Nick Fuentes
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Nicholas Joseph Fuentes, born August 18, 1998, is an American far-right political commentator, activist, and live streamer, most notably recognized for leading the Groypers. He identifies as a Christian nationalist and a supporter of authoritarianism, while also associating with the incel subculture. Fuentes has been described as a neo-Nazi by various sources, with his views characterized as white supremacist, misogynistic, homophobic, antisemitic, Islamophobic, and as denying the Holocaust.
Raised in La Grange Park, Illinois, Fuentes embraced far-right conservative views during his time at Lyons Township High School. He began his political activism in 2016 and launched his live stream, "America First," in 2017. In 2019, in collaboration with Patrick Casey, a former leader of the neo-Nazi organization Identity Evropa, Fuentes' followers initiated a campaign known as the "Groyper War," heckling figures like Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA's Culture War Tour, including an event featuring Donald Trump Jr. In 2020, he established the annual America First Political Action Conference, or AFPAC, aiming to create a white supremacist alternative to CPAC.
A significant moment occurred in November 2022 when Fuentes and the rapper Kanye West dined privately with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. This meeting drew widespread condemnation, with The New York Times calling it "what may be the most discomfiting moment in U.S. history in a half-century or more" for American Jews. In August 2024, Fuentes launched "Groyper War 2," a digital campaign targeting Trump's presidential campaign through memes, trolls, and protests. The aim was to push for more extreme right-wing positions, demand the firing of advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, and encourage withholding votes. Fuentes took credit for Trump's rehiring of Corey Lewandowski, while raising concerns about potential election interference due to lax platform enforcement. In 2025, Fuentes publicly labeled Trump a "scam artist" following comments about the Epstein files.
Fuentes has been involved in numerous controversial events. He attended the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville and was a speaker at events preceding the January 6th United States Capitol attack. Between 2020 and 2023, he faced widespread deplatforming from major social media, streaming, and financial services, primarily for violating hate speech policies and inciting violence. In 2023, he was criticized for allegedly covering for a friend's sexual misconduct with underage boys, reportedly pressuring an accuser to apologize. In November 2024, after his home was doxxed, he was arrested for battery after pepper-spraying and pushing an activist and taking her phone. In December 2024, Fuentes survived an apparent assassination attempt at his home by a 24-year-old man who was killed by police after a shootout.
Fuentes was born on August 18, 1998, to William and Lauren Fuentes. He has a sister and states he is of Italian, Irish, and Mexican descent. He grew up in La Grange Park, Illinois, and attended Lyons Township High School, where he served as student council president. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, his parents share his racist views. Though they initially encouraged conventional paths, Nick agreed to live with them for a year while launching his media career, promising to abandon it if it failed. He studied international relations and politics at Boston University but dropped out in 2017 after his freshman year.
Fuentes began his political commentary on a local high school radio and TV station, initially expressing mainstream conservative views. In 2017, he launched "America First with Nicholas J. Fuentes," a live stream that uses jokes and irony to appeal to Generation Z, often providing plausible deniability for his extreme positions. He cites Donald Trump's candidacy and presidency as an inspiration for his show. The SPLC noted that Fuentes initially live-streamed from his parents' basement, a setting that contributed to his public persona as a NEET. He later relocated his operations to an apartment in Berwyn, Illinois, in November 2020, though he told viewers he was still broadcasting from his parents' home.
He denounced multiculturalism, asserting that white identity had been marginalized. While claiming not to be racist and supporting nonviolence, Fuentes attended the Unite the Right rally. He stated he neither supported Nazism nor the driver who attacked counter-protesters, but believed the violence from counter-protesters provoked retaliation. Proud of his attendance at Unite the Right, he dropped out of Boston University after receiving death threats. A former mentor indicated that the fallout from his involvement with Unite the Right boosted his media presence.
In an April 2017 broadcast, Fuentes argued that the First Amendment was not written for Muslims or immigrants. He also stated, "Who runs the media? Globalists. Time to kill the globalists" and "I want people that run CNN to be arrested and deported or hanged because this is deliberate." The publisher of the show at the time, Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), apologized for the comments, deeming them "unacceptable" and "inappropriate." Following these and other remarks, along with publicity from the Unite the Right rally, he left RSBN in August 2017, though he later claimed he was fired by its CEO.
He co-hosted the "Nationalist Review" podcast with fellow white nationalist James Allsup until January 2018. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported a public falling out between them, with each accusing the other of laziness and impropriety. In April 2018, Fuentes spoke at the American Renaissance conference.
Fuentes has received support from conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, who spoke at his first annual America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) in February 2020 and again in February 2021. Malkin was fired by the Young America's Foundation in November 2019 after 17 years over her support for Fuentes.
His second annual AFPAC event in February 2021 featured speakers like Malkin, Steve King, and Paul Gosar. Later that month, he was barred from the Hyatt Regency Orlando, where he attempted to cause a disturbance on the CPAC floor. Fuentes was again removed from CPAC in July 2021 for harassing a journalist. At an event held nearby, he declared, "now that I am banned from Twitter, I have nothing to lose. This is going to be the most racist, sexist, antisemitic, Holocaust-denying speech in all of Dallas this weekend."
Fuentes hosted his third annual AFPAC event in February 2022. U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene attended, while then-Idaho Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin and Paul Gosar prerecorded videos for the event. This drew criticism from other Republican politicians, including Mitt Romney. Greene later stated she did not know who the organizers were. AFPAC 2024 was canceled by its venue, but an alternative event was held, attended by Sulaiman Ahmed, an online anti-Israel commentator, and David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader.
Fuentes' "America First" livestream has cultivated a dedicated following he calls the "Groypers" or the "Groyper Army." The Groyper movement, founded in 2019, consists of primarily young, online activists with white nationalist, Christian nationalist, and alt-right views. Fuentes has encouraged the use of jokes and irony within white nationalist groups, stating it "is so important for giving a lot of cover and plausible deniability for our views."
Operating through his livestream and platforms like X, Fuentes has organized the Groypers to challenge mainstream conservative figures. During the 2019 "Groyper Wars," they disrupted events hosted by Turning Point USA and others, posing provocative questions on immigration, Israel, and cultural issues. Fuentes has repeatedly criticized Turning Point USA and its founder, Charlie Kirk, accusing them of betraying Donald Trump by advocating for mass legal immigration, foreign aid for Israel, and LGBTQ+ issues.
