TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The tragic assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk seems to have divided America even more. President Donald Trump and some members of his administration started blaming the, quote, "radical left" before anything was even known about the killer's motivation. Democrats and Republicans have grown more worried about their own security, but many Americans who didn't follow Kirk or closely follow politics may not have known much about him until he was murdered. My guest Robert Draper profiled Charlie Kirk earlier this year in The New York Times magazine. Draper covers the political dynamics of the right wing. He's also profiled the right-wing extremist Nick Fuentes, who was a rival of Kirk's, with a large following of young white men, and Laura Loomer, a self-appointed Trump enforcer, who goes after people who she sees as disloyal to Trump, trying and sometimes succeeding in getting them fired or leaving office. Charlie Kirk founded Turning Point USA when he was 18 and grew it into what Draper describes as the preeminent conservative youth organization. Kirk was so close with Trump that after Kirk's death, Trump wrote on X, I love you, brother. We're going to talk about how Kirk became such a powerful figure on the right and what he stood for.
Robert Draper, welcome back to FRESH AIR. I've learned a lot from your writing. I want to start with, before we get to more about Charlie Kirk himself, what do you think have been some of the most significant reactions to the assassination coming from President Trump and within his administration?
ROBERT DRAPER: Sure, Terry. Thanks for having me on. I think among the most significant reactions from President Trump has been his order that flags be flown at half-mast. That, after all, is a distinction that is reserved usually for public officials, for people who have achieved national renown, who may or may not be within the political arena but who are generally seen to be unifying. And that's not the case with Kirk. He would, if he were alive today, be the first to admit that he did not see it as his mission to be a unifying figure but, rather, to express a point of view. And so that order, I think, not only reflects the importance of Charlie Kirk within the conservative ecosystem, but it's also personal importance to President Trump himself because Kirk was so close to the Trump family.
I think as well that JD Vance, the vice president, who was exceedingly close to Kirk - and I think in Vance administration, Kirk would have almost certainly been a top adviser of his - that Vance would volunteer to host Charlie Kirk's podcast, as he did on Monday is, again, the kind of thing you don't see from most administrations and a reflection of Kirk's importance to the administration and to the conservative movement writ large.
GROSS: President Trump said that the radical left is directly responsible for the terrorism we're seeing in our country today. My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it. It's hard to tell who he means and what he means, but what organizations - who does he see as the radical left? What defines the radical left for him? There are a lot of other similar statements coming out of his administration. How are you interpreting those statements?
DRAPER: Well, I'm interpreting them, at least at the moment, as being conspiratorial in nature. It's through Kirk's close associates, including Kirk's widow, Erika. But from the president of the United States, as well, we've been hearing a lot of the third-person plural - the word they - when, as far as we know, the alleged gunman acted alone, not in any kind of confederation, with any group. But what the president seems to be suggesting, Terry, is that the language directed at Charlie Kirk and by extension to people influential on the right has been so incendiary that it created an environment where an attack on Charlie Kirk and other attacks of this kind would seem to be inevitable. It seems to be that that's what he and Vance and others have been suggesting.
And look, this is a very, very old trope. Rush Limbaugh used to say it all the time, that we conservatives are always peace-loving. We always do things in an orderly and lawful manner. It's the radical left that riots in the streets, that targets people for assassination. But this, in any event, has been a mode of thinking for people on the right for a while, that whenever violence is committed, it's the left doing it.
GROSS: The way you describe it, it sounds like Charlie Kirk was on the verge of going to college when he was around 18. He spoke at an event, and a wealthy potential donor heard him and said, look, don't go to college. You'd be better off just being, you know, like, an organizer. Be a political voice. You're great at that. And that's how Charlie Kirk ended up becoming, you know, a youth organizer in the conservative movement. How did he get from there to actually meeting Vance, meeting Don Jr., meeting Trump? Like, you can you connect those dots for us?
