaza. Right. 50, 60,000 plus people dead, tens of thousands of children gone. 92% of Gaza has been leveled and we're now seeing Israeli settlers moving in. Right. We, it's clear that there's been a larger plan behind the scenes to take over the Strip. Yeah, we all collectively as a country should ask the question, what is going on here? But we also don't want to fall into the trap that people like Nick and Candace Owens and Tucker want you to fall into of. Well, if the Jews are behind this, what else are the Jews behind? That's when it gets dangerous.

[April Ajoy]

Right, right. Because they are against what Israel is doing for pretty anti Semitic reasons, not because they are wanting to save innocent children that are being bombed.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's right, that's right. I mean, they were chanting in Charlottesville, the Jews will not replace us. Okay, well, first off, the Jews are a minority. They're like 2% of the world's population. So it's like statistically impossible to even happen. But also, what are you really saying? You're saying that there's something about Jewish people that you just don't like or that you're suspicious of. And again, we're less than 100 years away from the Holocaust. And when you see some of the same rhetoric popping back up, why do they control the banks? Why do they control this? Which by the way, a lot of it, when you look into it, is really twisted. It's really twisted stuff. It's not even factually true in a lot of different ways. You go, well, there's Gotta be something deeper going on behind the scenes here, you know? And again, we can hold. We can walk and chew gum at the same time, right? April, we can say, what Israel is doing is horrific. It must be stopped. I mean, it's not even a question. Our government is complicit in funding with our tax dollars, the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians. And also, Jewish people don't control the world and are worthy of love, dignity, and respect and safety in the country that they live in, wherever it might be.

[Melinda Hale]

Hey, everyone, this is Melinda Hale, the executive director of the New Evangelicals. Listen. Every day we hear from people who feel isolated, disillusioned, and hurt by a version of Christianity that has been hijacked by politics and nationalism, and yet they still long for a faith that is rooted in love, justice, and compassion. And that's why the New Evangelicals exist, because we believe there is a better path forward. We're creating resources, hosting conversations, and we're building communities for people who want to reclaim Christianity and stay rooted in the teachings of Jesus. But building a movement like this takes time. It takes energy, and it takes financial support. So if this podcast or our YouTube, our educational offerings or community space or anything that we've created has impacted you, would you consider becoming a donor? Even a gift of $5 makes a huge difference for small organizations like this. Your support helps us to continue empowering people to put their faith into action by rejecting Christian nationalism and to live in a way that shows people how to truly love our neighbors. And together, I know that we could build something beautiful. So visit thenuevangelicals.com support to give today. You can find the link right in our show notes. Thank you for standing with us.

[April Ajoy]

So this interview aired. It was a long interview. We played just a handful of clips, and it did, rightfully so, get quite a bit of condemnation from people on the right. Ben Shapiro dedicated an entire episode of his show to just taking down Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. And Ben Shapiro is Jewish, you know, and he's a huge Zionist.

[Tim Whitaker]

Huge Zionist.

[April Ajoy]

He's a Zionist. And I will say we. I disagree with Ben on most things that he says. I will say, though Ben Shapiro every once in a while does say something that feels very logical and nuanced that I agree with. But I got. I got a little bit of beef with Ben because he's featured me twice on his show.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's true. He has. Why not me, Ben? I'm right here.

[April Ajoy]

But whatever. In this case. In this case, I agree with what Ben is saying.

[Tim Whitaker]

So so this has been referencing Tucker Carlson's interview. Honestly, I think. I think it's spot on. So let's listen then.

[Ben Shapiro]

Tucker Carlson acts as an ideological launderer for other people's evils. Tucker Carlson says many inflammatory things, always buying back just enough of it to appear as though he's not saying what he's clearly saying. Yeah, he's a master of gaslighting. Tucker Carlson, for example, would never say out loud what Nick Fuentes does. He wouldn't say the things many of his guests say. And so instead, he acts as an ideological launderer. He takes other people's hideous ideas, he softens them, he treats them with love and care, and then he provides them with a massive signal boost. He isn't merely talking to people in good faith, of course. He's promoting certain people and ideas and attacking others. So, for example, he'll ask a series of wildly obsequious questions to Nick Fuentes. He'll even let Nick Fuentes support for Joseph Stalin slide.

[Nick Fuentes]

It's actually funny. It was December 18th, I remember, because that's an important date to me. And as Joseph Stalin's birthday. Oh, I'm a fan.

