As Nick Fuentes' star rises in wake of Charlie Kirk's death, he quietly settles battery charge

While hosting white nationalist Nick Fuentes on his show this week, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson recognized the persistence of Fuentes’ alt-right movement.

Carlson had contemplated bringing the La Grange native on his show because of past online feuds between the two. Fuentes’ racist, misogynistic and antisemitic views have been viewed as even too extreme for some right-wingers, ostracizing him from mainstream Republicans.

But his profile has risen in the weeks since the Sept. 10 killing of far-right commentator Charlie Kirk.

“You’re clearly ascendant, you’re enormously talented. You’re more talented than I am, for sure, as a talker. There have been a lot of attempts to silence you and it hasn’t worked," Carlson said on his show, which has nearly 5 million subscribers.

“I don't think Fuentes is going away. Ben Shapiro tried to strangle him in the crib in college, and now he's bigger than ever,” Carlson added, pointing to an earlier conversation in the episode in which Fuentes claimed Shapiro, a conservative commentator, tried crushing his reputation when he started to grow a following in college.

In addition to guesting on Carlson's show, Fuentes has recently made appearances on conservative conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ talk show “Infowars," right-wing commentator Candace Owens' podcast and Libertarian Dave Smith’s “Part of the Problem,” to name a few.

Since the death of Kirk, another suburban Chicago native, Fuentes, 27, has gained more than 100,000 followers on X and Rumble, and his podcast reached the No. 1 trending spot on Spotify before it was removed from the platform in mid-October for violating its hate speech policies. His first “America First” show that aired after Kirk’s death collected more than 2.5 million views on Rumble.

Fuentes is "positioning himself as the sort of alt-Charlie Kirk,” said Hannah Gais, a senior researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “And I think since Kirk’s death, even though Fuentes isn’t quite as wrapped up in MAGA, [Fuentes] has sort of tried to position himself as being the successor to Charlie Kirk.”

Confrontation in Berwyn

But even with his growing popularity, Fuentes was able to quietly reach a deal with Cook County prosecutors earlier this month to settle a misdemeanor battery charge.

The case stems from a confrontation at his Berwyn home last November, when he pepper-sprayed and pushed a woman who came to his front door after his address was leaked online.

The woman went to confront Fuentes after he posted a message on X as the 2024 election results began to favor President Donald Trump. In the post, Fuentes mocked the idea that women have a right to control their own bodies, saying, "Your body, my choice. Forever."

Fuentes was charged with battery in the clash that ensued, but under Fuentes' agreement with prosecutors, the charge will be dismissed as long as he completes an anger management class and 75 hours of community service, pays $635 to the victim and apologizes to her in court, records show. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for early December.

Fuentes did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

‘We’re fighting for our lives … for our race’: Fuentes

Fuentes has come a long way since 2015, when as a student at Lyons Township High School, he started the “Nick Fuentes Show” on the YouTube alternative, Rumble.

He urged Trump to drop out of the presidential race during his first episode, breaking down the candidates for the 2016 presidential election.

“I, as a Tea Party Republican, believe in equality for women, believe that Black lives matter,” the 17-year-old Fuentes said in his first show. “I believe in social justice. I support sustainable development. I believe we should protect the environment, and I believe that everybody should make enough money to feed themselves and have access to health care.

“Believe it or not, Republicans and Democrats share the same objectives. The real debate is over the means to achieve them.”

But Fuentes quickly moved right and publicly backed Trump. He rose into the public eye after attending the 2017 white supremacist “unite the right rally” in Charlottesville, Virginia, as well as the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. The following year, he dined with Trump and Chicago native Ye at Mar-a-Lago.

Since then, he’s amassed hundreds of thousands of followers and viewers of his late-night show which streams five nights a week on Rumble, a platform which is popular with conservatives and where he landed as the second-most watched streamer in this year’s third quarter. Clips of the show are shared on other social media platforms, garnering millions of views.

Fuentes sells America First items, including T-shirts, hats and flags. He also makes money through Super Chats donations, which allow livestream viewers to pay money for their comment to be highlighted on the show.

