The right-wing podcast wars just got really ugly

The right-wing media ecosystem has been fracturing for some time now, but this weekend might have completely cracked the historic coalition that propelled the rise of MAGA. Some of the most dishonest operators in the media are at the center of the infighting within the American right. It’s a bitter battle for audience control that’s boiling over in ways that could spell political trouble for the GOP. 

“I used to think Jew hatred on the left was the dominant force, and I have to admit, I never realized how bad it was on the right until last year,” conspiracy theorist and top Donald Trump ally Laura Loomer wrote Sunday on X. “Conspiracies, hatred and revisionist history are all DEI copes to push others down when you want to get ahead.” Loomer’s remarks came in response to a nasty fight between one-time allies, some of the most prominent backers of the president who are now publicly criticizing him for a host of issues, including his handling of the Epstein investigation, Israel’s war in Gaza and the bombing of Iran. 

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and former Daily Wire commentator Candace Owens, who were both pushed off mainstream conservative platforms in recent years, have since veered toward extreme positions, including criticizing President Trump, to prop up their independent endeavors. While the content moderation wars have focused on social and broadcast media for years, the recent rise in popularity of podcasts has left the medium a free-for-all that operates with virtually no scrutiny. Now, the highest-rated right-wing podcast hosts regularly provide an unchallenged platform to spread lies to audiences of millions. 

During Carlson’s most recent podcast, a tedious two-hour slog released on Friday, he and Owens rehashed their longstanding grievance with what they describe as the hypocrisy of pro-Israel donors in revoking college funding over pro-Palestinian protests following the Oct. 7 attacks, after they allegedly remained silent as diversity initiatives were introduced in response to the Black Lives Matter protests. The two also attacked the right-wing Daily Wire, whose co-founder Ben Shapiro called his former employee Owens “disgraceful” for criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza, and followed up his critique by saying “Christ is King.” 

Owens made her name on the right by casting doubt on women’s accounts of harassment during the Gamergate scandal, which peaked in 2014 and 2015. In her conversation with Carlson, she promoted her attempts to rehabilitate convicted sex predator Harvey Weinstein, which have included a jailhouse interview, to try and prove some sort of antisemitic conspiracy, even though Weinstein is Jewish. It was all hard to follow, presumably deliberately. After all, Owens has regularly pushed the ever-reliable conspiracy theory that Jewish elites secretly control Hollywood. 

The most notable part of Carlson’s interview with Owens came at the end. The show’s final segments revealed that the petty, personal politics of the right-wing’s biggest media personalities are a driving animus that seems almost blinding. Carlson asked Owens about her recent interview with 26-year-old far-right podcaster Nick Fuentes, who works to mainstream antisemitism and white supremacy, and was infamously invited to dine with Trump and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago in 2022. Owens said that while she enjoyed her time with Fuentes, whom she invited to her home studio, she thought the overall experience with him was “entirely fraudulent.” 

Fuentes fired back, calling her a “DEI hire” and an “Uncle Tom token Black” to his Groyper fanbase. “DEI is over, so now you are fired,” he said.

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Fuentes represents the darkness inside of a lot of Owens’ following, one she’s all too happy to continue cultivating for cash. Fuentes, whose audience is considerably smaller than both Owens’ and Carlson’s, is the only true ideologue in the bunch and essentially views their bigotry as insincere because they did not defend him from criticism in the past. 

You might think that Carlson, a major promoter of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, would share a lot in common with Fuentes. But the new MAGA media faultlines aren’t so clear. Fuentes correctly identifies that Carlson is a dishonest fraud who plays a populist character, when in fact he is an elitist who has contempt for his audience. Fuentes, Carlson said on his show, is a “weird little gay kid living in his basement in Chicago” who is “clearly part of a campaign to discredit non-crazy right voices.” 

In response to the attack, Fuentes posted a photo of Carlson with the actor Kevin Spacey, who has faced multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. (Spacey has denied allegations of sexual impropriety.) Fuentes has also repeatedly criticized Carlson over his father’s links to the CIA, something Carlson laughably denied knowing about until his father’s death earlier this year. Loomer, meanwhile, also piled on Carlson on X over the weekend. “I don’t care if he criticizes Israel. He is just a liar and a propagandist. And deep down, he’s a Trump hater too.”

In this circle of awful people, Fuentes is the scariest character. His audience can’t be bullied off their support for him; his career and popularity remain in ascendance, despite being banned from multiple social media sites for violating hate speech policies. The threat Fuentes poses to other right-wing competitors is that their usual tactics for cutting each other down likely won’t work on him. He is in no way beholden to the GOP. He didn’t even endorse Trump in 2024. In any far-right purity contest, Nick Fuentes will easily win against people who are still merely using dog whistles. 

Eventually, grifters like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens touch the sun. Their vague hints at hidden knowledge turn into manipulation. Such pundits often become prisoners of their own persona, trapped in an escalating addiction driven by monetization incentives. Rarely is the ridiculous performance revealed to their own echo chamber. So while Fuentes may survive longer as a true believer, he’ll never gain as much money and influence as the grifters.

To be sure, the same thing often happens on left-leaning podcasts — and it’s just as exhausting to slog through. Watching the MAGA snake eat itself is one of the few silver linings in the Trump era. There is some fleeting comfort in knowing how much the people who hate everyone also hate each other. It’s kind of like “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” But at least that family’s wealth provides an aesthetically pleasing background.

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