[Interviewer]

You're a fan of Stalin's.

[Nick Fuentes]

Always an admirer.

[Ben Shapiro]

But he will grill Ted Cruz about the population of Iran. Tucker Carlson will have on a Hitler friendly pseudo historian to minimize the Holocaust and blame Winston Churchill for World War II. And he will call him America's best and most honest historian.

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

I thought Churchill was the chief villain.

[Tim Whitaker]

Of the Second World War. They just threw these people into camps.

[Karamo]

And millions of people ended up dead there.

[Ben Shapiro]

Tucker Carlson will have on over and over, a pro Chinese propagandist who used global warming to promote global socialism, all in order to criticize Israel and hug China.

[Karamo]

Israel has run American foreign policy in the Middle east for 30 years. If we drop our angst on big bad Russia, big bad China, which is also not going to invade the United States, not going to threaten us, not going to go to war with us. They're not a threat to the United States, honestly. And Iran is not a threat.

[Ben Shapiro]

Tucker Carlson, of course, brings on pro Hamas voices episode after episode after episode. The instances are almost limitless. Tucker Carlson will host Andrew Tate, a pornographer and scam artist who mocks rape victims and preaches a cult of narcissism and cruelty. And of course, Tucker Carlson will glorify him and present him as a maligned truth teller rather than an emblem of moral rot. See, this is how Tucker Carlson's ideological laundering works. You bring Your dirty, ugly ideologies to Tucker Carlson's rhetorical car wash. He mixes it with some of the vestigial respect Americans have for him from his Fox News days, and voila, hideous ideas suddenly become mainstream. And then, of course, Tucker denies he said anything controversial at all. He was just asking questions. He was just interviewing people. You don't want him to cancel people, do you? Of course, there is no First Amendment right to a Tucker Carlson sensual massage, but to listen to Tucker, you'd think there was. So long as you despise America, oppose President Trump's foreign policy, and bear a peculiar dislike of Jews. Tucker Carlson, you see, is a coward.

[Tim Whitaker]

Honestly, overall, I mean, I was. There's a few quibbles I have with some of his, what he said, but the overall point of how Tucker operates. Bullseye. Bullseye, Bullseye. Yeah, absolutely.

[April Ajoy]

I didn't have agreeing with Ben shapiro on my 2025 bingo card, but on the list.

[Tim Whitaker]

Me either. I mean, that guy. I mean, he's. I'm not sure who writes his scripts. I'm not sure if he still does it, but that whole monologue was. It was well written, too. There was a lot of good lines in there. You're like, yeah, rhetorical car wash. I like that line, you know, but no, I mean, it's true. It's true. It's very intentional what Tucker's doing. And he is. He's, you know, he's cleaning up really abhorrent views of people. I mean, again, the Andrew Tate interview.

[Kevin Roberts]

How.

[Tim Whitaker]

How do you have Andrew Tate on. You let him lie time and time again. You don't challenge him on any of the things that he's really said. You let him just espouse his worldview and you go, wow, I'm just so curious. He went to Russia and tried to convince people that bread was so much fresher and cheaper there. Well, without telling people that the average wage is much lower than it is in America. Like, it was just so disingenuous.

[April Ajoy]

So I just want to point out, like, yeah, we are agreeing with Ben Shapiro here, but how far are we in hell where we have to applaud someone for condemning a Nazi?

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes, I agree.

[April Ajoy]

Naming someone for platforming, like, actual fascists, anti Semitic, misogynistic people. Like, yes, Ben Shapiro's great job condemning that, but also, that's like the bare minimum, right? I feel like that's the bare minimum.

[Tim Whitaker]

Also, I think we need to say that Ben is agreeing with us. We're not agreeing with Ben. He's agreeing with us. You Know, because, I mean, again, we've been saying this for a long freaking time. A long time. Obviously, Ben's views on Israel, I think, are abhorrent. Completely. I know why he has those views, but he is a complete. You know. Oh, hey, buddy, I'm recording right now. Can you. Can you ask Mommy? Okay, go find Nina then. Because I'm in the middle of an episode.

[April Ajoy]

You should leave this in. It's endearing.

[Tim Whitaker]

Should I leave it? Is it endearing? He's.

[April Ajoy]

I don't know. It's just reality. Like how. How not banking we are on this.

[Tim Whitaker]

Quote, unquote, we're doing. I'm so rich, I can't even afford a nanny. Hey, can you go find mommy, please? I'm recording right now. I know, but right now I'm literally. Don't turn the light off. Please don't do that. Please don't turn the light off. It's really gonna mess up.

