The November 2025 elections were a disaster for the Republican Party, with it losing every major contest of the night across multiple states and cities. The failure becomes even more dire now that factions of the party who came to power under Trump’s influence are at open war with each other.
Days before the election, white nationalist pundit Nick Fuentes—who once dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago—appeared on the podcast of far-right pundit Tucker Carlson. Fuentes has not been subtle about his hatred of Jewish and Black people, and Carlson’s decision to elevate him came under immediate fire.
The influential Heritage Foundation, which put together the Project 2025 framework Trump has used to implement his unpopular agenda, expressed support for the Carlson-Fuentes meeting, in spite of Fuentes’ open bigotry. This has prompted unusually vocal criticism of Heritage from within the right, and the chief of staff to Heritage’s president departed the organization.
Within the right-wing pundit class, such open criticism is strange for a movement that usually focuses its fire on the left and Democrats instead of on each other.
Fox News host Mark Levin, who is Jewish, condemned Carlson on his Oct. 30 show, remarking, “Everybody is not worth debating and everybody is not worth platforming.”
President Donald Trump, left, and far-right pundit Tucker Carlson, shown in 2024.
Pundit Ben Shapiro made similar comments on his Monday show, saying, “[Carlson] brought Nick Fuentes on to legitimate his ideology. He signal-boosted Fuentes, glossed him, shined him, presented him to the world, all in order to protect his own reputation with his online base, a base he is competing over with Nick Fuentes.”
Fuentes has fired back, calling for Levin to be deported, despite the fact that Levin was born in Philadelphia. (Fuentes frequently accuses Jewish people of having dual loyalty and being allied with the state of Israel.)
After Tuesday’s election results showed strong Democratic wins, Sean Davis of The Federalist opined, “Congrats to everyone who spent the last month crying about podcast hosts and group chats.”
Bigoted pundit Matt Walsh echoed Davis’ lament, writing, “While conservatives have spent the last few weeks arguing with each other, Democrats just elected an Attorney General who openly fantasizes about murdering us and watching our children die in our arms. These people are the enemy. What more do you need to see? Seriously. What more do you need to see?”
Both Davis and Walsh referenced the electoral victory of Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones, who came under bipartisan criticism for violent text messages he wrote about the family of a Republican official.
Many of the far-right pundits and institutions now at war with each other have risen to prominence thanks to their affiliations with Trump and the broader MAGA movement. They have profited from Trumpism, but now it is clear that Trump is the figurehead of a toxic brand, and that a unified bloc of voters will vote in large numbers to reject his leadership.
Republicans need unity and a joint sense of purpose as they head into the midterm elections. They hope to avoid another blowout like the party suffered in 2018 and 2020, but the open warfare currently appears like more of a harbinger for bad times to come.
