Screenshot of Fuentes and Richard Spencer over Zoom

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White nationalists Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes highlight the failures of Trump and the GOP while celebrating a surge in support for their worldview

Spencer credited Fuentes with a “sea change when it comes to young conservatives,” saying, “The kids are on your side”

Written by Jack Wheatley

Published

During their annual joint livestream, white nationalists Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes criticized President Donald Trump's policies and governance, bemoaned the state of the Republican Party, and cheered the continuing shift of conservative discourse in favor of Spencer and Fuentes' ideology, crediting Fuentes as well as a failing Trump administration. 

Fuentes described the Trump White House as “a criminal enterprise” and a “total failure in terms of governance.” 

Fuentes questioned whether Vice President JD Vance will “be with the Jews or … with the groypers”; Spencer claimed the GOP “fumbled” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s death, which could have been a “Reichstag fire of sorts”; and Spencer used YouTuber Brett Cooper’s latest refusal to disavow Fuentes as an example that “the kids are on your side.”

Here are some of the most notable moments of the interview:

Key moments

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  • 1. Richard Spencer claimed the “conservative movement has somehow blown the Charlie Kirk death”

    At the onset of their conversation, Spencer claimed the “conservative movement has somehow blown the Charlie Kirk death” and argued it “fumbled” what could have been “a Reichstag fire of sorts.” Fuentes agreed, suggesting it was an “extraordinary missed opportunity” to crack down on the left.

    From Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes' December 11, 2025, livestream, uploaded to Rumble

    RICHARD SPENCER: Just to give my, I guess, opinion before I ask the question. I feel like the conservative movement has somehow blown the Charlie Kirk death in a way that is almost unbelievable.

    It was almost like a giant W was delivered to them on a silver platter, and they have fumbled it. And let me give a few reasons why they've done that. They're not really talking about political violence and the left so much as they are talking — they're trying to sanctify Charlie Kirk, basically. So it all becomes some special thing about Charlie. That he was uniquely wonderful, and that's why they killed him and so on. The Erica Kirk ongoing media tour is fine once, twice it becomes a little old, and on her 14th appearance crying, I find it unbearable and cringe and weird, to be honest. And I don't think I'm alone in that. I think everyone is reacting like that to it. 

    When Charlie Kirk was killed, there was a lot of tough talk on the dissident right of, you know, I heard this all over the place, “We've got two weeks to crack down. We can destroy the left right now. They hate you. They want to kill you. They want you starving and blah blah blah blah.”

    You heard all of that, and it does seem like he missed his moment. It's almost like during – I mean, to use a analogy that I might regret, it's almost like there was a Reichstag fire of sorts, and Hitler decided that he wanted to roast marshmallows as opposed to engaging the Enabling Act. What are some of your thoughts on this in terms of Charlie, what's happened with the right, the response, and all of that?

    NICK FUENTES: Yeah. I totally agree. I had the exact same feeling, and I've been thinking about that for the past couple of weeks. It's an extraordinary missed opportunity because, like you said, it's handed to us on a silver platter. Here's a liberal Democrat, goes to a free speech campus event, shoots the number one guy.

    And instead of that being the narrative, which is crack down on the left — and it's not like that's unprecedented either. Obama did it, Biden did it, whether it was January 6 or Sandy Hook. Whenever there's a mass casualty event or a tragedy, they very effectively weaponize the bureaucracy, whether they do the backdoor gun control or they get everybody with the DOJ, they always use it to expand liberal power, create a new agency, whatever.

    And there was a lot of tough talk like that from certain sections, like Stephen Miller had a speech at the Charlie Kirk WrestleMania memorial, and he goes up and he goes, “You are nothing. You don't build anything.” And he's talking to, like, the anarchists. 

    SPENCER: Right.

    FUENTES: And that's really what all of this is. It's all that and signifying nothing. The sound and fury signifying nothing. All the anger, the performative cruelty. We could just “do things,” and, “You're going back. You've got 50 days.” And, it's just — you might as well have Mitt Romney as president. You might as well have Ron DeSantis. I mean, it's totally toothless.

