On paper, Thursday night’s sitdown between Vice President J.D. Vance and Sean Hannity, the Fox News primetime host closest to President Donald Trump and the Republican political class, offered both prominent MAGA figures a prime opportunity to demonstrate that they will not allow a faction of virulent antisemites to take over the GOP.

A power struggle over the future of the MAGA movement has been underway ever since Tucker Carlson published a friendly interview last month with Nick Fuentes, the prominent white nationalist streamer whose Holocaust denial and open bigotry had once rendered him radioactive in mainstream GOP circles. Some conservatives are sounding the alarm over the increasing influence of Fuentes’ “groyper” movement within the ranks of young party staffers.

Vance and Hannity could have used Thursday’s interview to pick a side — perhaps laying down a marker before an audience of millions that there is no place in their movement for someone who called last month for the mass expulsion of America’s Jews, Muslims and Hindus, and complained in March: “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.” 

But instead they passed. The Fox propagandist offered his typical softballs to the vice president, who gave glowing praise of Trump and blamed immigrants and Democrats for the country’s economic woes, while the Fuentes question went unasked and unanswered.

That silence is part of a pattern for Fox, the largest and most powerful right-wing outlet, where Carlson’s interview with Fuentes and the ensuing right-wing eruption has still never been mentioned on air, according to a Media Matters review. The network’s total blackout of the story comes as the editors of National Review and the Murdochs’ New York Post and Wall Street Journal urge the right to take a stand against the hatred Fuentes represents.

Vance’s failure to address the dispute on Thursday is another blow to the conservatives who have urged him to step up and keep Fuentes’ faction at bay.

“It's become very clear, in retrospect, that Charlie Kirk was holding the Right together and that we need J.D. Vance to step into that role, which will require settling disputes and laying out the boundaries of the coalition,” the Manhattan Institute’s anti-woke warrior Christopher Rufo argued on Monday. 

Rod Dreher, a Budapest-based post-liberal and harsh critic of Carlson's promotion of Fuentes, wrote at Bari Weiss’ Free Press on Wednesday: “Who’s left to save the right, and America, from this rising extremism? For me, the answer can only be J.D. Vance.” 

Dreher went on to offer an extensive explanation of why Vance “is the only Republican of his stature who can provide” the necessary “uncompromising moral and political leadership,” and provided him a roadmap of how he could “condemn” Fuentes and “seize the day.”

But Vance’s ongoing refusal to address the controversy suggests that this argument, at least for now, amounts to wishful thinking. The closest Vance has come to mentioning the split was a November 5 post, written at the height of the firestorm, in which he criticized “infighting” and suggested he would “work together” with anyone who shared his views about economics, immigration, and foreign policy: 

The infighting is stupid. I care about my fellow citizens--particularly young Americans--being able to afford a decent life, I care about immigration and our sovereignty, and I care about establishing peace overseas so our resources can be focused at home. If you care about those things too, let's work together.

Vance has consistently refused to condemn bigotry on the right since taking office in January. He dismissed the “pearl clutching” over leaked racist messages from a Young Republicans group chat, and called for the rehiring of an administration staffer canned over racist posts, saying he doesn’t “think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.”

But Vance was willing to condemn Fuentes during the 2024 presidential campaign, saying on CBS News last August: “I think the guy's a total loser. Certainly I disavow him.”

Vance’s shift from openly condemning Fuentes to suggesting he has no issue being in a coalition with his ilk is another sign of the increasing influence of this antisemitic faction within the GOP. 

The impact of Carlson welcoming Fuentes into the movement also looms large. The former Fox host was one of Vance’s primary boosters, playing a crucial role in his rise first to the Senate and then to the vice presidency. That history makes it difficult to imagine Vance throwing Carlson under the bus. But right-wing operators who have tried to denounce Fuentes’ bigotry without criticizing Carlson end up like the Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts, who pleased no one while effectively arguing that he is ignorant and easily manipulated.

So as Carlson shreds other right-wing media figures like Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro, and tries to purge GOP politicians like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Vance is remaining on the sidelines. He is allowing Carlson to shape the battlefield that he and other Republican presidential candidates will face in 2028 — one in which Fuentes will have more influence, not less.