Charlie Kirk was one of the most important leaders in the conservative movement.
The fallout from his death had an unexpected consequence.
And Tucker Carlson was sick after he learned this hard truth about Charlie Kirk's assassination.
Neocons launched coordinated campaign to cancel Tucker Carlson
Charlie Kirk built Turning Point USA from a teenage idea into the most powerful conservative youth movement in America before a sniper killed him September 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University.
The assassination sent shockwaves through the conservative movement and everyone rallied together at first.
"You killed one Charlie, but you made a million more Charlies," conservatives declared across social media.
Daily Wire host Matt Walsh said it himself.
But Kirk's death created something establishment Republicans had been waiting for – a chance to purge Tucker Carlson from the movement.
Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, and Never Trump Republicans launched a coordinated campaign to keep Carlson from speaking at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest conference.
The fight wasn't about Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes or antisemitism.
Foreign policy has always been the fault line between Trump's America First base and establishment Republicans who never accepted his 2016 victory.
Carlson came under fire because he opposes the war in Ukraine and regime change in Iran – positions that infuriate Israel hardliners like Shapiro, Levin, and Ted Cruz.
Kirk was the one person preventing this civil war
Walsh sat down with Carlson recently and delivered a devastating assessment nobody wanted to hear.
"The tragic reality is that a lot of the stuff we said right after he was killed turned out not to be true," Walsh told Carlson.¹
The comfort conservatives told themselves about creating a million Charlies was wishful thinking.
"We didn't go from one Charlie to a million Charlies. We went from one Charlie to zero Charlies," Walsh explained. "That's what happens. That's why assassinations happen — that's why people do them, because they work."¹
Kirk was the one person who could keep neoconservatives and America First populists in the same coalition without them destroying each other.
"This guy — who we didn't fully realize was the glue holding everything together — was holding this whole crazy coalition together," Walsh said. "It turns out it was one guy who was doing this, and his organization."¹
The fractures exploded at AmericaFest, the first major Turning Point USA conference since Kirk's death.
Shapiro used his Thursday night speech to call Carlson and others "frauds and grifters" who "traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty."²
"There is a reason that Charlie Kirk despised Nick Fuentes," Shapiro declared. "He knew that Nick Fuentes is an evil troll and that building him up is an act of moral imbecility, and that is precisely what Tucker Carlson did."²
Tucker's critics falsely accused him of not pushing back on Fuentes.
The attack was really about foreign policy.
Shapiro spent months feuding with Carlson over Iran, with Carlson opposing regime change while Shapiro demanded military action.
Carlson blasted Mark Levin for "lobbying for war with Iran" at the White House and called neocons like Levin "scary people" trying to "box the Trump administration into a regime change war."³
Levin responded by calling Carlson "an antisemite and a maggot."⁴
When Carlson took the stage barely an hour after Shapiro's attack, he mocked the attempt to deplatform him at a Charlie Kirk event.
"To hear calls for deplatforming and denouncing people at a Charlie Kirk event — I'm like, what?" Carlson said. "That's hilarious."²
Kirk himself faced pressure to cancel Carlson months before the assassination.
Kirk lost a $2 million annual donor "because we won't cancel Tucker," according to text messages confirmed as authentic by Turning Point USA.⁵
Walsh refuses to join circular firing squad
Walsh explained to Carlson why he won't participate in the purge campaign targeting America First voices.
"My answer has been no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to denounce a friend. Ever," Walsh stated.¹
He grounds his refusal in a principle that used to mean something before neocons decided foreign policy disagreements required excommunication.
"Loyalty is a principle. Loyalty is one of the most important principles for any person — especially for men," Walsh said.¹
When Walsh calls someone a friend, it means they've had each other's backs when it mattered.
"Often this is someone who has had my back in ways you don't see," Walsh explained. "Once someone does that for me, I feel duty-bound not to turn around and stab them in the back."¹
Walsh sees through the manipulation.
"If you denounce someone — especially a friend — because a million people are screaming at you tell you to, that's not a principled stand," Walsh pointed out. "You're doing it to make the yelling stop."¹
Steve Bannon backed Carlson against Shapiro's attacks, calling Shapiro "like a cancer" for trying to take over Turning Point USA and "put Israel's interests ahead of the United States."⁶
"This is a proxy on '28," Bannon explained, noting Kirk opposed "this concept of greater Israel and Israel first."⁶
The battle lines are clear now that Kirk isn't around to hold the coalition together.
On one side stand America First populists like Carlson, Walsh, and Bannon who oppose regime change wars.
On the other side stand neoconservatives like Shapiro, Levin, and Cruz who demand unwavering support for Israel's agenda and regime change in Iran.
Matt Walsh's brutal honesty reveals the uncomfortable truth establishment Republicans don't want discussed.
Assassinations work because they remove irreplaceable leaders who were holding fractious coalitions together.
Without Kirk, the neocons immediately launched their purge of everyone who won't bow to their foreign policy demands.
¹ Matt Walsh, interview with Tucker Carlson, The Tucker Carlson Show, December 12, 2025.
² "Right-wing titans clash onstage at AmericaFest, revealing bitter divide in MAGA world," Business Insider, December 19, 2025.
³ Tucker Carlson, post on X, June 5, 2025.
⁴ "Fox News takes pro-war position as MAGA media feuds over Israel-Iran conflict," CNN Business, June 18, 2025.
⁵ "Tucker Carlson inflames a raging battle for MAGA's future," The Washington Post, December 20, 2025.
⁶ "MAGA civil war over Israel erupts into the open at Turning Point USA conference," The Times of Israel, December 20, 2025.
