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Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest, long known as a rallying point for conservative unity, took an unexpected turn this year. Instead of focusing attacks on Democrats or the political left, prominent conservative figures openly criticized one another, exposing deep divisions within the MAGA movement. From debates over antisemitism and conspiracy theories to clashes over “heritage Americans,” the event highlighted growing internal tensions following the death of Charlie Kirk and amid uncertainty over the movement’s future direction.
00:00Turning Point USA's annual gathering, AmericaFest, has long been a rallying point for conservative unity.
00:16Since 2021, the event has featured a star-studded lineup of right-wing influencers and politicians,
00:23largely united around a common target, what the group's co-founder Charlie Kirk once called the woke left.
00:30But this weekend in Phoenix, that unity appeared fractured.
00:34No, I'm just kidding. I watched it! I laughed! I laughed, that kind of bitter, sardonic laugh that emerges from you when, like, upside-down world arrives.
00:45One of the clips, I was listening to myself, and I'm like, that guy is pompous! Woo!
00:50You may not like Tucker Carlson or Ben Shapiro or Steve Bannon or me.
00:54If the radical left wins, you, us, and them, we all hang together.
01:02He thinks he's in a position to decide who must say what to whom and when.
01:05I don't think we are friends anymore.
01:09Nobody knew who the heck Ben Shapiro was when I started putting him on my shows on the Fox News channel, and I helped make him a star.
01:17Ben, I've known you a long time, brother. You can't handle the truth.
01:20Instead of attacking Democrats or liberals, some of the most prominent figures in the conservative movement turned their fire inward.
01:29Speakers repeatedly criticized fellow conservatives, accusing members of their own movement of being frauds, grifters, pompous, and even a cancer.
01:38The result was an unusual scene, a conservative gathering consumed not by opposition politics, but by internal conflict.
01:47Fueling the discord was some of the most explosive and unresolved issues facing the MAGA movement.
01:54Resurgent anti-Semitism, the spread of conspiracy theories, and the rise of the concept of so-called heritage Americans.
02:02That idea, which suggests Americans whose families have been in the country for generations have a greater claim than newer arrivals, has been criticized by some as a thinly veiled racist dog whistle.
02:15The disputes also reopened questions sparked by conservative backlash against left-wing cancel culture.
02:22What ideas, if any, should be grounds for cancellation within conservatism itself?
02:27The tensions offered a snapshot of a powerful movement in an uncharacteristic state of discord, just three months after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a central figure who had helped keep disparate factions under one tent during the Trump era.
02:42Without Kirk, many of the movement's most recognizable figures appeared to be jockeying for influence, as President Donald Trump enters his second term and the future direction of the MAGA movement remains contested.
02:57For some longtime supporters, the infighting was difficult to watch.
03:03On Saturday, conservative podcaster Benny Johnson reflected on how different the atmosphere felt compared to the weeks following Kirk's death.
03:12Benny Johnson called J.D. Vance critical and said,
03:16Ladies and gentlemen, why is J.D. Vance vice president?
03:19I think this is so critical.
03:21I worked with Charlie for 10 years.
03:22This is so critical understanding who Charlie was and why he was so powerful.
03:26Charlie Kirk was somebody who united.
03:29I am sick of the division.
03:31I am calling it out.
03:32I call it out to its face.
03:33I disavow it.
03:34I'm sick of it.
03:36They're out killing us and we're in here squabbling and bitching and moaning.
03:40And I'm sick of it.
03:41And I've had enough.
03:43Johnson flashed photos from Kirk's memorial service, recalling a brief moment of unity born from grief.
03:51The first major spark came Thursday night during a blistering speech by Ben Shapiro, co-founder of the Daily Wire.
03:59Shapiro criticized what he described as frauds and grifters within the conservative movement, naming several influential figures directly.
04:07An Orthodox Jew, Shapiro argued that anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories were harming the movement.