DRAPER: Sure. It's worthwhile recalling that during this whole period that you've described from 2010 to 2016, the president of the United States is Barack Obama, and to young voters, to people on college campuses, Obama epitomized cool. And by turn, Mitt Romney and other Republican leaders were manifestly uncool. And Kirk set about for himself the mission of making it cool to be a conservative. That was a pretty uphill climb until Donald Trump became the nominee. And here we had this outsider, this successful businessman, a person who had very high name ID for reasons having nothing to do with politics but, instead, the reality TV show that he starred in, "The Apprentice." And so that kind of sets the stage.
In Kirk's growth in the early years of Turning Point USA, very early on, it became clear that he had this facility for impressing older conservatives as the kind of good son, the son they never had or the son they wish they had, and ingratiating himself with them and getting money out of them. He was really, really talented for a kid in his late teens and early 20s at getting big donations, and these donations enabled him to then go before larger groups and finally to the Republican convention in 2016, where he was the youngest speaker at that event. And so Trump's people saw immediate value in him. And that certainly included the president himself.
GROSS: So when Charlie Kirk decided that Republicans had to be cool because Obama was cool, and Republicans just weren't, what was Kirk's recipe for making it cool to be a Republican?
DRAPER: The chief ingredient to that recipe was first promoting the viewpoint that Democrats and Obama were not as cool as they seemed, that, in fact, the Democratic Party was becoming increasingly uncool because it policed free speech on campuses. They would not allow dissenting voices on the right. And here, by contrast, you had a guy like Donald Trump, who told things like they were, who was, as he put it memorably in, I think, the first debate amongst Republican candidates, against political correctness, that we don't have time for that. And that became an immediately attractive feature for particularly, I would say, young males who were beginning to see for themselves a very dubious future in a country ruled by Democrats, who were basically in the view of these males, mainly white males, placing them in a state of apology, saying, in effect, you're the ones. Your demographic is what has made the country so wrong track in so many ways. All of what has taken place that is bad in America is due to the white male patriarchy. And Trump, in essence, was saying, that's not true. Don't feel badly about yourself. Feel great about yourself. And Charlie Kirk was very much an exponent of that viewpoint.
GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you 'cause we need to take a short break here. My guest is Robert Draper. He profiled Charlie Kirk earlier this year in The New York Times magazine. He covers the political dynamics of the right wing. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF SLOWBERN'S "WHEN WAR WAS KING")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview I recorded yesterday with Robert Draper, who profiled Charlie Kirk earlier this year in The New York Times magazine. Draper covers the political dynamics of the right wing.
You traveled with Charlie Kirk when you were profiling him, and you went to several college campuses with him, heard him debate with college students, heard him speak. He's been praised frequently as a terrific debater. I've seen videos of some of those, you know, Q&A debates, and it seemed kind of like an unequal playing field in the sense that, like, Charlie Kirk's in the power position on stage. And then the students are lining up at a microphone. And in the clips that I heard, 'cause there's a whole reel of clips, and I don't know who cherry picked them and what that person or group's motivation was, but at least in that clip reel, the students at the microphone seem very unprepared to defend their point of view, to make a case for themselves. They seemed kind of stuck on what to say when Kirk challenged them, whereas Kirk is a very, very experienced public speaker who had access to the halls of power. And so it seems like he'd likely win, you know, so to speak, in a playing field like that.
