Trump Accidentally Stabs Vance in the Back as MAGA Erupts in Civil War

A civil war is unfolding inside the MAGA movement over Nick Fuentes, the neo-Nazi and white supremacist, and President Donald Trump just made it worse. In an interview, Trump defended Fuentes in a way that will boost his standing inside MAGA. As it turns out, however, this shivs Vance in the back by creating a surprising and unwelcome problem for him. The vice president has tried to avoid taking sides on Fuentes, hoping he’ll go away. But Fuentes has mercilessly attacked Vance, and Trump’s comments make it clear that Fuentes represents a constituency inside MAGA that’s too big to exile. That means Vance, who’s hoping to harness the MAGA movement for his 2028 presidential run, will have to tread carefully around Fuentes, and Trump’s intervention has only made all that harder for him. We talked to Vox’s Zack Beauchamp, who has a great new piece digging into all this. He explains Fuentes’s growing influence inside MAGA, why Vance’s Fuentes problem has gotten worse thanks to Trump, and what all this says about today’s right and MAGA’s future. Listen to this episode here.