  • 2. Nick Fuentes: “The right wing is going to devour itself”

    Criticizing various factions within the MAGA movement, Fuentes claimed the response to Kirk’s death “speaks to how the contradictions of MAGA are going to destabilize the right wing when Trump is gone.” He said 2028 is “going to be wide open,” questioned whether Vance is “going to be with the Jews or … with the groypers,” and claimed: “The right wing is going to devour itself.”

    From Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes' December 11, 2025, livestream, uploaded to Rumble

    NICK FUENTES: And I would say maybe to add onto that, it's interesting where it went instead, which is — that was sort of like part one is the sanctification of Charlie Kirk, and he ascended into heaven and everything. But part two is this Candace Owens — we have to talk about the psychosis and this sort of like QAnon on steroids. Like, it went into a direction where it turned inwardly on itself. And I think this speaks to how the contradictions of MAGA are going to destabilize the right wing when Trump is gone.

    You're getting, like, a preview because the Trump movement is filled with contradictions and sort of unresolved conflict between, like, the base and the establishment or the donors. And he's been holding it together through the strength of his charisma and his personality. You know, all the contradictions or compromises are washed away. These people just defer to him. They kick it up to him.

    And that's really where Charlie Kirk derived his credibility. He was like a Trump sycophant, a Trump glazer, Trump ally, whatever. And with Charlie out of the picture and soon to be Trump out of the picture, it's like you're starting to see now that 2028 is on the horizon, there's, like, all this conflict about, you know, is Erika Kirk an alien or is she a grieving widow? Is, like, you know, is JD Vance going to be with the Jews or is he going to be with the groypers?

    So I think it's pointing toward the right wing is going to devour itself, and you got chaos on the left, and now you're going to have total chaos on the right. ‘28’s going to be wide open. So that's sort of what I would add to it is how it seems to be eating itself now.

  • 3. Spencer and Fuentes deeply criticized Trump, with Fuentes saying the administration has been “a criminal enterprise” and a “total failure in terms of governance”

    Spencer claimed the right “never can rule” and Fuentes said the administration has “been a complete failure, total failure in terms of governance.” Fuentes also described the Trump administration as “a criminal enterprise” that “seems to be all about their personal enrichment” and stated that “there is something inherently destructive about Trumpism.” He added, “I don't know that the Republican Party will survive when Trump does not deliver on anything.”

    From Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes' December 11, 2025, livestream, uploaded to Rumble

    RICHARD SPENCER: What I'm getting at here is that there does seem to be an asymmetry between left and right in those ways. And there's also this way in which the right can't rule, and it never can rule because it's always the kids at the kids table as opposed to the adults table. It's always the people outside of the restaurant smoking a cigarette, theorizing about how the restaurant is secretly poisoning you, as opposed to the people in the restaurant and the customers and the wait staff and the chef. They, like, you can't have Kash Patel as the FBI director, someone who declared that he wanted to destroy the FBI and make it into a museum. You can't — the outsider can't be the insider. And so, it's almost like inevitably going to turn out this way, where in order to truly reflect and represent the base, you have conspiracy theorists in office. And they're almost, you know, investigating themselves or, like, denouncing themselves. There's this chaotic energy to the right that was amplified by Trumpism that was there in 2016 and I think is even more powerful now. And it just — on some psychic level, it can actually never govern anything.

    NICK FUENTES: Yeah. I think there's a lot of truth to that, and you can even tell in terms of how the Trump movement has completely failed to institutionalize any of its reforms. You know, I think that when you look across the board, even these guys like Claremont, let's say, or DOGE that came in with all these PayPal mafia people, is any of that going to be around in a couple of years? Is any of that going to be around after Trump leaves office? I don't think so. I think the ball is going to fall back squarely into the lap of the old guard institutions that hung around, maybe that didn't go crazy. And so, I think you're right. 

    There is something inherently destructive about Trumpism. It almost seems like, you know, maybe in a roundabout way, they were kind of right about how he, in the end, is going to tank everything, is going to destroy everything. Because you look at where Trump is now, his approval's in the toilet, favorability's in the toilet on all the issues. 