DRAPER: Right. Well, but in a way, Terry, that's the message, as you described it, that the message that Charlie Kirk was essentially promoting was that so many people on the left, so many young people in particular, it's not really their fault, they've just been indoctrinated, and they're just spouting stuff that they haven't really thought through. And it doesn't take much just a follow-up question to expose their ignorance on these particular issues. So - and Kirk was particularly effective in these moments, Terry, because he wasn't cruel. You know, he didn't mock them and say, you're a freaking idiot. Sit down, you moron. In fact, oftentimes, he would issue the invitation, you know, then - so now that we've had this conversation, are you're more likely to consider Donald Trump? And there were often these moments that you'd see on these clips where a kid might say yes, and then Kirk would say, give him a MAGA cap and then, you know, there'd be this big uproar of approval, and the kid would beam with, you know, kind of goofy pride, realizing that he was now, you know, part of a new group on campus. And this again, fed the notion that Kirk had been promoting since the outset of TPUSA that, see, we're the cool ones on campus, and we've even got a cap that we've got kids on campus wearing where before it was considered forboden
GROSS: Charlie Kirk advocated for free speech and was known for not preaching violence, but instead engaging in dialogue. But his group Project USA started Professor Watchlist. Would you describe what that list is?
DRAPER: Yes. It was basically a watchlist of...
GROSS: Is it is or was? Does that still exist?
DRAPER: Not formally, no, no. I mean, it's - I don't think such a list is even necessary anymore now that so many conservative kids on campus recognize that they've got the power to chill academics from issuing a left-wing point of view. But back around, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, Turning Point USA's watchlist essentially provided a safe space for students to say, OK, Professor X here on this campus has been saying that, you know, Trump is a Nazi or has been saying that the right is historically wrong about almost everything and that the white male patriarchy is the root of all evil. And so, using that then, Turning Point USA would focus a harsh spotlight on that individual, that professor, who then, you know, might have to explain him or herself to a college dean, who's saying, you know, we're getting a lot of incoming from parents who are sending their kids here or from members of the media about this. What have you to say for yourself? And of course, it could create a chilling effect on what they say, or even worse, could lead to them being drummed out of the university. So in that sense, Kirk, it was very early to the cause of silencing voices on the left.
GROSS: Yeah. And I think the watchlist was supposed to out professors who advance a radical agenda.
DRAPER: Yes. Right.
GROSS: But what is a radical agenda? If you assign a Toni Morrison book, is that a radical agenda?
DRAPER: Well, I mean, the question answers itself to you and me, no. I mean, Toni Morrison is a, you know, writer of literary masterpieces, but, you know, there are also people on the left who were saying that we should not teach, you know, "Tom Sawyer," "Huckleberry Finn" in classes because of the language that is in those books. And again, Turning Point USA was very adroit at catching the left in perceived overstepping and censoring while at the same time, engaging in that practice themselves.
GROSS: Let's talk about some of the views that most defined Charlie Kirk. He was anti-immigration. He had certain beliefs of what it took to be an American. And he had an episode all about, you know, what does it mean to be American? And I want to play a short excerpt of that.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE CHARLIE KIRK SHOW")
CHARLIE KIRK: The defining issue of the year of our lord, 2025, going into 2026, 2027, on American right, is one that we are totally unprepared for, which is what is an American? And most people look at me and they say, well, an American is just someone that has a U.S. passport. Zohran Mamdani has a U.S. passport. Omar Fateh has a U.S. passport. Ilhan Omar is a member of Congress. Do you consider that to be a fellow American? If America is just a passport, then America is dead. We are nothing more than a colony, nothing more than just paperwork. It's reverence for the Constitution. It's all in for not just the ideas, but the story. You need to come with humility that you are part of this project. If America is just the passport, then we are just the colony for Earth, a pile of wealth to loot. And that's how Somalis treat it. In the era of mass transportation and cheap airfare, this was inevitable - that mass migration would become the story of the 21st century, including the Feeding Our Future scam and all this stuff. And I don't say this with any hate for the individuals. I'm just asking a very simple question. If you're not an American, that's fine. Go back to your place of origin. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to harm you. I'm not going to imprison you. Just go back. Hasta la vista. But we have a culture to protect. We have a country to love. No man can serve two masters. Christ our Lord said that. We have a heritage to preserve.