[April Ajoy]

This is like all those viral moments that happened in Covid when everyone was working from home.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yep.

[April Ajoy]

And kids kept coming in.

[Tim Whitaker]

Hey, go find Mommyaba right there. I love you. Okay. He just. That's the one who got his little teeth filled with cavities. He's trying all loopy. I love you, buddy.

[April Ajoy]

So sweet.

[Tim Whitaker]

Anyway, back to. Back to antisemitism.

[April Ajoy]

So this has caused quite the riff, but someone who's come out in defense of this interview and Tucker Carlson is the Heritage foundation, which, if you remember, is the base. They're the organization that put out Project 2025.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yep.

[April Ajoy]

That has a lot of this more authoritarianism that we're seeing in this Trump administration. It is the Project 2025 playbook, which is a Christian nationalist playbook.

[Tim Whitaker]

To be clear, this is the same guy who said that the revolution will be bloodless if the left allows. This is the same dude that we're going to watch now. Speaking for the Heritage foundation, one of the biggest organizations behind even the Reagan administration. I mean, these are. This is a big. Maybe the biggest player behind the scenes out there in the conservative movement. Should we just play the name?

[April Ajoy]

Is it Kevin Roberts?

[Tim Whitaker]

I think so.

[April Ajoy]

I think it's Kevin Roberts.

[Kevin Roberts]

Yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay.

[April Ajoy]

All right, so here's the Heritage Foundation, Trump's Project 2025 playbook, which would reminder Trump now fully acknowledges Project 2025 now that he's elected.

[Tim Whitaker]

And he's talking about Tucker Carlson having a holocaust denying, misogynistic.

[April Ajoy]

Pro Hitler, pro.

[Tim Whitaker]

Stalin guy, Pro Hitler, Stalin guy on the show and not challenging him, but just letting him go. Here we go.

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

I'LL have more to say on this in the coming days. But today I want to be clear about one thing. Christians can critique the state of Israel without being anti Semitic.

[Interviewer]

That's true.

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

And of course anti Semitism should be condemned. My loyalty as a Christian and as an American is to Christ first and to America always.

[Tim Whitaker]

By the way. I'm sorry, that's a wild statement. As a Christian is to Christ first in America always.

[April Ajoy]

I'm calling B.S.

[Tim Whitaker]

That'S a paradox.

[April Ajoy]

Christ said to welcome the frickin immigrant and what you do, the least of these you do to me. And they are not doing that. So miss me that you are Christ first.

[Tim Whitaker]

Not only that, Jesus says my kingdom is not of this world. The second you say America always, it's idolatry. As a Christian. Sorry, just saying.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, yeah, agreed.

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

When it serves the interest of the United States to cooperate with Israel and other allies, we should do so with partnerships on security, intelligence and technology. But when it doesn't, conservatives should feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class or from their mouthpieces in Washington.

[Tim Whitaker]

There it is.

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

The Heritage foundation didn't become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians. And we won't start doing that now.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's not true.

[April Ajoy]

Because Christians who are queer Christians every day.

[Tim Whitaker]

Exactly, Exactly. I mean, you and I are like anathema to these people, right?

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

So, yeah, we don't take direction from comments on X. Though we are grateful for the robust free speech debate. We also don't take direction from members or donors, though we are inherently grateful for their support and we're adding more every day. This is the robust debate we invite with our colleagues, our movement friends, our members and the American public.

[Tim Whitaker]

Notice how the debate is not framed in a way of like a democratic norm. Like, hey, we have to debate with our colleagues across the aisle on how we navigate the American culture. The debate is in the context of should we have Hitler promoting people on other talk shows that are inside of our circles? Let's debate that. Let's have the robust debate. What is there to debate?

[April Ajoy]

Right? And as we show in those clips, it was not a debate. Tucker, just let Nick talk.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right? I'm saying like, like, like the debate inside the MAGA movement, like.

[April Ajoy]

But I'm also just saying like, he, he's framing it as if what, what Tucker did was a debate.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right, right, right. Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

It is not.

[Tom]

Geez.

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

We will always defend truth we will always defend America, and we will always defend our of bad actors who serve someone else's agenda. That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains, and as I have said before, always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.