04:16He singled out podcaster Candace Owens, accusing her of spreading anti-Semitic rhetoric and promoting conspiracy theories about Kirk's murder under the guise of just asking questions.
04:27Shapiro also took aim at former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, calling it an act of moral imbecility to air a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes, an avowed anti-Semit.
04:42There is a reason that Charlie Kirk despised Nick Fuentes and indeed even chided Dinesh D'Souza for debating him.
04:49He knew that Nick Fuentes is an evil troll and that building him up is an act of moral imbecility.
04:54And that is precisely what Tucker Carlson did.
04:57He built Nick Fuentes up.
04:58And he ought to take responsibility for that, just as he ought to take responsibility for glazing pornographer and alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate,
05:06or for mainstreaming fake historian and pseudo-Nazi apologist Daryl Cooper as America's best and most honest popular historian.
05:13He criticised Megyn Kelly for failing to condemn Owens and Carlson and labelled Stephen K. Bannon, Donald Trump's former chief strategist, a former PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein.
05:27Many of Shapiro's targets later took the stage at AmericaFest and responded.
05:32Carlson mocked Shapiro as pompous.
05:34The following day, Bannon referred to Shapiro as a cancer on the movement.
05:39And Megyn Kelly publicly rejected Shapiro's criticism.
05:44He thinks he's in a position to decide who must say what to whom and when.
05:50So, I don't think we are friends anymore.
05:56On Friday, entrepreneur and Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy weighed in on the debate over heritage Americans.
06:06Though he did not name names, Ramaswamy condemned the idea outright.
06:10As an American is based on your lineage.
06:17That how long you have been in the country, your lineage and your genetics tied to the blood and soil of the country determines how American you are.
06:24It is the idea of a heritage American that says the truest formative of an American is somebody who is a descendant of the American Revolution period or before.
06:33If you call Usha Vance, the second lady of the United States of America, a cheat, you have no place in the future of the conservative movement.
06:43And if you can't say those things without stuttering, then you have no place as a leader at any level in the conservative movement either.
06:56Ramaswamy's remarks appeared to put him at odds with Vice President J.D. Vance, who in a controversial July speech warned against importing millions and millions of low-wage serfs and praised America as a distinctive place with a distinctive people.
07:13Erica Kirk, now Turning Point USA's Chief Executive, acknowledged the growing infighting within the movement.
07:20Erica Kirk, now Turning Point USA's Chief Executive, acknowledged the growing infighting within the movement.
07:22So much so that it proved even more once he was assassinated how much of a peacemaker he was and how much of a coalition builder he was.
07:34Because when he was assassinated, we saw infighting, we've seen fractures, we've seen bridges being burned that shouldn't be burnt.
07:48Still, she emphasized that debate was part of her husband's vision.
07:53Among attendees, reactions were mixed.
07:58Dana Steuben of Peoria, Illinois, whose daughters are both involved with Turning Point, said the mood felt markedly different from last year's event.
08:10Earlier this month, Blake Neff, a producer for The Charlie Kirk Show, publicly criticized Candace Owens, accusing her of spreading absurd claims and reckless allegations suggesting Turning Point staff were complicit in Kirk's death.
08:25Turning Point USA has long been criticized for giving platforms to conspiracy theorists.
08:31In 2022, Charlie Kirk introduced Alex Jones at a Turning Point event, despite Jones's false claims that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax.
08:41In 2024, Candace Owens spoke at a Turning Point action conference after promoting false claims about French President Emmanuel Macron's wife, claims now the subject of a lawsuit.
08:53Owens, who did not attend this year's AmericaFest, responded to Ben Shapiro on her podcast, dismissing him with a personal insult.
09:03She called him a slithering belly creature.
09:05As AmericaFest continues, the event has exposed a conservative movement grappling with its identity, leadership and limits, struggling to define who belongs, what ideas are acceptable, and who gets to set the rules.
09:20What was once a unified front now appears at least temporarily divided.
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