Throughout October and November 2019, his supporters attended numerous public speaking events hosted by Charlie Kirk, featuring guests like Donald Trump Jr., Lara Trump, and Kimberly Guilfoyle. These campaigns often involved asking questions designed to prompt viewers to research far-right and antisemitic conspiracy theories. Fuentes characterized this campaign as a grassroots effort to expose TPUSA as ideologically inconsistent with the populist right. Consequently, some mainstream right-wing politicians and pundits disavowed Fuentes, deeming his beliefs extreme and out of touch.
In December 2019, Fuentes confronted conservative commentator Ben Shapiro outside a TPUSA event. Shapiro was walking with his wife and young children when Fuentes questioned why Shapiro had criticized him in a speech at Stanford University. The filmed encounter drew criticism of Fuentes.
In August 2024, Fuentes initiated a "digital war" against Trump's presidential campaign, dubbed "Groyper War 2," referencing his 2019 activities. In response to Trump's perceived poor polling, Fuentes urged followers to use "memes, edits, replies, and trolls" to pressure the campaign into adopting more extreme right-wing positions on race and immigration, and to demand the firing of advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. He directed followers to make their demands trend on X and Truth Social, threatening to "escalate pressure in the real world" by urging followers to withhold votes and protest Trump rallies in battleground states.
Shortly after this campaign began, Fuentes claimed credit for Trump's rehiring of Corey Lewandowski as a senior campaign advisor. An anonymous source told The Washington Post that Fuentes was making it "far more difficult for Trump" to implement campaign changes if it appeared he was responding to the Groypers. A senior researcher for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue speculated that Fuentes's "crude" manipulation tactics could serve as a blueprint for more sophisticated actors, including hostile states, to engage in foreign election interference, given the lack of enforcement by platforms like Twitter and Truth Social.
In January 2020, Time reported Fuentes as the most-viewed live streamer on the DLive platform. He has since been deplatformed from various social media sites, payment processors, and other services. Following bans from major providers like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and DLive, Fuentes partnered with Alex Jones to launch his own live-streaming platform, Cozy.tv, in October 2021. Leaked text messages obtained by the SPLC's Hatewatch revealed that Millie Weaver, an InfoWars employee, had warned Jones against partnering with Fuentes, alleging that some of his associates were FBI informants and that the partnership would harm supplement sales.
On May 2, 2024, Elon Musk announced he would reinstate Fuentes' X account, stating, "provided he does not violate the law, and let him be crushed by the comments and Community Notes." Musk defended this decision by saying he "cannot claim to be a defender of free speech, but then permanently ban someone who hasn't violated the law, no matter how much I disagree with what they say." He added, "It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than to grow simmering in the darkness." The Anti-Defamation League condemned the decision, but Fuentes' account was reinstated on May 3, 2024.
Fuentes aims to transform the Republican Party into "a truly reactionary party," displacing conservatism and the GOP. He criticizes mainstream conservative groups, claiming that "Christian Republican voters get screwed over" because "the GOP is run by Jews, atheists, and homosexuals." Vice reporter Tess Owen has described Fuentes as "the kingpin of the ultranationalist youth movement."
Fuentes strongly opposes immigration, viewing it as a demographic threat to the United States.
Fuentes has spoken positively of "a tidal wave of white identity" following his attendance at the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, seeing America's "white demographic core" as central to its identity. Despite promoting white supremacist beliefs, such as the white genocide conspiracy theory, he claims not to be a white supremacist, calling the term an "anti-white slur." Fuentes desires a white, Christian United States, explicitly stating it is not a "Judeo-Christian" country. On his "America First" podcast, Fuentes stated, "Jews are running society, women need to shut the fuck up, Blacks need to be imprisoned for the most part, and we would live in paradise; it's that simple." He continued, "But the older I get, the more I realize it is really this simple. We need white men in charge of everything again."
Fuentes holds antisemitic views and denies the Holocaust. He has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories against Jews and called for a "holy war" against them. In January 2019, he aired a monologue questioning the death toll of six million Jews in the Holocaust, later disputing that he denied the Holocaust and calling the monologue a "lampoon." NPR cites this as an example of Fuentes' use of irony to evade consequences for his words, noting a 2020 video where he said, "Irony is so important for giving a lot of cover and plausible deniability for our views," particularly regarding Holocaust denial. Fuentes frequently praises Adolf Hitler, bestowing "giggling praise" on him during his AFPAC 2022 speech.
Fuentes is Catholic and identifies with the traditionalist Catholic movement. He is also an integralist and a Christian nationalist. He has stated, "You're either a Catholic or you're with the Jews," and has voiced support for a Catholic government and Catholic media. Fuentes advocates for a Christian theocracy over what he terms a "Jewish-occupied government." He describes himself as a reactionary who supports autocracy, Catholic monarchy, just war, the Crusades, and the Inquisition, while opposing democracy. He has characterized Islam as "a barbaric ideology that [wants] to come over and kill us."
During an AFPAC speech where he praised Hitler, Fuentes remarked that the media compared Vladimir Putin to Hitler "as if that wasn't a good thing." He also asked the audience for "a round of applause for Russia," which was met with enthusiastic applause and chants of "Putin! Putin!" On March 10, 2022, Fuentes praised "czar Putin" for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, claiming it was to "liberate Ukraine from the Great Satan and from the evil empire in the world, which is the United States."
Fuentes would support a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, stating in 2022, "I want China to take back Taiwan, I want Russia to take back Ukraine, if for no other reason than it’s time for America to be humiliated."
Fuentes is a vocal critic of Israel. He has stated that the United States should withdraw support for Israel because, "We're European, they're ethnically Jewish." He claimed that the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was "staged" to "justify Israel’s unfolding war to destroy Iran and its proxies."
Fuentes has praised the conservative religious aspect of Islamist Taliban governance. Despite being described as having "disdain" for Muslims, he states his goal is "Catholic Taliban rule" in the United States. After the Afghan government fell to the Taliban during the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021, Fuentes posted on Telegram, "The Taliban is a conservative, religious force, the US is godless and liberal. The defeat of the US government in Afghanistan is unequivocally a positive development."
Fuentes has frequently spread conspiracy theories and misinformation surrounding FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines. In December 2020, he reportedly had an altercation on a flight over mask mandates. In April 2021, Salon reported that "Nicholas Fuentes and his 'groyper army' have joined forces with the coronavirus anti-vaccine community." That year, he embarked on an anti-vaccine speaking tour, promoting hoaxes about COVID-19 vaccines.