[Tim Whitaker]

I want, I want people to really understand this for the Heritage foundation. People who think that queer folks are worthy of dignity and respect and should be allowed to get married are more of an enemy than someone who has on a Holocaust denying Stalin admirer and doesn't challenge it. That's the friends that are cool. And fine, we could disagree there, but we can't disagree on queer affirmation because if you don't believe what we believe, you are anathema to America, to democracy. You're a globalist, you're a communist. And that's just too far. It's just amazing to see what they tolerate in these spaces and what they don't. It's like, wow. Wow. Jesus. Okay, breathe. I can do this.

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

The venomous coalition attacking him are sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail. Most importantly, the American people expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the left, not attacking our friends on the right.

[Tim Whitaker]

See, see, that is the quiet part. Out loud. Our adversaries on the left, not our friends on the right. Yeah, the people who promote Holocaust deniers.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, those are friends.

[Tim Whitaker]

Those are friends. The left. And by the way, who is the left? Who is it? Who in government is the left? Now, you guys own the Supreme Court, you control the executive branch, you control the House, the Senate, you control all of it. Like, oh, God. Anyway, that's a whole different episode.

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

Yeah, I disagree with and even abhor things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer either. When we disagree with a person's thoughts and opinions, we challenge those ideas and debate. And we have seen success in this approach as we continue to dismantle the vile ideas of the left for them.

[April Ajoy]

He's defending a frickin Nazi and saying the left is who's vile and who should be dismantled.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right. We should debate these ideas. But on the left, that should just be dismantled. And look at what Trump is doing. Right? This is the war on the quote unquote left. They're going, and who's the left? It's academia, it's, it's, it's certain judges, it's the news media. This is all telltale signs of fascism, which we covered last week's episode. Right. For him, those are the real enemies, the Holocaust deniers, the men who say that, you know, Rape is fine. That some women want to be raped. That's what Nick said. You can look up. Look up the clip. That's. Those are just friends and we disagree, but we can find room for a robust debate. But you want affordable health care for all Americans. You think that SNAP benefits shouldn't be cut. Oh, my God. You're on the. You're one of our adversaries. That must be.

[April Ajoy]

You want to find a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people, right?

[Ben Shapiro]

Wow.

[Tim Whitaker]

Anathema or shine.

[April Ajoy]

No, can't. Can't. We cannot. We gotta attack those people. Those people are radical.

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

What?

[April Ajoy]

They love everybody. They have empathy. Ah, the horror.

[Tim Whitaker]

They're loving all their neighbors as themselves.

[April Ajoy]

Everyone. My God, these socialists like, the way they pay.

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

As my friend, Vice president left, sorry.

[April Ajoy]

And me and you. Like, makes us sound so. So much more. I don't even know, like, because badass isn't even the word I would say. But they. They give us way too much power and credit. Like, they make us sound so evil and just like. I'm like, dude, I. I don't know. Like, we're just so not what they say about us.

[Tim Whitaker]

Listen, call me a radical. I think the world's richest country should be able to provide universal healthcare for all of its citizens. Out of every developed country in the world, we're the only one that does not do that. And we're the richest. Again, call me a radical.

[April Ajoy]

I think hungry kids should be fed. Right?

[Tim Whitaker]

Right. Call me a radical. I think that SNAP benefits should still go out. I don't know what is. Maybe one day I'll get someone like this guy on the show, and I just wanted to ask him, tell me what about my views are radical? We should stop bombing children in Gaza.

[April Ajoy]

Right?

[Tim Whitaker]

How is that radical?

[April Ajoy]

Right? I mean, and maybe even take the word radical about it. Because they call us evil.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

Like, they will literally say, like, this is good versus evil. Look at Charlie Kirk's memorial service. Like, they paint everyone on the left as satanic, demonic, and evil. And there is. I just don't see it. Like, I just want everyone to have basic human rights.

[Tom]

Right?

[April Ajoy]

You know, like, we want hungry children to be fed. We want pathway to citizenships for people who are here undocumented, or at a minimum, just treated humanely.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right.

[April Ajoy]

Because every president has deported people. We've never been anti ice when they're just doing, like, their job. You know what I mean? Like, it's. It's the way that they're doing their job. It's totally inhumane, ripping Children from families. And Trump's first turn, he separated families at the border through children in cages. Like, I mean, there's just. How is that evil to just be against that?