Fuentes' America First Foundation made nearly $44,000 in the fiscal year ending in June 2024, according to tax records. While his foundation made about $4,000 the year prior, the nonprofit raked in about $200,000 in donations in 2022.

The America First Plus subscription service includes: $15 a month for access to the America First archives; $30 a month for the archive and an AI-powered search; and $100 a month for archive access and a group chat with Fuentes. It's unclear how much money he's earned through these channels.

Among the first young Republican livestreamers, other right-wing commentators have followed his lead of livestreaming and rhetoric as a model for their own platforms, Gais said.

“I think there’s a lot of mainstream right-wing figures, like Tucker Carlson, obviously Charlie Kirk before he died, but other people within kind of the more mainstream pro-Trump media sphere looking at Fuentes’ fandom and basically trying to find ways to connect with the ideas that are appealing to Fuentes’ base,” she said.

Pushing Republicans further right

Fuentes makes no secret of the fact he wants to push the Republican Party further right "basically through infiltration," Gais said.

For example, Fuentes' followers, who are called Groypers, named after an alt-right meme, have targeted various parts of young Republican organizing, such as Kirk's nonprofit student program Turning Point USA, Gais said.

In 2019, a group of Groypers crashed one of Kirk's debate events and pressed him on topics like Israel, the Black community, immigration and crime, and questioned why Turning Point USA didn't take more extreme stances on them.

“They want them to be more racist. They want them to break with current U.S. policy over Israel for antisemitic reasons, basically to push Jews out of public life, and I think within the movement, that’s very much been his role dating back to the first Trump administration,” Gais said of the split. Officials with Turning Point USA did not respond to a request for comment.

Fuentes hasn't endorsed a 2028 presidential candidate — and opposes Vice President JD Vance — but he said during Jones’ show that, "A Republican’s gotta win in ‘28, whoever it is.”

“We’re fighting for our lives, we’re fighting for God, we’re fighting for our country, yes, we’re fighting for our race,” Fuentes said during a recent “America First” show, when explaining, “what we mean when we say, ‘Make America great again.’”

Last December, Fuentes was the target of what he described as a "would-be assassin" who was killed in a shoot-out with police near Fuentes’ home after the man allegedly killed three people downstate. A surveillance camera on Fuentes' front porch showed the 24-year-old Westchester man wearing a motorcycle helmet and carrying what appeared to be a handgun and a crossbow. His motive for targeting Fuentes remains unclear.

After Kirk's death, a conspiracy circulated that it was Fuentes’ own followers who were responsible for Kirk’s death. But Fuentes has denied it, even claiming that his followers were "framed." And no evidence suggests Tyler Robinson, accused of Kirk’s murder, was a Fuentes follower.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Fuentes regularly tells followers

Despite his defense of Groypers, Fuentes often bickers with them on his livestream, who pay $10 for a comment to appear on his Rumble. He regularly shows disdain for them, telling them to, “Shut the f--- up,” or “kill yourself.”

In response to one commenter in a recent livestream who said if he were nicer to his followers, he’d make more money, Fuentes said, “Thanks, idiot.”

“I know like a typical woman, you think you know everything, and you think it’s your place to tell everybody what to do and just what you think. You give them a piece of your mind. Shut the f--- up. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fuentes said.

Still, the Groypers are among some of the most loyal followers of any American political influencer. And his brief run-in with the law, which likely won’t turn into a conviction on his permanent record, doesn’t even seem to be a bump in the road for Fuentes’ movement.

“I don’t think his followers really care,” Gais said of Fuentes having to complete community service and anger management.

However, Rose, the victim in the incident, said in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that she hopes the terms of the agreement send a message that there are repercussions for what he did.

“My main hope is that online bigots get the message that speech is free, yes, but there are consequences to it as well as consequences to their actions," said Rose, a 58-year-old writer and co-founder of a vegan lifestyle website. "I hope that anyone who promotes discrimination and hate in the world will see this as a reminder that even in our political climate, they will be held accountable by some of us.”