And people say, oh, Charlie, you're just talking about white supremacy. Now, I literally have just carved out Clarence - not carved out, but I've mentioned, you know, Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell. I mean, I could go on and on and on. Our entire Blexit team - they're 100% amazing Americans. So you have to try to - you have to be willing to have this conversation while they call you all these nasty words. And my Cuban American friends are amazing. Marco Rubio? Marco Rubio's an American. I could run the gamut. Are you kidding me?
GROSS: OK. That was Charlie Kirk on his podcast. Can you expand on what you know about Charlie Kirk's views on immigration?
DRAPER: Yes, I can. It - I do need to point out at first that it's surprising to hear Charlie say that no one can serve two masters when he knew full well that Jesus Christ had said, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. And so there had always been embedded into the Constitution an understanding of a separation between church and state, and that one could revere both at the same time. But this was, Terry, becoming a real animating concern for Kirk - the growing population, particularly of Muslims, and what that portended for the American character. I heard that from him a lot over the last year or so of his life.
In many ways, Kirk was becoming more nuanced in his right-wing views, but in other ways, he was tilting further to the right. And this was one of them, that he was beginning to think, you know, it's time to oppose even legal immigration. And the language that we've heard there is Kirk saying, in essence, to be an American, you - it's not just that you have to love this country, but you have to love what the country stands for. And to him, it stood for beliefs that are innately Christian. That is something that he had been exploring for years and was finally concluding - that you really could not extricate the church from the state in that regard.
GROSS: Did he subscribe to the great replacement theory that people of color, Muslims, Jews are trying to replace white people or will end up replacing white people, and that will totally change America as we know it?
DRAPER: It's a great question. And the short answer is, for the most part, yes, though Charlie would become a bit slippery when pressed on it. So on the great replacement theory, is this an intentional act on the part of Democrats? And a lot of people on the right were and are unrestrained in saying, yes, this is exactly what the Biden administration was up to. They were opening the border to people who they believed would then become Democratic voters and/or just voters who would do the bidding of Democrats. And in this manner, the country would become increasingly Democratic, but also increasingly populated by foreign people who had no interest in assimilating, and their only real political interest was just doing whatever the Democrats told them to.
When I would ask Kirk about this, he hemmed and hawed a bit. He did believe that there were elements of the Democratic Party that saw immigrants as innately left-leaning or at least persuadable to that regard. But as to whether or not this was a concerted project coordinated, you know, all the way up to the White House, he wouldn't commit himself to that notion. But, yeah, I mean, it - you know, this was Kirk's view increasingly, that immigrants, that people of color from other countries were posing a real threat to what this country was in its actual character.
GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you. We need to take another break. My guest is Robert Draper, and he profiled Charlie Kirk earlier this year in The New York Times Magazine. He covers the political dynamics of the right wing. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF JEFF PARKER'S "THE RELATIVE")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to the interview I recorded yesterday with Robert Draper. He profiled Charlie Kirk earlier this year in The New York Times Magazine. Draper covers the political dynamics of the right wing. He's also recently profiled the right-wing extremist Nick Fuentes, who was a rival of Kirk's with a large following of young white men, and Laura Loomer, a self-appointed Trump enforcer who goes after people who she sees as disloyal to Trump, trying and sometimes succeeding in getting them fired or getting them to leave office.
Kirk was assassinated by a young man who apparently was living with a romantic partner who is transitioning from male to female. As we record this Tuesday morning, we don't know what the shooter's motivations were. But I'm wondering - what did Kirk have to say about people who were trans?
DRAPER: Well, on the matter of transgender and gender fluidity, as well, Kirk was pretty strident. You know, he would often preface his remarks, at least when he was in a setting talking to transgender people, for example, saying that, you know, God loves you, too, and you are my brothers and sisters. And I feel that you are all part of God's kingdom, just as I am. But he believed, as well, that there was a quote-unquote transgender ideology that was - his word, not mine - sick. And he more than once described transgender individuals as mentally ill, as disordered. And so I do think it's fair to say that his views were not just limited to, look, you know, transgenderism has gotten out of hand when transitioned males to females are competing in female athletic competitions. He certainly talked about that, but he didn't limit himself to that. He instead said that these individuals are themselves mentally ill.