[Tim Whitaker]

How is it evil not to support someone who brags about grabbing women by the genitals? Like, how is that evil? How is it evil to say, hey, this guy lies a lot? I don't think. I don't think that we can trust him. How is that evil? How is it evil to say that we only have one planet, we should do whatever we can to take care of it? How is it evil to say that vaccines save lives? How is it evil? I really would like to know. How is it evil for me to say that my queer neighbor, who has no bearing on my life, impacts my life not at all. Should be able to live and flourish in this society.

[April Ajoy]

How is evil? And be able to present the way that they feel, represents themselves?

[Tim Whitaker]

Like, this is so bare bones. I don't know if we understand just how far. I mean, listen, America was always far right. Always. Even the left wing is, like, moderate compared to other countries, for sure. Like, I. It's funny, I was interviewed by a lady from Norway. She was one of the leading. She runs one of the biggest Christian, or she's a journalist, one of the biggest Christian news outlets there. And she flew to Philly and we connected and she interviewed me and she made a joke of like, yeah, like, AOC is like a moderate in. In Norway for us. Like, this is. This is how far right we already are.

[April Ajoy]

Right. Which I think just goes show. Shows a. A lack of education in our country because most people that are using words like communists and socialists and Marxist, they couldn't define those terms. They don't actually know what those are.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

Anyway. All right. Oh, yeah, he's still talking. Gosh, this dude.

[Heritage Foundation Representative]

As my friend Vice President Vance said last night, what I am not okay with is any country coming before the interest of American citizens. And it is important for all of us, assuming we are American citizens, to put the interest of our own country first. That's where our allegiance lies, and that's where it will stay.

[Tim Whitaker]

This is a Christian. This isn't Christianity. Your allegiance. Look, as a Christian, your allegiance is to Christ. The word faith is better translated allegiance. It's about giving your allegiance to a different kind of way of being, a different kind of kingdom. These men who love to claim to be Christians are actually heretics. They are not followers of Christ. They are followers of empire. They are followers of America first. That is an ideology that's even a religion. You could argue to a degree. It is not the way of Jesus. Jesus was so clear.

[April Ajoy]

The teachings of Jesus are actually the kryptonite to Christian nationalism. Because they are, they are in direct conflict and they contradict Christian nationalism, which is why they get so mad when you read them the teachings of Jesus every time. Because. Yeah, also, can I also just point out, like Trump ran on America First. These people always promote America First. Trump is actually not leading his current term America first with the bailout he just gave Argentina.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yep.

[April Ajoy]

For one, some of these, the tariffs, tariffs actually harm American citizens. It is American citizens and companies that pay those tariffs.

[Tim Whitaker]

Cutting SNAP benefits to tax paying citizens, that's not America First. They are American citizens. Right. Aren't our poor and our middle class people who depend on some of these benefits because the oligarchic oligarchy and the corporate class has stolen so much of their, of their wages and free labor. Right. Don't they deserve the benefits that they pay into? They pay taxes.

[April Ajoy]

Why not put those bailouts to all the American farmers who are suffering right now? And even like the government shutdown was because Republicans refused to extend the affordability of health insurance for millions of Americans.

[Tim Whitaker]

Like, exactly.

[April Ajoy]

Where's the, where is the America first that we were promised? Like, he's not even delivering on that.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's the thing is these are all code words. When they say American people, who are they talking about? When they say citizens, who are they talking about again?

[April Ajoy]

Right.

[Tim Whitaker]

Always ask yourself the question, friends. Who benefits? Who benefits? Who benefits from SNAP benefits being cut? Not the people who benefit from them or maybe the corporate interests. Do you know, there's all kinds of things that you can ask yourself who benefits these things. And that's where their allegiance lies. It's not even America First. It is ultra rich, white Christian men like us first. Everyone else can get fucked. I mean, honestly, I hate to put it in such crass language, but that's what it is. You're right, April, we are. Well, I'm not sure at this point, as of, you know, when this recording comes out, if we're still in a government shutdown. But as of today, we're in the longest now, historic, the historically longest government shutdown in our nation's history. And what is it over? Democrats don't want cuts to Medicaid and they want tax subsidies for the, you know, government healthcare marketplace to be extended. And Republicans are saying no. And we're, we're, we're so devoted to this cause, we will shut down the government. We will intentionally divert funding away from SNAP benefits with money that was allocated in case of a shutdown. We'll take it up to, to the courts and have them force our hand because we're so committed to raising health care costs on millions of Americans and cutting Medicaid access. Think about that. That's what this is over. It's not over court, Supreme Court picks or like something that would even benefit them directly. It's over extending healthcare subsidies that help me selfishly help me, help me help millions of others. That's what they're fighting over. Wow. Wow, man, that is. That's vile.