He has spoken out against the "LGBT agenda," describing transgender people and same-sex marriage as "deviancy." He stated that "Jews stood in the way" of overturning Roe v. Wade, and that the Dobbs decision meant that "banning gay marriage is back on the menu, banning sodomy is back on the menu, banning contraceptives is back on the menu, and basically we're having something like Taliban rule in America, in a good way."
In a 2022 BBC documentary with Louis Theroux, Fuentes expressed his belief that women should not have the right to vote. In July 2023, on the Fresh and Fit Podcast, he stated that women were "baby machines" because "that's what their brains are about." He has also stated that the optimal age for a wife is 16, which he claims is "right when the milk is good."
Fuentes identifies as an incel (involuntary celibate), though some supporters have criticized him for being a "voluntary celibate" after he admitted to kissing a girl in high school. He has described himself as the "straightest guy" and attempted to defend his incel identity by claiming that "the only really straight heterosexual position is to be an asexual incel," as "having sex with women is gay ... What's gayer than being like, 'I need cuddles. I need kisses ... I need to spend time with a woman.'"
Following the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Fuentes praised the Supreme Court. In November 2024, after Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election, Fuentes mocked abortion rights supporters with the tweet, "Your body, my choice. Forever." This phrase became popular on TikTok, with female users reporting mass comments from accounts on their posts. On November 8, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue reported an exponential increase in the phrase's usage across major platforms and noted its offline appearance on high school and college campuses.
On November 22, 2022, Donald Trump hosted Fuentes and Kanye West for dinner at Mar-a-Lago. The meeting was at West's request. West stated Trump was "really impressed with Nick Fuentes." Trump released a statement claiming West "unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about," and that the dinner was "quick and uneventful." Trump later elaborated that he met with West to "help a seriously troubled man, who just happens to be black... who has been decimated in his business and virtually everything else," and advised West to drop out of the race.
Accounts of the meeting differed. According to Axios, a source stated Trump "seemed very taken" by Fuentes and was "impressed that the 24-year-old was able to rattle off statistics and recall speeches dating back to his 2016 campaign." The source paraphrased Fuentes as telling Trump he preferred him to be "authentic," and that Trump seemed scripted during his 2024 campaign announcement. Trump reportedly responded, "You like it better when I just speak off the cuff," to which Fuentes replied that he did, calling Trump an "amazing" president when unrestrained. The source added, "There was a lot of fawning back and forth." West also claimed Trump "started basically screaming at me at the table telling me I was going to lose."
The meeting garnered significant attention and criticism from domestic and international figures. The event, where a former president hosted individuals with open antisemitic beliefs, was deemed "unprecedented" and drew intense bipartisan criticism of Trump. The scandal raised questions about Trump's viability as a candidate for the 2024 election. Among American Jews, the ensuing discussion was described by a New York Times writer as "what may be the most discomfiting moment in U.S. history in a half-century or more." Commentators and politicians argued that Trump's failure to condemn antisemitism and racism from his guests implicitly accepted their views.
Trump defended the dinner on Truth Social, stating he "got along great" with West, who "expressed no anti-Semitism," and that he "never met and knew nothing about" Fuentes. According to The Washington Post, Trump initially believed the situation would "blow over," but by December 1, subsequent actions by West and Fuentes had "paint[ed] a different picture." Mike Pence stated Trump "should apologize for it, and he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification." Israeli prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu labeled the meeting a "mistake" and stated it was "not merely unacceptable, it's just wrong."
Fuentes became increasingly critical of Trump in 2024. On August 9, he posted on X that he had "declared a new Groyper War against the 2024 Trump campaign," asserting that "his campaign has been hijacked by the same consultants, lobbyists, & donors that he defeated in 2016, and they're blowing it" and were "headed for a catastrophic loss." He stated he would not vote for Trump or his running mate, JD Vance, questioning whether Vance would "support white identity" given his wife's Indian heritage.
Fuentes began urging followers to use "memes, edits, replies, and trolls" to pressure the Trump campaign into adopting more extreme right-wing positions on race and immigration, and to demand the firing of advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. He directed followers to make their demands trend on Twitter and Truth Social, threatening to "escalate pressure in the real world" by urging followers to withhold votes and protest Trump rallies.
In November, Fuentes criticized Trump supporters who dressed in garbage bags after a rally where Trump climbed into a garbage truck. He described this as a moment of realization that "Trumpism was a cult," illustrating the "slavish devotion" of its supporters. He stated, "That was the moment when I realized it has gone too far, it is Frankenstein's monster, we've created a golem," and characterized Trumpism as "a giant cult-like scam."
He doubled down on his negative opinion of Trump in 2025, insulting him after Trump's refusal to release the Epstein files and his implied disdain for supporters demanding their release. Fuentes stated, "the liberals were right," and that "when we look back on the history of populism in America, we are going to look back on the MAGA movement as the biggest scam in history."
In 2022, Fuentes was caught on video hurling a drink at customers during an altercation at an In-N-Out Burger in Hollywood, California, after diners confronted him and threw ketchup cups.
On November 10, 2024, activist Marla Rose approached Fuentes's home and attempted to ring his doorbell. Fuentes allegedly pepper-sprayed Rose, pushed her down his front steps, and took her phone, which she was using to film the interaction. Fuentes was arrested on November 27 and charged with battery; he appeared in court on December 19.
In January 2020, Fuentes' YouTube channel was demonetized, and one video was removed for violating hate speech policies. He had previously been banned from Twitch and Reddit. On February 14, 2020, his YouTube channel was terminated for hate speech violations. DLive faced criticism for hosting Fuentes, and after the January 6th Capitol attack, his channel was permanently suspended for "inciting violent and illegal activities." By March 2021, ABC News reported Fuentes had been suspended from "almost all" social media platforms. Fuentes claimed his bank account was frozen, he was placed on a federal no-fly list, and banned from Airbnb, Facebook, and Instagram, describing these actions as "overt political persecution."
Twitter was among the last mainstream social media sites to ban Fuentes, indefinitely suspending his verified account in July 2021. He has also been banned from financial and e-commerce services including PayPal, Venmo, Patreon, Shopify, Stripe, Streamlabs, and Coinbase. On January 25, 2023, his verified Twitter account was briefly reinstated. According to Hannah Gais of the Southern Poverty Law Center, he immediately praised Adolf Hitler and the Unabomber, declaring, "Jews run the news." Twitter banned him again the next day. In December 2021, the social media platform Gettr permanently suspended Fuentes. The site faced backlash from his fanbase and politician Wendy Rogers, who questioned the purpose of a free-speech alternative that did not honor free speech. Gettr subsequently banned the use of the word "groyper."