GROSS: After you profiled Kirk, and I think that was published back in February, you stayed in touch with him. And I think you were texting each other the day before he was killed.
DRAPER: That's correct. I'll tell you also, Terry, that the story, as you say, was published in February of this year. But I would say for a full year prior to that, Kirk and I had been getting to know each other, and he would often reach out to me. And I thought this was an interesting aspect to Kirk, that he would reach out to me just to run things by me. Not asking so much for my opinion - because, as a journalist, I couldn't give it - but just as a reality check, he'd say, I'm hearing from the right that this particular viewpoint is prevalent from the left. Am I just living in a bubble, or is that true?
GROSS: How would you respond to that?
DRAPER: Well, sometimes I would say, you know, I think what you're hearing you're hearing from the right-wing media ecosystem, and it's not supported by reality as I understand it. And he would take that and be grateful for it. There was also a time I reached out to him, I remember, to say, I'd like to talk to you off the record about the religious context in which so many people in the MAGA community are viewing Donald Trump. Can you explain to me how they see him as this sort of flawed vessel, like King David or something? And he was very fluent in describing that to me.
And so we had that kind of back-and-forth well predating the publication of the story, and continued to since then. I had dinner with him in D.C. once, I think, a couple of months before he was killed, and I remember he brought security with him. They sat at the bar. And he seemed very casual about it, which is not to say that he was utterly unconcerned. But it was essentially the cost of doing business, that that was just the world that we were in.
I was texting with him the day before the assassination because I wanted to come to Arizona and have dinner with him and his wife to catch up on various things. But also, there's a major magazine project that I'm beginning. And I wanted Kirk's thoughts about it, but not on the phone and not in writing. It just required a face-to-face. And he wrote back saying, absolutely. We would love to have you over for dinner. Just pick a date in September. And I think I sent, a few hours later, the text, how about September 23? And obviously, I never heard back.
GROSS: The assassination of Charlie Kirk comes at a time when there was already a split in the MAGA movement, in part over whether all the Jeffrey Epstein files should be released. Trump and MAGA used to call for the full release, saying that there was a cover-up. But once there was speculation that Trump was mentioned in the file, he was opposed to the release. But many of his followers still want those papers released and are angry with or disappointed by Trump. And another high-profile example of this split in MAGA is maybe exemplified by Nick Fuentes, who is also a very influential figure in the conservative or the right-wing movement, especially among white men. But before we get into the conflict that Kirk and Fuentes had with each other, I want to play an excerpt of Fuentes' tribute to Charlie Kirk.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NICK FUENTES: Charlie Kirk never had a kind word to say about me in his life. Now that he has died, I'll say some kind words about him. Although I didn't agree with him, I considered him a part of the political establishment. In many ways, I considered him part of the problem. In spite of that, it is undeniable that he was a towering figure in American conservatism. It's undeniable. He was ambitious. He was a hard worker. He did things I cannot do.
A lot of people said after his passing - I saw some people make oblique references to it - they said, well, if Charlie Kirk was assassinated, now the far right will step up. I don't know that there's anyone that could fill his shoes. I don't know that there's anyone that can do what he did. He died at 31 years old and left a legacy that many people could not achieve in many lifetimes. He hosted a show three hours a day. He went and faced down his enemies in debate. He would take on almost any challengers. I say almost because he wouldn't debate me, of course, but nevertheless would debate anybody anywhere, stare them down. And people don't know how difficult that is. He would sit there for hours on any subject. And then he would return home from the command center and direct the largest youth organization, the most ambitious project in conservative politics, maybe ever. And he did it all before the age of 31.
GROSS: OK. That was Nick Fuentes' tribute to Charlie Kirk in the streaming show that Fuentes hosts. Robert Draper, would you compare the political differences between Fuentes and Kirk?
