Nick Fuentes calls Erika Kirk’s tribute to Charlie Kirk “disgusting”
Thomas Edwards • September 23, 2025
Nick Fuentes has called an email from Erika Kirk to Turning Point USA members “disgusting.”
The white nationalist, who also claims to be Catholic, posted a photo of Erika Kirk’s emotional message to her husband’s followers with the caption: “This is disgusting.” In the email, Erika wrote: “I don’t know how else to begin except with this: I miss him. Every breath. Every heartbeat. Every memory I now replay in my mind... I miss him.”
Fuentes has a cult-like following, with his adherents calling themselves “Groypers,” a name derived from a variant of the internet meme Pepe the Frog.
They represent an extreme subculture within the conservative world and espouse ethno-nationalism, antisemitism, and far-right beliefs, making extensive use of the internet—particularly active on X. They are also closely associated with the incel subculture.
Fuentes initially found a place within mainstream conservative outlets and was at one point involved with The Daily Wire. However, he soon broke with the group over his critical stance on U.S.-Israel relations.
His show, America First with Nicholas J. Fuentes, which he began in 2017, has since become increasingly extreme. Earlier this year, he told viewers: “Jews are running society, women need to shut the f--k up, Blacks need to be imprisoned for the most part, and we would live in paradise; it's that simple.”
Fuentes has also had a confrontational relationship with Turning Point USA, which Charlie Kirk founded in 2012. He credits the formation of his community of “Groypers” to events in 2019, when his followers began heckling Kirk during Turning Point USA's Culture War Tour. Groups of his supporters routinely queued to ask questions—sometimes in comic or ironic tones—about Israel, ethno-nationalism, and homosexuality, with the intent of challenging the idea that Kirk represented the conservative movement. One particularly heated exchange saw Fuentes’s followers object to Turning Point USA allowing Rob Smith, a gay conservative and military veteran, to speak at the event.
Such was the public rift between Fuentes and Turning Point USA that Groypers have even been baselessly blamed for Kirk’s death in one of the many conspiracy theories circulating about the activist’s murder.
Fuentes’s most recent attack on Turning Point USA—this time directed at the message from Kirk’s widow—has been met with widespread criticism, including from within his own fanbase. The most liked comment on his post ironically asked: “How dare Charlie Kirk’s widow use his death to promote the thing Charlie devoted his life to?”
However, in other comments, Fuentes struck a more sympathetic tone, choosing to pause his show on the night of Kirk’s death out of respect. He reflected that “how we choose to respond to this watershed moment is profoundly important and we should all sleep on it.” He also encouraged his followers to say a “prayer for the repose of Charlie Kirk’s soul and for his grieving family.”
More recently, Fuentes appeared on Russell Brand’s show, where he suggested the murder may have been intended as a vehicle to pit left- and right-wing political opinions against each other in an effort to prevent unity across the spectrum.
(Photo by WILLIAM EDWARDS/AFP via Getty Images)