Fuentes was among far-right individuals and groups who participated in rallies preceding the January 6th United States Capitol attack. At a pro-Trump protest in Washington, D.C., in December 2020, Fuentes led chants of "Destroy the GOP" and encouraged people to boycott the Georgia Senate runoff election. In February 2021, a video of his speech was played during Donald Trump's second impeachment trial by House delegate Stacey Plaskett.
Fuentes was among far-right activists and groups who received large Bitcoin donations from a French donor on December 8, 2020. Fuentes received 13.5 Bitcoin (approximately $681,750 at the time), the largest share. The donor posted an apparent suicide note, according to Chainalysis. The FBI initiated an investigation into whether any of this money financed illegal acts, such as the Capitol storming.
On December 12, 2020, at a rally following the Supreme Court's refusal to hear Texas v. Pennsylvania, Fuentes told a crowd at Freedom Plaza, "It is us and our ancestors that created everything good that you see in this country. All these people that have taken over our country—we do not need them. ... It is the American people, and our leader, Donald Trump, against everybody else in this country and this world... Our Founding Fathers would get in the streets, and they would take this country back by force if necessary. And that is what we must be prepared to do."
On January 4, 2021, two days before the Capitol attack, Fuentes discussed killing state legislators unwilling to overturn the 2020 election results, saying, "What can you and I do to a state legislator—besides kill them? We should not do that. I'm not advising that, but I mean, what else can you do, right?"
According to several media outlets, Fuentes was part of the mob that attacked the Capitol. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that Fuentes was "visible in both livestreams and images amidst a mob of pro-Trump insurrectionists...wearing what appears to be a VIP badge." Although he did not enter the building, he allegedly shouted encouragement for rioters to "Keep moving towards the Capitol – it appears we are taking the Capitol back! … Break down the barriers and disregard the police. The Capitol belongs to us!" Fuentes admitted being present during the attack but denied criminal conduct, calling rumors that he was an unidentified figure in Nancy Pelosi's office "fake news." On January 19, 2022, the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack issued a subpoena to Fuentes.
In 2023, Fuentes and associates were "embroiled in a scandal" concerning his friend, Ali Alexander. Intelligencer reported on two accusers who said Alexander "came on to them when they were teenage boys, asking for nudes from a 17-year-old and pressuring a 15-year-old to have sex with him." Fuentes was "facing criticism for allegedly trying to cover for him." U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene requested an FBI investigation, stating, "This is disgusting textbook predation of underage boys. And Nick Fuentes was in on it." One accuser believed Fuentes was "100 percent aware" of the alleged situation but did not intervene. The other accuser claimed "Nick personally asked me to apologize to Ali for supposedly faking the messages." Fuentes denied the allegations. Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Alexander ally, published interviews and alleged evidence with the two accusers, releasing a text he claimed to have sent Fuentes in January 2022: "Alexander wants to come to your events to have sex with underage boys. Snap out of it."
Alexander later apologized, stating he was targeted by "fake accusers or literal honey pots eager to frame me," and that some claims were "defamatory and false." He asserted that "nothing unlawful has occurred." Alexander issued an apology on Friday night [April 14th, 2023] beginning with a strange intro: "This is too gay." He acknowledged struggling with "SSA," an acronym for "same-sex attraction," and apologized "for any inappropriate messages sent over the years," adding, "When I've flirted or others have flirted with me, I've flexed my credentials or dropped corny pick up lines. Other times, I've been careless and should've qualified those coming up to me's [sic] identities during flirtatious banter at the start." The Daily Dot reported an ongoing police investigation into the allegations.
In November 2024, Fuentes's Berwyn, Illinois, home address was doxxed on Twitter in response to his tweet mocking abortion advocates: "Your body, my choice."
On December 18, 2024, at 11:30 P.M. (CST), a man armed with a pistol and a crossbow arrived at Fuentes's home. The man, identified as 24-year-old John Lyons of Westchester, was suspected of earlier killings. After police arrived, Lyons fled into a neighbor's residence, killing two dogs, before exchanging gunfire with police in a backyard and being fatally shot. Fuentes stated on X, "Last night an armed killer made an attempt on my life at my home, which was recently doxed on this platform. The gunman carried a pistol, crossbow, and incendiary devices. I believe he intended to kill me. He is now dead. I am okay!"
In 2022, BBC Two produced an episode of the docuseries "Forbidden America: Extreme and Online," featuring Fuentes prominently as part of an exploration of the American far-right online subculture.
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Nicholas Joseph Fuentes (born August 18, 1998) is an American far-right political commentator, activist and live streamer known for leading the Groypers. He identifies as a Christian nationalist, and a supporter of authoritarianism, while also associating with the incel subculture. He has been described as a neo-Nazi by various sources. His views have been characterized as white supremacist, misogynistic, homophobic, antisemitic, Islamophobic, and denying the Holocaust.
Fuentes was raised in La Grange Park, Illinois, and studied at Lyons Township High School where he embraced far-right conservative views. He began political activism in 2016 and started the episodic live stream America First in 2017. Collaborating with Patrick Casey, a former leader of the neo-Nazi organization Identity Evropa in 2019, Fuentes' followers began to heckle Charlie Kirk and his organization Turning Point USA's Culture War Tour, including a speaking event for Donald Trump Jr. This is referred to as the Groyper War. In 2020, seeking to establish a white supremacist conference to rival the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Fuentes began holding the annual America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC).
In November 2022, Fuentes and the American rapper Kanye West had a private dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. The meeting was broadly condemned by American political commentators, with The New York Times describing it as "what may be the most discomfiting moment in U.S. history in a half-century or more" for American Jews. In August 2024, Nick Fuentes launched "Groyper War 2", a "digital war" against Trump's presidential campaign involving memes, trolls, and protests to push for more extreme right-wing positions, unsuccessful demands to fire advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, and withholding votes, crediting his efforts for Trump's rehiring of Corey Lewandowski while drawing concerns over potential election interference blueprints due to lax platform enforcement. In 2025, Fuentes said Trump was a "scam artist" due to his comments about the Epstein files.
Fuentes has been involved in a number of controversial events. Fuentes attended the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, and was also an attendee and speaker at events preceding the January 6 United States Capitol attack. Fuentes faced widespread deplatforming from major social media, streaming, and financial services between 2020 and 2023, primarily for violating hate speech policies and inciting violence. In 2023, Fuentes was criticized for allegedly covering for a friend's sexual misconduct with underage boys, reportedly pressuring an accuser to apologize. In November 2024, after his home was doxed, he was arrested for battery for pepper-spraying and pushing an activist, taking her phone. In December 2024, Fuentes survived an apparent assassination attempt at his home by a 24-year-old, who was killed by police after a shootout.