DRAPER: Yes. And let me first say that everything that Fuentes said about his own sentiments regarding Kirk happened to be true, but they had very, very great differences. Fuentes is a hardcore white nationalist. The people who follow him are known as Groypers, which comes from a - an obscure meme that originated from the alt-right in 2016 and 2017. And Fuentes saw Kirk as pro-Israel, unflaggingly pro-Trump and insufficiently attentive to racial concerns, at least as Fuentes had them. And he would never resist an opportunity to troll Kirk, to go after him on social media, to demand that the two debate. He saw Kirk as so intertwined with Trump, so beholden to his access to Trump - and, for that matter, to his pro-Israel donors - that Charlie Kirk was hopelessly compromised when it came to espousing conservative causes. And, of course, from Kirk's standpoint, Fuentes was an out-and-out racist who spoke in not just demeaning but disgusting terms about Jews, about Blacks, about Latinos, ironic since Fuentes is himself 25% Latino and who was an exponent of kind of behavior and language that would invariably lead to political violence. That was Kirk's view of him.
And it frustrated Fuentes that Kirk would never dignify anything that Fuentes hurled at him with a response. And I'd spoken to Kirk about Fuentes, and he just believed there was no profit in doing so, but he also believed that, though it's very, very difficult these days with algorithms the way they are to quantify the following of a guy like Fuentes, there was very little question in the eyes of Kirk, as well as other people that I interviewed on the right, that Fuentes' movement has not been receding the way so many people on the right hoped it would. It has, in fact, been growing.
GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you. My guest is Robert Draper, and he profiled Charlie Kirk earlier this year in The New York Times Magazine. You can still find that online. It was reposted after - on The New York Times' site after Kirk was assassinated. Draper covers the political dynamics of the right wing. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview I recorded yesterday with Robert Draper. He profiled Charlie Kirk earlier this year in The New York Times Magazine. Draper covers the political dynamics of the right wing. He's also profiled the right-wing extremist Nick Fuentes, who was a rival of Kirk's, with a large following of young white men, and Laura Loomer, a self appointed Trump enforcer, who goes after people who she sees as disloyal to Trump.
Fuentes made it clear several times in the streaming show that there was a shooter - there was a guy with a gun in Fuentes' home last year, and I don't know how he was rescued from that, but he was. But he knows he came really close himself to being assassinated. And I think that really - my impression is that shook him to his core, and that's part of the reason why Charlie Kirk's association just really shook him.
DRAPER: I also think that they - you know, they traveled in the same circles. And look, we're when we talk about three of, you know, three influencers, Charlie Kirk, Laura Loomer and Nick Fuentes, two of them are 31, Loomer and Kirk. And the other, Fuentes, is 27. So they're all the same generation. They all came up at the same time. Kirk achieved a kind of renown and influence and wealth to which the other two could only aspire with all the attendant jealousies that one would expect from that disparity, but they still were in the generational sense, if nothing else, in a kind of lockstep, you know, or an orbit around each other. And so the familiarity of someone dying who was always a part of your daily consciousness and even a part of your daily language is, I think, really, really jarring. And so I accept that it's a painful loss for those people, even including someone as extreme as Nick Fuentes, to see someone cut down in their prime like Charlie Kirk was.
GROSS: Also, in the streaming show that Fuentes hosts, the one that was a tribute to Charlie Kirk, he passionately urged people who were listening, people who were his followers, to, like, if they have guns, put them down. Political violence is never a good thing. Killing someone is never a good thing. And he said, I'm not saying that if you voted for Kamala Harris, that you're responsible for the death of Charlie Kirk. And he went through a whole list of people, you know, like Democrats or people on the left, and said, like, these individuals, they're not responsible for this, but we have to defeat evil. And, you know, he used a lot of Christian references. But at the same time, he was also saying, we need to defeat them. And it was not clear to me who the we is or who the them was.