    And what's more, it's not just that it's conspiracy theorists in the government, but it's like a criminal enterprise, which almost no one's talking about, but they're all looting. And that's really what Charlie Kirk was doing. That's really what Turning Point was is it was like a nonprofit that was hiring contractors that were owned by the board members of the nonprofit. It was just, like, kind of facilitating, it was just like this graft in the same way that the Trump administration with, like, Howard Lutnick and Steve Witkoff and David Sacks, these guys are like, it seems to be like criminals. It seems to be all about their personal enrichment. And I think that the Epstein files is a really good example of that. I think this relationship with Netanyahu and Trump is a good example of that. And not least of all because it's, you know, Jewish or Israeli, but because it shows how the state is just being turned inside out and used by these, like, clearly conflict-of-interest-type people. 

    And I don't know that the Republican Party will survive when Trump does not deliver on anything. In three years, what's going to be the excuse? You know, in 2020, you could say, well, we had the pandemic, and we need four more years to keep America great. But OK, you got your second shot. You fought back. You learned your lesson, whatever. OK. In three years, if we have a bad economy, we're still at war with Russia, if there's not actually measurable results, and all that happened was, like, rank corruption and disappointment and embarrassment, I don't know that there's going to be a salvageable party. 

    And you'll see that play out in the primary between someone like — you'll see it in the contradictions in someone like Vance, where Vance is going to try to be everything to everybody. And I don't think he's going to be able to – that's not going to hold together. I think that you're going to wind up with somebody maybe like Rubio or DeSantis, or you're going to wind up, in other words, with like a refortified center right actually. And so, so, yeah. I tend to agree. I think that the whole thing has been a complete failure, total failure in terms of governance.

  • 4. Spencer to Fuentes: “The kids are on your side”

    Spencer described “a tremendous change” and a “sea change when it comes to young conservatives,” specifically crediting Fuentes. He also said that Brett Cooper’s latest refusal to disavow Fuentes is an example showing that “the kids are on your side.” 

    From Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes' December 11, 2025, livestream, uploaded to Rumble

    RICHARD SPENCER: The last time you were here, we definitely talked about this, of this sea change when it comes to young conservatives. And I think you caused a lot of it. I think you're riding the wave of other things that you didn't cause, but that you're almost like a representative of this. But just speaking as an older man, I could not imagine Brett Cooper being asked, like, “Do you denounce David Duke?” and her kind of like squirming and — “Well, not exactly. I don't want to denounce anyone, and I disagree here and there, but.” Like, I — it would have just been a flat, “He's evil.” And I'm just — I'm not trying to pick on her by any stretch. I'm just using her as an example of the kids are on your side, and it's been a tremendous change. I think kids in general, left-wing kids are even more anti-Israel, but there actually has been a change.

  • 5. Spencer: Donald Trump Jr, JD Vance, and others “want to have their cake and eat it too” with respect to Israel

    Spencer also claimed that some in right-wing media and politics, including Vice President JD Vance, are attempting to “have their cake and eat it too” by trying to appeal to anti-Israel ideology while enacting pro-Israeli policies. He claimed Vance is trying to “benefit from the energy that pushes against Israel, pushes against Jewish influence altogether. But then they want to have policies that counter it.” He also argued that disavowing Fuentes may be disadvantageous for future candidates, arguing: “You don’t want to countersignal the kids online, many of whom are saying things that you can’t, many of whom are saying things that push directly against Israel.” 

    From Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes' December 11, 2025, livestream, uploaded to Rumble

    RICHARD SPENCER: So in 2016, the alt-right was pretty unique in being willing to criticize Israel or delve into, quote, antisemitism. That was a new thing that what you would see in among older figures like, say, David Duke, for example, but even he didn't stress that kind of thing when he was running for office. He sounded a lot like a Republican, in fact. But the alt-right going out there, that was something really unique. And I feel like the dam has broken with these young kids.

    …

    So with someone like Vance, he — even though he has denounced you in some way. He denounced me actually very early on, but that was in a different variation. He had a different name at the time, was sort of a friend of Barack Obama, and who knew — but how does someone like that navigate it? 

    Because it's not just Brett Cooper. It's Donald Trump Jr. It's JD Vance. They want to benefit from the energy that pushes against Israel, pushes against Jewish influence altogether. But then they want to have policies that counter it. They want to have their cake and eat it too. And do you think that they're going to even be able to navigate it? 