== Early life and family ==
Nicholas Joseph Fuentes was born on August 18, 1998 to William and Lauren (née Chicco). He has a sister. According to Fuentes, he is of Italian, Irish and Mexican descent. He grew up in La Grange Park, Illinois. He attended Lyons Township High School, where he was president of the student council.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), his parents share Nick's racist views. The SPLC noted that his parents initially encouraged him to pursue conventional paths like employment or college, but Nick agreed to spend one year living with them while beginning his media career with the promise to abandon it if it failed. According to the SPLC, He studied international relations and politics during his freshman year at Boston University. Fuentes stated that he dropped out in 2017 after completing his freshman year.
== Career ==
=== Early activities ===
Fuentes began commentating on politics through a local radio and TV station hosted by his high school, where he espoused mainstream conservative views. He began hosting the episodic live stream America First with Nicholas J. Fuentes, in 2017 during his freshman year at Boston University. America First is characterized by Fuentes' frequent use of jokes and irony to appeal to Generation Z while providing plausible deniability for his often extreme views. Fuentes cites the candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump as an inspiration for America First.
The SPLC stated that Fuentes initially live-streamed from the basement of his parents' home, a setting central to his public persona as a NEET (not in employment, education, or training) or a disconnected youth. He relocated his livestreaming operations from his parents' basement to an apartment in Berwyn, Illinois, in November 2020. Despite telling viewers he was still working from his parents’ home, police records and neighbor accounts suggest he operated from the Berwyn property. His father frequently oversaw renovations at the complex, particularly on the second floor, where Fuentes established a new podcasting studio.
He denounced multiculturalism and stated that the white identity had been marginalized. However, he said he was not racist and supported nonviolence. Fuentes attended the Unite the Right rally, and he said he neither support Nazism nor the man who drove into the crowd, but believes the violence from counter-protesters spurred violence in return. Fuentes was proud to attend Unite the Right, but dropped out of Boston University after receiving death threats over his media persona, statements, and attendance of the rally. A former mentor of his stated that the response to his involvement with Unite the Right helped to raise his media presence.
During a show in April 2017, Fuentes "argued the First Amendment was not written for Muslims or immigrants." He further stated "Who runs the media? Globalists. Time to kill the globalists" and "I want people that run CNN to be arrested and deported or hanged because this is deliberate." The publisher of the show at the time, Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), issued an apology, calling the comments "unacceptable" and "inappropriate". Following these and other comments, as well as publicity over his attendance at the Unite the Right rally, he left RSBN in August 2017. In February 2022, Fuentes claimed that he was fired by RSBN CEO Joe Seales.
He co-hosted the Nationalist Review podcast with another white nationalist, James Allsup, until January 2018. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, "the two had a public falling out with each host accusing the other of laziness, impropriety and a variety of petty slights." In April 2018, Fuentes spoke at the American Renaissance conference.
=== America First Political Action Conference ===
Fuentes has been supported by the conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, who agreed to speak at his first annual America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) in February 2020 and again at his second conference in February 2021. In November 2019, Malkin was fired by the Young America's Foundation after 17 years of employment over her support for Fuentes.
Fuentes hosted his second annual AFPAC event in February 2021, speaking alongside Malkin and the politicians Steve King and Paul Gosar. Later that month, he was barred from the Hyatt Regency Orlando, where he attempted to "start a commotion" on the CPAC floor. Fuentes was again removed from CPAC in July 2021 for harassing a journalist. At an event held across the street, he said that now that he is banned from Twitter, "I have nothing to lose. This is going to be the most racist, sexist, antisemitic, Holocaust-denying speech in all of Dallas this weekend."
Fuentes hosted his third annual AFPAC event in February 2022. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the U.S. representative for Georgia's 14th district, attended the conference, while Janice McGeachin, then the lieutenant governor of Idaho, and Gosar prerecorded videos that were played at the event. This was criticized, including by other Republican Party politicians such as Mitt Romney. Greene later said that she did not know who the organizers of the conference were. AFPAC 2024 was cancelled by the venue, but they held an alternative event, also attended by Sulaiman Ahmed, an online anti-Israel commentator, and David Duke, formerly of the Ku Klux Klan.
=== Groypers ===
Fuentes' show, America First, has attracted a cult following, which Fuentes refers to as the "Groypers" or the "Groyper Army". The Groyper movement was founded in 2019 and consists of primarily young, online activists known for their white nationalist, Christian nationalist, and alt-right views. Fuentes has encouraged the use of jokes and irony among white nationalist groups, stating that it "is so important for giving a lot of cover and plausible deniability for our views".
Operating through his "America First" livestream and platforms like X, Fuentes has organized the Groypers to challenge mainstream conservative figures, notably during the 2019 "Groyper Wars," where they disrupted events hosted by Turning Point USA and others with provocative questions on immigration, Israel, and cultural issues. Fuentes has repeatedly criticized Turning Point USA (TPUSA) and its founder, Charlie Kirk, accusing them of betraying Donald Trump by advocating in favor of mass legal immigration, support for foreign aid for Israel, and queer issues.
==== Groyper War ====
Throughout October and November 2019, his supporters were present at many of Kirk's public speaking events, which featured guest speakers including Donald Trump Jr., Lara Trump, and Kimberly Guilfoyle. These campaigns frequently involved asking questions that prompted viewers to look up far-right and antisemitic conspiracy theories and hoaxes online. Fuentes has characterized the campaign as a grassroots effort to expose TPUSA as ideologically inconsistent with the ideology espoused by Donald Trump and other right-wing populists. As a result of this campaign, some right-wing mainstream politicians and pundits disavowed Fuentes, characterizing his beliefs as extreme and out of touch with mainstream conservatism.
In December 2019, Fuentes confronted conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro outside a TPUSA event in West Palm Beach, Florida. Shapiro was walking with his wife and young children when Fuentes asked why he had delivered a speech at Stanford University criticizing him. The filmed encounter drew criticism of Fuentes.
==== Groyper War 2 ====
In August 2024, Fuentes began a "digital war" against Trump's presidential campaign, which he dubbed "Groyper War 2", referencing his followers' activities in 2019. In response to Trump's poor polling, Fuentes began calling on his followers to "bring the energy with memes, edits, replies, and trolls" aimed at pressuring Trump's campaign to adopt further-right positions on race and immigration, as well as urging Trump to fire his campaign advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. In addition to directing his followers to make their demands trend on X (formerly Twitter) and Truth Social, Fuentes threatened to "escalate pressure in the real world", urging followers to withhold their votes and protest Trump rallies in battleground states.