DRAPER: Yeah. I mean, you know, in that sense, Fuentes and Kirk were similar, maybe only in that sense, in that both of them would often talk about evil and talk about they. And typically, what they meant by they and evil were the left and that the left was godless; the left was chaotic; the left was socialist, if not communist, against free enterprise. And that characterization of who the enemy was, Fuentes and Kirk were largely on the same page. It's just that Fuentes would then go one step further and say, and when I'm talking about the left, I'm really talking about the Jews, who have been in charge of everything, which is something that you would never hear Charlie Kirk say because it's not anything that Charlie Kirk ever believed. What I was going to say is that, like, there's a cynical interpretation of that entire show. And that's that there's been a view pushed by some that the alleged assassin had Groyper sympathies and that this would in turn amount to a kind of legal exposure for Nick Fuentes. And so that he was saying - everything that he was saying was a kind of personal disavowal of the killing, not just from a moral standpoint but from a legal standpoint as well.
GROSS: Is there any evidence that that is true?
DRAPER: Only in the vaguest sense, Terry. I mean, there's - you know, Tyler Robinson was something of a loner. He was definitely a gamer. You can find a Venn diagram overlap in which you see Groypers using the same kind of language that Robinson allegedly did on these shell casings. But that's - seems to me to have less to do with a particular ideology and more to do with the lifestyle of a gamer than anything else.
GROSS: Is Fuentes a white nationalist? And does he subscribe to the replacement theory that people of color, immigrants, Jews are trying - consciously or unconsciously going to replace white people, and that will be, like, the downfall of America?
DRAPER: Yes to all of that. Fuentes has not, to my knowledge, ever described in sort of clinical detail how the great replacement theory has been carried out, who - you know, mechanically how it works. But, yes. He believes that America, you know, at its soul, much more so than Kirk does, is a country founded by and for whites, and that immigration threatens that to its core, and that the protagonists of immigration and of the decline of America are the Jewish population. He has said that time and again, unambiguously.
GROSS: Is he a Holocaust denier?
DRAPER: I confronted him about that. And he crawfished a bit on it, Terry, and said, well, you know, I actually have never done a deep dive on the Holocaust. I know people who are out-and-out deniers, saying it didn't happen. I know others who, you know, insist that it did happen and that 6 million and no less were killed during the Holocaust. And I'm somewhere in the middle. But that kind of seemingly moderate, casually skeptical approach never shows up in his shows, where he has been, if not explicit, then implicit, saying the math doesn't add up and making light of the Holocaust and of the whole idea of Jews as victim at any point in history. So in that sense, it's hard to get around the conclusion that he is a Holocaust denier at its core.
GROSS: Well, let's take another break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Robert Draper. He profiled Charlie Kirk earlier this year in The New York Times Magazine. He covers the political dynamics of the right wing. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF HOLT VAUGHN'S "BITTER SUITE (FEAT. PHIL KEAGGY)")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview I recorded yesterday with Robert Draper. He profiled Charlie Kirk earlier this year in The New York Times Magazine. Draper covers the political dynamics of the right wing. He's also profiled the right-wing extremist Nick Fuentes, who was a rival of Kirk's with a large following of young white men, and Laura Loomer, a self-appointed Trump enforcer who goes after people who she sees as disloyal to Trump.
I want to play one more Nick Fuentes clip, and this is him talking about Trump and his disillusionment with President Trump.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FUENTES: Liberals were right fundamentally about Trump. Whether he has good intentions or bad intentions, whether he means well or not, some people blame his advisers. Some people blame people around him. Whatever you think about his culpability, he is in effect - OK? - maybe not consciously or intentionally, but in effect, what he is is a demagogue. What he is is a populist demagogue. And directionally, what liberals said about him, which is that he was stirring up the rubes, animating the rubes with nativist rhetoric and ginning up resentment against the system to empower himself and the people around him, and then brought the swamp closer to the periphery in his first and second administration, willing to say and do anything - yeah, that all kind of turned out to be true.