    And just one more thing just to set the conversation off. One of these, like, former aerobics instructors who's now a commentator, she was saying like, “Unless you denounce Nick Fuentes, you will lose. You'll get 10% of the vote. Everyone might — .” And I'm like, I'm not just saying that because you're here and we're friendly. I don't think that's even true. And it might be something closer to the opposite now, where you don't want to countersignal the kids online, many of whom are saying things that you can't, and many of whom are saying things that push directly against Israel.

  • 6. Fuentes criticized the implementation of Trump’s tariff policy as “totally incompetent” and alleged his failure will cause the right to “all go down with the ship”

    Spencer and Fuentes specifically criticized Trump's tariff policy, with Spencer calling the rollout “absurd” and Fuentes adding that Trump’s implementation was “totally incompetent,” “totally disorganized,” and “sloppy.” Spencer said Trump’s approach on tariffs seems “haphazard and about deal-making on an almost personal level, where I don't think it's going to accomplish anything.” Spencer also said that there was “no rationale to give Trump the benefit of the doubt” on tariffs, and Fuentes expressed concern that Trump's failures on tariffs and other policies will “actually just fortif[y] that center-left liberalism,” claiming, “We all go down with the ship.”

    From Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes' December 11, 2025, livestream, uploaded to Rumble

    RICHARD SPENCER: I can remember throughout my career in paleo-conservatism, there was always some guy who would come up and talk about tariffs and trade policy and industrial policy and so on.

    …

    I'm sympathetic toward this idea, and it almost seems like this idea has been ruined for a generation. The rollout was absurd. They're tariffing coffee that we can't even make here. They're just — there's no real industrial policy, like there was to a degree with the CHIP Act. There's no industrial policy of like let's not just collect money from importers, but let's actually create an industry by subsidizing it, making it a national priority.

    It does seem to be like Trump wants to brag about collecting money from tariffs and wants to make deals with other countries. You know, we're going to slap 40% on you. Oh, you come give us something. We'll take it down, maybe bring it up. It seems haphazard and about deal-making on an almost personal level where I don't think it's going to accomplish anything, and there's been no evidence — now granted, it's just been a year — but there's no evidence that this is actually improving our manufacturing base. Manufacturing continues to decline. And there — I've actually heard one justification of it of, you know, if you want to build, say, a couch with leather or something like that, you'll bring in the leather, it gets tariffed, you put it on a couch. It's a few-step process. If you're going to build a car or a computer, this is something that includes thousands of moving parts. Do you want to tariff each and every one of those things as they come in and build it here? No, you want to build it out there and then just tariff it once. It's, if anything, just simpler. 

    So there seems to be no rationale to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he wants an America of manufacturing and tariffs and unions even and coal miners and whatever, in some dreamy vision of his childhood. But if there's no policy, you sort of destroy the idea in a way. Because if their — if the AI investment bonanza is what is promoting the stock market, it's what — it's how the economy is limping on. If that pops and stuff is just more expensive, then these ideas, which, again, I'm sympathetic toward the ideas, maybe less so now. But these ideas are going to be ruined forever by this man. And I think, actually, that is sad.

    …

    NICK FUENTES: Like you said, the way that the tariffs have been carried out, it's like everything else. It's totally incompetent, totally disorganized, it's sloppy. It seems like it's more aimed at satisfying the approval ratings, checking off a box, than it is actually about a serious transformation of the economy. Because that's really what this entails. If you're going to turn into a mercantilist or a protectionist economy, you're totally changing the structure of what America's economy is in the mix. Going from, like, 10% productive sector to 25%, you know, having an economy dominated by finance, insurance, and real estate to actual manufacturing, that would involve, like, a wholesale change, tariffs, subsidies, a new tariff schedule.

    …

    And what's going to happen is if or when this doesn't work out, this will be scapegoated and blamed. And people will say, remember the tariffs that wrecked the economy? Remember — We tried that. It didn't work. And then it's almost like it would have been better if we never tried it at all than if we tried it and did it the wrong way, and then we get blamed for it.

    And I feel that way about the whole enterprise actually, about the whole thing. Because it's like Trump represents not just that, but also the nativist agenda, the isolationism, or America First, whatever, all these different policies. If it's a failure, we all go down with the ship, and it actually just fortifies that center-left liberalism.