Shortly after initiating this effort, Fuentes took credit for Trump's rehiring of Corey Lewandowski as a senior campaign advisor. An anonymous source cited by The Washington Post claimed that Fuentes was making it "far more difficult for Trump" to make changes to his campaign "if it looks like he's responding to the groypers".
A senior researcher for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue speculated that Fuentes's "crude" attempts at platform manipulation could be a blueprint for more sophisticated actors, such as hostile states, to engage in foreign election interference due to the lack of enforcement actions taken by Twitter and Truth Social in response to Fuentes's brief influence campaign.
=== Social media ===
In January 2020, Time reported that Fuentes was the most-viewed live streamer on the DLive platform. Fuentes has been deplatformed from various social media websites, payment processors, and other services. Following the deplatforming from major providers such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and DLive, Fuentes collaborated with Alex Jones to launch his own live-streaming platform, Cozy.tv, in October 2021. According to leaked text messages obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch, Millie Weaver, an employee of InfoWars, previously warned Jones against partnering with Fuentes, alleging that several of his associates (chiefly Matthew Colligan) were informants for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and that partnering with him would negatively impact the sales of Jones's line of dietary supplements.
On May 2, 2024, Elon Musk said that he would reinstate Fuentes' X (formerly Twitter) account "provided he does not violate the law, and let him be crushed by the comments and Community Notes". Musk stated, "I cannot claim to be a defender of free speech, but then permanently ban someone who hasn't violated the law, no matter how much I disagree with what they say." Musk addressed backlash by those who expressed concerns about platforming Fuentes' ideas by stating, "It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than to grow simmering in the darkness." Upon X's announcement, the Anti-Defamation League issued a statement condemning Fuentes. Fuentes' account was reinstated on May 3, 2024.
== Political views and activities ==
=== Alt-right ===
Fuentes has stated that his goal is to turn the Republican Party into "a truly reactionary party". He hopes to have the alt-right displace conservatism and the GOP, criticizing mainstream conservative groups and claiming that "Christian Republican voters get screwed over" because "the GOP is run by Jews, atheists, and homosexuals". Tess Owen, a reporter for Vice, has written that Fuentes "has positioned himself as the kingpin of the ultranationalist youth movement".
=== Anti-immigration ===
Fuentes strongly opposes immigration, which he believes is a demographic threat to the United States.
=== White supremacy ===
Fuentes has spoken positively of "a tidal wave of white identity" following his attendance at the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally and sees America's "white demographic core" as central to the country's identity. Despite promoting white supremacist beliefs, such as the white genocide conspiracy theory, Fuentes has claimed that he is not a white supremacist, calling the term an "anti-white slur". Fuentes wants the United States to be a white, Christian country and has specified that it is not a "Judeo-Christian" country. On Fuentes' America First podcast, Fuentes stated: "Jews are running society, women need to shut the fuck up, Blacks need to be imprisoned for the most part, and we would live in paradise; it's that simple". Continuing, Fuentes says, "But the older I get, the more I realize it is really this simple. We need white men in charge of everything again".
=== Antisemitism ===
Fuentes holds antisemitic views and denies the Holocaust. He has also promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories against Jews and called for a "holy war" against them. In January 2019, Fuentes aired a monologue in which he implied he questions the death toll of six million Jews in the Holocaust. Fuentes later disputed that he had ever denied the Holocaust, calling his monologue a "lampoon". NPR cites this as an example of Fuentes' use of irony to avoid consequences for his words, citing a 2020 video where Fuentes said, "Irony is so important for giving a lot of cover and plausible deniability for our views," specifically regarding Holocaust denial. Fuentes frequently praises Adolf Hitler. During his speech at AFPAC 2022, Fuentes bestowed "giggling praise" on Hitler.
=== Catholic integralism and Christian nationalism ===
Fuentes is Catholic and identifies with the traditionalist Catholic movement. Fuentes is also an integralist and a Christian nationalist. He has said, "You're either a Catholic or you're with the Jews," and he has voiced support for a Catholic government and Catholic media. Fuentes supports a Christian theocracy instead of what he calls a "Jewish-occupied government". Fuentes has described himself as a reactionary who supports autocracy, Catholic monarchy, just war, the Crusades, and the Inquisition. Fuentes opposes democracy. He described the religion of Islam as "a barbaric ideology that [wants] to come over and kill us".
=== Foreign policy ===
==== Russia ====
During the AFPAC speech in which he praised Hitler, Fuentes said that the media had been comparing Vladimir Putin to Hitler "as if that wasn't a good thing". Fuentes also asked the audience, "Can we get a round of applause for Russia?" which was followed by roaring applause and chants of "Putin! Putin!" On March 10, 2022, Fuentes praised "czar Putin" for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which he claimed was to "liberate Ukraine from the Great Satan and from the evil empire in the world, which is the United States".
==== China ====
Fuentes would support a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, saying in 2022, "I want China to take back Taiwan, I want Russia to take back Ukraine, if for no other reason than it’s time for America to be humiliated."
==== Israel ====
Fuentes is a vocal critic of Israel. He stated that the United States should withdraw support for Israel because, "We're European, they're ethnically Jewish". He claimed that the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was "staged" to "justify Israel’s unfolding war to destroy Iran and its proxies".
==== Taliban ====
Fuentes has praised the conservative religious aspect of Islamist Taliban governance. He has been described as having "disdain" for Muslims, but he states that his goal is "Catholic Taliban rule" in the United States. After the Afghan government fell to the Taliban while American forces were withdrawing in August 2021, Fuentes posted on the Telegram messaging service, "The Taliban is a conservative, religious force, the US is godless and liberal. The defeat of the US government in Afghanistan is unequivocally a positive development."
=== COVID-19 ===
Fuentes has frequently spread conspiracy theories and misinformation surrounding the FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines. In December 2020, Fuentes reportedly had an altercation on a flight over mask mandates. In April 2021, Salon reported that "Nicholas Fuentes and his 'groyper army' have joined forces with the coronavirus anti-vaccine community." That year, he embarked on an anti-vaccine speaking tour, where he promoted hoaxes about COVID-19 vaccines.
=== Homophobia ===
He has spoken out against the "LGBT agenda", and has described transgender people and same-sex marriage as "deviancy". He said that "Jews stood in the way" of overturning Roe v. Wade, and that the Dobbs decision meant that "banning gay marriage is back on the menu, banning sodomy is back on the menu, banning contraceptives is back on the menu, and basically we're having something like Taliban rule in America, in a good way."