GROSS: Although he's saying in that clip that what liberals said turned out to be true, he's probably opposing Trump for completely different reasons. What are his reasons?
DRAPER: Well, I mean, his reasons are that - as he expressed them to me, at least - that he views Trump as corrupt and compromised. And he believes that Trump is essentially a sellout - that Trump, by saying, for example, well, you know, maybe we will issue student visas to Chinese nationals after all, that that's an abdication of the chief MAGA tenet of sealing the border and also viewing China as the enemy. He believes that Trump is essentially someone who, you know, has you know, enriched himself while in office, is more interested in the sort of pageantry of being the leader of the free world than he is in actually promoting American interests.
And in this sense, you know, Fuentes has come to really sound like a left-winger. He believes that essentially, the right has been duped. And I do not think that the Trump White House has viewed those statements with alarm on its face. I mean, I don't think they have thought, OK, you know, Nick Fuentes is coming for Trump, and this really constitutes an existential crisis for us. But they are concerned that his message to disaffected young white male conservatives - who happen to be a key part of the Trump coalition - that that message might cause them to further their disaffection, to move them out of politics altogether or perhaps even to move them to a protest candidate or even someone on the left. The Anything but Trump notion is something promulgated on the right by Nick Fuentes and Nick Fuentes alone. But it's really beginning to pick up some traction, and to the great consternation of people on the right.
GROSS: So you think the clip that we just heard is an example of a split within the MAGA movement?
DRAPER: For sure. I mean, he's basically saying Trump, who founded the MAGA movement, should no longer be the leader of the MAGA movement and, in fact, has betrayed the MAGA movement. That's something that, you know - and he's taken, Fuentes said to me, a lot of incoming even from some of his own supporters about that. But by and large, he said that his popularity, you know, viewed from metrics of his followers on his streaming show and followers on social media platforms like X, have been increasing even as he's been going after Trump. So it would stand to reason that his own views have resonated within - well, you know, in some corners of the right.
GROSS: Charlie Kirk could be very charismatic when he spoke. And, you know, he was a gifted speaker, as everyone has pointed out. So is Nick Fuentes. He's a - you know, I haven't heard that much of him, but what I've heard, he's a very powerful speaker. How much do you think charisma has affected their ability to gain large followings?
DRAPER: It's been crucial. As you've said, Fuentes is an extremely fluent and agile speaker who can speak in whole paragraphs, like Kirk did, without notes and with even, you know, only a modicum of preparation. And I think key to Nick Fuentes, to his rise from obscurity as an 18-year-old, was the march in Charlottesville in 2017 that turned violent. And he, among the white nationalists marching, saying, you know, you will not replace us, and then, Jews will not replace us, then becoming this 18-year-old who would go on television and would explain that viewpoint with, you know, apparent calm and oratorical fluidity, has certainly been a huge contributor to his popularity.
It's a matter of historical reality in American politics that populist demagogues have, across the board, been smooth talkers, have been able to galvanize followings. That was certainly the case with, say, a Huey Long and George Wallace, and it's the case with Nick Fuentes now. I would not call Kirk a populist demagogue. But there's no question that he possessed oratorical skills and a sure-footedness in hostile territory that set him apart from the average politician.
GROSS: Robert Draper, thank you so much for talking with us and for taking some time from your reporting to be on our show. I really appreciate it, and thank you for the reporting that you've done.
DRAPER: My pleasure, Terry.
GROSS: Robert Draper covers the political dynamics of the right for The New York Times. You can find his profiles of Charlie Kirk and Nick Fuentes on the Times website.
Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guest will be Jude Law, the star of such films as "The Talented Mr. Ripley "and "Cold Mountain," and the HBO series "The Young Pope." He'll talk about his latest role in the Netflix thriller "Black Rabbit." He plays a restaurant owner caught in a web of crime, betrayal and family ties. I hope you'll join us.
To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair. FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Thea Chaloner directed today's show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
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