[April Ajoy]

Right? And they have the audacity to call the left. Yeah, evil, Vile.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, evil, vile. Get out of here. Okay, well, wow. Another. Another banger of an episode.

[April Ajoy]

Did you want to show Meg Basham's tweet?

[Tim Whitaker]

Oh gosh, we could do this all day. So Megan Basham, who's a right wing Daily Wire journalist, said in defense of what Kevin Roberts just said from the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts made Heritage relevant. Again, you could disagree with the statement here or there, but what a mistake it would be to return Heritage to this. How do you say that?

[April Ajoy]

I don't. I don't even know what that word is. Sclerotic.

[Tim Whitaker]

Sclerotic. Ineffectual. Old guard club. It was before his ascension. Real ideas, real momentum. Sparks friction. It's a feature, not a bug. Again, like we now have a right wing Christian nationalist journalist defending Kevin Roberts statements, defending Tucker Carlson, having Nick Fuentes a Holocaust denying Stalin admiring man on his show. That's just where we are. We just have to tell the truth. This is where the right is. This is where the Christian right is in America. We are now at the place where we wanna debate ideas like the Holocaust, but we can't debate if people deserve SNAP benefits.

[April Ajoy]

And can we just point out that Meg Basham wrote a whole book where she called out other Christians who she claimed had this left wing drift and all she was doing was calling out anyone who didn't support Trump. Basically, she's called them all out as these terrible, terrible people. Writes a whole takedown book of people like Gavin Ortland, like people who are still conservative, right? Like they hate Andy Stanley. They're going after people who are conservative but just don't like Trump. Because as we've pointed out show after show after show, there is nothing Christian or Christ like about Donald Trump. And you, you can use very Christian reasons to not support him. But people like Meg Basham do a whole takedown Book if you can't, if you don't support Donald Trump as a Christian. But here she is defending Heritage foundation for defending Tucker Carlson for platforming a frickin neo Nazi.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's what we are. We are in the upside down, friends. There's just no way around it. We are in the upside down. You wonder how Germany got to where it ended up. You wonder how things happen in human history that are, you know, unfathomable to you. You are watching it in real time. Like, this is the path. This is. We're on the same path. History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. That's what Jamar Tisby says, and I agree. And we just have to be aware of it. I hate to be the bearer of bad news every single show and bring you guys some of the worst, but this stuff is getting more and more popular. We have to let you know what's going on because you have to be aware. You have to be. You cannot be ignorant anymore. You cannot bury your head in the sand. There's just no time for it. We are in some very dark days when Holocaust denialism is growing, vaccine skepticism is growing. It's just we could be here all day showing you how anti intellectualism has taken over some of our most influential government institutions. And the results speak for themselves.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah.

[Kevin Roberts]

So.

[April Ajoy]

But there are people waking up.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, for sure. And we love doing this show. We love having you. Yeah, we're still here. We're not going anywhere. This is only the beginning of Trump's regime and we plan on being here every step of the way. So. Wow. Well, friends, listen, like I said earlier, if you want to be part of a community of people who are looking for better ways forward in their faith, I recommend joining TNE Connect. It's the new evangelicals community space. It's totally off of the meta and social media algorithms. It's really beautiful. There's about 4,000 people in this space. We do all kinds of free resources. The New Evangelicals is a nonprofit organization and the reason it's able to produce shows like the Tim April show is because of your generosity. So if you want to become a supporter, that would be great. We are trying to raise money for end of year so we can keep 2026 going strong, and your support makes that possible. If you're watching this on YouTube, thank you so much. Make sure to give this video a like, subscribe to the channel. Also, if you have topics you want us to cover. I can't guarantee we'll get to it, but it's always nice to hear from you. What, what, what you're. What you're seeing, what you're following, what you want us to kind of unpack. So let us know in the comments and we'll do our best to get to it.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah. All right. Like, subscribe. Leave us a review on Apple, all the things we'll see y' all live every Thursday at noon. So we'll be live again this Thursday.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's right.

[April Ajoy]

And Lincoln Square.

[Tim Whitaker]

And Lincoln Square. That's right. Well, I'm Tim Whitaker.

[April Ajoy]

I'm April Ojoy.

[Tim Whitaker]

Farewell.

[April Ajoy]

Bye. Bye.

[Tim Whitaker]

Good, we're out.