=== Misogyny ===
In a documentary for the BBC broadcast in 2022, Fuentes told the British journalist Louis Theroux that he believes it would be better if women did not have the right to vote. In July 2023, appearing on the Fresh and Fit Podcast, Fuentes stated that women were "baby machines" because "that's what their brains are about". He has stated that the optimal age for a wife is 16, which he states is "right when the milk is good."
Fuentes identifies as an incel (or "involuntary celibate"), although some of his supporters have criticized him for being a "voluntary celibate" after he admitted that he kissed a girl while he was in high school. He has described himself as the "straightest guy" and attempted to defend himself as an incel by claiming that "the only really straight heterosexual position is to be an asexual incel", as "having sex with women is gay ... What's gayer than being like, 'I need cuddles. I need kisses ... I need to spend time with a woman.'"
==== Abortion ====
Following the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Fuentes praised the Supreme Court of the United States for handing down that decision.
In November 2024, after Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Fuentes mocked supporters of reproductive rights, tweeting, "Your body, my choice. Forever" (a brash spin on the freedom of choice slogan "My body, my choice"). The phrase became popular on TikTok, where female users reported that accounts were commenting "your body, my choice" en masse on their posts. On November 8, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue published a report detailing the exponential increase of the phrase's usage on X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Facebook, and Reddit on the day after the 2024 elections. They also noted instances of its usage offline, specifically on high school and college campuses.
=== Donald Trump ===
==== Dinner at Mar-a-Lago ====
On November 22, 2022, Donald Trump hosted Fuentes and Kanye West for a dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. The meeting was at West's request. West said that Trump was "really impressed with Nick Fuentes". Trump released a statement saying that after contacting him earlier in the week to arrange the visit, West "unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about", with whom Trump dined, and that "the dinner was quick and uneventful".
Trump further elaborated several days later that he met with West to "help a seriously troubled man, who just happens to be black... who has been decimated in his business and virtually everything else." Trump also acknowledged advising West to drop out of the race.
Members of the meeting gave contradictory accounts of what occurred. According to Axios:...a source stated that Trump "seemed very taken" by Fuentes and "impressed that the 24-year-old was able to rattle off statistics and recall speeches dating back to his 2016 campaign."
Paraphrasing the conversation, the source said Fuentes told the president he preferred him to be "authentic", and that Trump seemed scripted and unlike himself during his recent 2024 campaign announcement speech. Trump responded, "You like it better when I just speak off the cuff," the source said. Fuentes replied that he did, calling Trump an "amazing" president when he was unrestrained. "There was a lot of fawning back and forth," the source added.
West also stated that after asking Trump to be his vice-presidential candidate, Trump "started basically screaming at me at the table telling me I was going to lose—I mean has that ever worked for anyone in history. I'm like hold on, hold on, hold on, Trump, you're talking to Ye."
The meeting received significant attention and comment from domestic and international political figures. The nature of the event—in which a former president hosted guests with open antisemitic beliefs—was considered "unprecedented" in the modern era and garnered intense bipartisan criticism of Trump, with Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress making a rare rebuke of Trump. The scandal raised questions over Trump's tenability as a candidate in the 2024 election. Among American Jews, the ensuing discussion was described by a New York Times writer as "what may be the most discomfiting moment in U.S. history in a half-century or more". Commentators and politicians argued Trump's failure to condemn antisemitism and racism from the guests was an implicit acceptance of their beliefs.
Trump defended the dinner in a Truth Social post, writing about West: "we got along great, he expressed no anti-Semitism, & I appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on 'Tucker Carlson'" and "why wouldn't I agree to meet?", and that he "never met and knew nothing about" Fuentes. According to The Washington Post, Trump initially believed that the events of the evening would "blow over". But by December 1, the subsequent actions of West and Fuentes after the dinner had "paint[ed] a different picture" of the situation.
Mike Pence, the former U.S. vice president who served during Trump's first presidency, stated: "I think he should apologize for it, and he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification." Israeli prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu labeled the meeting a "mistake". In a follow-up interview, Netanyahu stated: "...on Kanye West and that other unacceptable guest [Nick Fuentes], I think it's not merely unacceptable, it's just wrong. And I hope he sees his way to staying out of it and condemning it."
==== Later views ====
Fuentes was increasingly critical of Trump in 2024. On August 9, 2024, he posted on X that he had "declared a new Groyper War against the 2024 Trump campaign", as "his campaign has been hijacked by the same consultants, lobbyists, & donors that he defeated in 2016, and they're blowing it", and was "headed for a catastrophic loss". He said he would not vote for Trump and his running mate, JD Vance. He questioned whether Vance would "support white identity", since Vance's wife is of Indian heritage.
Fuentes began calling for his followers to "bring the energy with memes, edits, replies, and trolls" aimed at pressuring the Trump campaign to adopt further-right positions on race and immigration, as well as urging Donald Trump to fire his campaign advisors, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. In addition to directing his followers to make their demands trend on Twitter and Truth Social, Fuentes threatened to "escalate pressure in the real world", urging followers to withhold their votes and protest Trump rallies in battleground states.
In November, Fuentes criticized Trump supporters for dressing in garbage bags after a rally where Donald Trump climbed into a garbage truck in response to President Joe Biden's remarks about his followers. He described this as a moment of realization that "Trumpism was a cult", illustrating the "slavish devotion" of its supporters, who would "just eat up anything". He stated, "That was the moment when I realized it has gone too far, it is Frankenstein's monster, we've created a golem", and characterized Trumpism as "a giant cult-like scam".
He doubled down on his negative opinion on Trump in 2025, insulting Trump shortly after both his refusal to release the Epstein files and his implied disdain for supporters of his that called for the release of said files, before stating that the "liberals were right", and that "when we look back on the history of populism in America, we are going to look back on the MAGA movement as the biggest scam in history".
== Legal issues and controversies ==
In 2022, Fuentes was caught on video hurling a drink at customers during an altercation at a Hollywood, California, In-N-Out Burger, after diners confronted him and threw ketchup cups in his direction.
=== Battery arrest ===
On November 10, 2024, Marla Rose, an activist from the city, approached his home and attempted to ring his doorbell. Allegedly, Fuentes pepper-sprayed Rose before pushing her down his front steps and taking her phone, which she was using to film the interaction. Following this incident, Fuentes was arrested on November 27 and charged with battery; he appeared in court on December 19.
