Timeline: The Many Faces of Nick Fuentes
Often banned but growing on Rumble, Fuentes illustrates the limits of de-platforming.
Nick Fuentes has been kicked off YouTube, Twitter/X, Stitch, TikTok, Dlive, Facebook, and even GETTR at one time or another. My apologies to those I’m leaving out. I can’t keep up.
Yet, Fuentes continues to expand his reach. There’s always a platform willing to host him, at least for the time being. For the past four years, it’s been Rumble. If Rumble ever grows tired of him, history suggests his next landing spot might benefit from his presence. One could argue he exemplifies the case against de-platforming. If you ban him, people will still come to see what he says. A sample includes:
This video is what Coleman Hughes calls “Rumble Nick,” who, in a recent piece in The Free Press, theorizes that Fuentes plays a “double game” to infiltrate American culture. Hughes writes that the other version of Fuentes is “Podcast Nick”:
Then there is the comparatively sane character that Fuentes plays on the podcast circuit. This version of Fuentes is a serious Catholic. He’s clearly read lots of books. He’s earnest; he doesn’t joke or curse much. His vision for the country has much more to do with preserving what he describes as a white suburban American way of life (think Little League baseball and hot dogs on the Fourth of July) than with a hostile theocratic takeover of the federal government.
February 2017
Fuentes, while a freshman at Boston University, hosts “America First with Nick Fuentes” for the streaming Right Side Broadcasting Network. In the clip above, Fuentes says the First Amendment was “written for Calvinists. It was written for Lutherans and Catholics,” not Muslims and the Saudi royal family. He complains that globalists run the media, calls for the murder of people who run CNN.
“I want people that run CNN to be arrested and deported or hanged,” he says.
August 12-22, 2017
Fuentes attends the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a woman died after a vehicle plowed through a crowd. Still, Fuentes posts on Facebook that the event was “incredible” and that “the rootless transnational elite knows that a tidal wave of white identity is coming.”
He then tells the Boston Globe that he won’t return to BU because of death threats he’s received, and that his attendance at the rally doesn’t mean he endorses the white supremacist symbols that were there.
He proclaims: “I have never advocated violence, never taken part in violence.”
In the Time video below, Fuentes explains his decision to drop out: “It’s disturbing to me the level of hate that people have been able to express, been able to feel, against people they’ve never met, never saw, never had a conversation with.”
On August 22, Media Matters reports that Fuentes is no longer working for RSBN. The network’s CEO said the decision was “mutual.”
“We brought the issue up of Charlottesville being a huge distraction and not falling in line with some of our core beliefs- and ultimately all of us decided it was best we ended the show. We believe Nick is very talented and wish him well.”
Nov. 10, 2019
Fuentes takes credit for hecklers shutting down a Turning Point USA event at UCLA that included Donald Trump Jr. Ironically, Trump Jr. was promoting his book, “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us.” From the Washington Post:
The chaotic scene contradicted Trump Jr.’s central thesis that liberals have grown so intolerant of dissenting voices, conservative politicians can no longer engage in civil discourse. It also exposed an increasingly hostile fissure between conservative student groups like Turning Point USA and a hard-right faction of young Trump devotees who have flocked to self-professed “American Nationalist” Nicholas Fuentes and his “America First” movement.
The Post and other outlets report that Fuentes posts on Twitter (link no longer available), “Our problem is not with @DonaldJTrumpJr who is a patriot — We are supporters of his father! Our problem is with Charlie Kirk’s TPUSA organization that SHUTS DOWN and SMEARS socially conservative Christians and supporters of President Trump’s agenda. We are AMERICA FIRST!”
The Bulwark describes Fuentes’ “Groyper” movement in its story on the event:
Fuentes and his allies are portraying themselves as “true conservatives” who are fighting against a corrupt and secular GOP elite that cares more about billionaires and Israel than the millions of white Christians who voted for them. Even Pepe, who once served as the alt-right’s amphibian mascot, has been replaced with Groyper, an obese cartoon frog that has also become the term by which Fuentes fans refer to themselves.
February 14, 2020
Fuentes announces on Twitter that YouTube terminated his channel.
He says he will start streaming on a blockchain streamer called DLive, which kicks him off about a year later. He lands on Rumble in 2021, where he now has 580,000 followers.
May 13, 2020
Fuentes forms the America First Foundation, which organizes the annual America First Political Action Conference, whose speakers have included Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The first conference was held Feb. 28, 2020, in Washington, D.C. America First is a tax-exempt 501c4 organization. In its most recent IRS filing, America First reports receiving $561,822 in contributions between July 2023 and June 2024.
November 22, 2022
Fuentes has supper with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. The rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, brought Fuentes as a guest. Trump posts on social media that it was a surprise when West brought guests.
Fuentes discussed the dinner during an interview with Tucker Carlson.
November 27, 2024
Fuentes is charged with misdemeanor battery for pepper-spraying a woman who confronted him Nov. 10 at his suburban Chicago home over a social media post. The Chicago Sun-Times reports she was upset over a post that said “Your body, my choice. Forever.” The Sun-Times reports that, according to the woman, he pepper-sprayed her from his doorway before she could ring the doorbell and then took her phone. Here’s the video:
Fuentes reached a deal with prosecutors in October. The Sun-Times reports his charges will be dismissed if he completes an anger management class and 75 hours of community service, pays $635 to the victim and apologizes to her in court.”
December 2024
A man with a crossbow and handgun shows up at Fuentes’ house, yelling “Yo Nick” when he doesn’t answer the door. Fuentes said he was livestreaming at the time.
The man is later shot and killed by an officer responding to reports of someone in the neighborhood with a gun; police believe he killed three people earlier that evening.
October 27, 2025
Fuentes appears as a guest on Tucker Carlson’s program, prompting intense criticism from both conservatives and liberals for Carlson’s decision to interview him and for failing to challenge any of his views. The reactions spur a series of media coverage similar to this piece from the Washington Post under the headline: Far-Right provocateur Nick Fuentes is triggering a MAGA civil war.
December 8, 2025
Piers Morgan has Fuentes on his program and challenges his statements. In the video above, Morgan plays a clip of Fuentes saying that Hitler is “really fucking cool.” He then asks Fuentes if he regrets saying that.
Fuentes responds: “Saying a fact? No, no. That’s absolutely true.”
He claimed victory afterwards, posting on X:
Piers Morgan tried his best, but his “hardball” interrogation made me look even better than Tucker’s widely-criticized softball interview.
The regime can acquiesce like Tucker or it can try to resist like Piers, but the result is inevitably the same:
TOTAL GROYPER VICTORY.
I see his name all over but have never been interested enough to read or watch. Thanks for the timeline. You do the work for us. NF is in the news so it helps to be able to place him.
We ought to be able to listen to people like Fuentes, even if we find their views obnoxious and odious -- Tucker's interview wasn't "softball," it was simply drawing Fuestes out on many topics so we could *understand* who he is. It's the old adage of "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't."
At the same time, if somebody calls for violence against others, that speech is not protected by the First Amendment and the government can prosecute people for that.
This isn't really a complicated issue.