=== Deplatforming ===
In January 2020, Fuentes' YouTube channel was demonetized, and one of his videos was removed by YouTube as a violation of their hate speech policies. Fuentes had previously been banned from Twitch and from Reddit. On February 14, 2020, his YouTube channel was terminated for violating policies on hate speech.
DLive has been criticized for allowing Fuentes to use their platform. Following the January 6 United States Capitol attack, his DLive channel was subsequently suspended permanently for "inciting violent and illegal activities". According to ABC News in March 2021, Fuentes had been suspended from "almost all" social media platforms. Fuentes claimed that his bank account had been frozen, that he had been placed on a federal no-fly list, and that he had been banned from Airbnb, Facebook, and Instagram. Fuentes described these actions as "overt political persecution".
Twitter was among the last mainstream social media sites to ban Fuentes, indefinitely suspending his verified account in July 2021. He has also been banned from financial and e-commerce services, including PayPal, Venmo, Patreon, Shopify, Stripe, Streamlabs, and Coinbase. On January 25, 2023, his verified Twitter account was briefly reinstated. According to Hannah Gais, a senior researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center, he immediately praised Adolf Hitler and the Unabomber and declared, "Jews run the news". Twitter banned him again the next day.
In December 2021, the social media platform Gettr permanently suspended Fuentes. The site received backlash from Fuentes' fanbase as well as from the American politician Wendy Rogers, who wrote, "What is the point of a free-speech alternative to Twitter ... that doesn't even honor free speech?" Gettr subsequently banned all use of the word "groyper" on the platform.
=== Relation to the January 6 Capitol attack ===
Fuentes was among the far-right individuals and groups who participated in the rallies that led up to the January 6 United States Capitol attack. At a pro-Trump protest in Washington, D.C., in December 2020, Fuentes led a crowd to chant "Destroy the GOP" and encouraged them to sit out the United States Senate special runoff election in Georgia. In February 2021, a video of his speech was played during the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump by the House delegate Stacey Plaskett.
Fuentes was among a group of far-right activists and groups who received large donations in bitcoin from a French donor on December 8, 2020. Fuentes received 13.5 bitcoin (approximately $681,750 at the time), which was by far the largest share. The donor also posted an apparent suicide note, according to blockchain analysis group Chainalysis. The donor's status has not yet been confirmed. The FBI began an investigation as to whether any of this money went toward the financing of illegal acts, such as the storming of the U.S. Capitol.
On December 12, 2020, at a rally the day after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Texas v. Pennsylvania, Fuentes spoke to a crowd of supporters at Freedom Plaza, stating, "It is us and our ancestors that created everything good that you see in this country. All these people that have taken over our country—we do not need them. ... It is the American people, and our leader, Donald Trump, against everybody else in this country and this world... Our Founding Fathers would get in the streets, and they would take this country back by force if necessary. And that is what we must be prepared to do."
On January 4, 2021, two days before the storming of the U.S. Capitol, Fuentes discussed killing state legislators who were unwilling to overturn the results of the 2020 election, saying, "What can you and I do to a state legislator—besides kill them? We should not do that. I'm not advising that, but I mean, what else can you do, right?"
According to several media outlets, Fuentes was part of the mob that attacked the Capitol. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that Fuentes was "visible in both livestreams and images amidst a mob of pro-Trump insurrectionists...wearing what appears to be a VIP badge." Although he did not enter the building, he allegedly shouted encouragement for the rioters to "Keep moving towards the Capitol – it appears we are taking the Capitol back! … Break down the barriers and disregard the police. The Capitol belongs to us!" Fuentes himself admitted being present during the attack but denied criminal conduct, describing rumors that an unidentified figure seen inside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office was him as "fake news".
On January 19, 2022, the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack issued a subpoena to Fuentes.
=== Ali Alexander underage sexual misconduct allegations ===
In 2023, Fuentes and associates were "embroiled in a scandal" about Fuentes's friend, Ali Alexander. Intelligencer reported on two accusers, who said Alexander "came on to them when they were teenage boys, asking for nudes from a 17-year-old and pressuring a 15-year-old to have sex with him." Fuentes was "facing criticism for allegedly trying to cover for him." U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene requested an FBI investigation, stating, "This is disgusting textbook predation of underage boys. And Nick Fuentes was in on it." One accuser said he believed Fuentes was "100 percent aware" of the alleged situation, yet did not intervene at the time. The other accuser said "Nick personally asked me to apologize to Ali for supposedly faking the messages." Fuentes denied the allegations. Milo Yiannopoulos, a "one-time Alexander ally", published interviews and alleged evidence with the two accusers. He also released a text that he alleged he sent to Fuentes in January 2022, which read, "Alexander wants to come to your events to have sex with underage boys. Snap out of it."
Alexander later apologized. He also said he was targeted by "fake accusers or literal honey pots eager to frame me", and that some of the claims were "defamatory and false". He said "nothing unlawful has occurred."
Alexander issued an apology on Friday night [April 14th, 2023] beginning with a strange intro: "This is too gay." He acknowledged he had been struggling with "SSA," a conservative Christian acronym for "same-sex attraction." He did not deny the allegations but apologized "for any inappropriate messages sent over the years," adding, "When I've flirted or others have flirted with me, I've flexed my credentials or dropped corny pick up lines. Other times, I've been careless and should've qualified those coming up to me's [sic] identities during flirtatious banter at the start."
The Daily Dot said there was an ongoing police investigation into the allegations.
=== Doxxing and alleged murder attempt ===
In November 2024, the address of Fuentes' Berwyn, Illinois, home was doxed on Twitter in response to Fuentes mocking abortion advocates in his tweet "Your body, my choice".
On December 18, 2024, at 11:30 P.M. (CST), a man armed with a pistol and a crossbow showed up at his home. The man, identified as 24-year-old John Lyons of Westchester, was suspected of killing a mother and her two adult children in Mahomet earlier in the day. After police arrived, Lyons fled, forcing his way into Fuentes' neighbor's residence, where he killed two dogs. Lyons then fled into a backyard, where he refused police commands and exchanged gunfire with them before being fatally shot. Fuentes made a statement on his X account, writing, "Last night an armed killer made an attempt on my life at my home, which was recently doxed on this platform". He also wrote, "The gunman carried a pistol, crossbow, and incendiary devices. I believe he intended to kill me. He is now dead. I am okay!"
== Media coverage ==
In 2022, BBC Two produced a docuseries episode by Louis Theroux, Forbidden America: Extreme and Online, in which Fuentes is prominently featured as part of an exploration of the American far-right online subculture.
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website
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