GOP Groups Claim They Were Tricked Into Supporting Extremist Event

The upcoming convention hosted by Arizona University’s College Republicans United promised a dizzying line-up, including headliner white nationalist livestreamer Nick Fuentes, the “QAnon Shaman”—and support from local GOP officials—held at a three star boutique hotel in a suburb of Phoenix. 

But some of those promises are quickly unraveling. 

Although a flier this week touted Republican officials from Maricopa, Pima, and Yavapai Counties as the July 30 conventions’ official supporters, some spokespersons from those organizations claim that they were tricked into supporting an extremist event—others said they never agreed to participate at all. 

In a statement, Maricopa County GOP tweeted that they “never authorized, sponsored or promoted” the convention. Yavapai County’s GOP also distanced themselves, saying they “would never personally, nor professionally through associations, support, condone or endorse any antisemitic group” and they specifically would not endorse College Republicans United. 

Officials from Pima County GOP told The Arizona Mirror that they were misled by College Republicans United founder RIck Thomas, who approached their vice chair Anastasia Tsatsakis and asked if they’d be willing to speak at “a college Republicans event.” 

“This particular activity and behavior where you are sabotaged and set up is completely indescribable to me,” Tsatsakis told The Mirror. “We do not participate in any antisemitic anything. This is horrible and, had we known, we would’ve never committed.” 

The name is confusing‚ but College Republicans United is actually an entirely different thing from the College Republican National Committee, which was founded in 1892, and oversees a network of student conservative organizations nationwide (it’s not officially tied to the GOP, but some chapters do work alongside Republican operatives). 

College Republicans United formed in 2018 as a splinter from Arizona University’s College Republicans chapter, promising a more “authentic” voice for young conservatives that aligned more with Trumpism and less with establishment Republicans. 

But in 2019, a group of key members abruptly left. In an open letter, they claimed College Republicans United was essentially a trojan horse, “filled with white nationalists and neo-Nazis posing as principled conservatives and Republicans” and they had receipts to prove it. They included screenshots showing Thomas and his co-founder Codey Friedland, making racist, antisemitic, and misogynistic remarks online while bullying any members who confronted them about it. 

The letter prompted the university to launch an investigation into College Republicans United. Thomas and Friedland ultimately held a press conference, in which they apologized for their behavior—which was dismissed by protesting students as a feeble and insincere attempt to save face. 

Four years later, the group still exists (and now has additional chapters at colleges in Iowa and Louisiana). For a while after the debacle in 2019, they appeared to toe the GOP fringes in an effort to maintain at least a veneer of mainstream respectability. Nonetheless, their membership remained closely intertwined with the “groyper” movement, which is the name for the army of far-right shitposters who follow Fuentes. 

Then, last September, they prompted an uproar from other students when they invited Jared Taylor, who promotes pseudo-academic white supremacy, to speak on campus. 

But their decision to make Fuentes their headliner for their second annual convention is perhaps their most brazen hard-right act yet. 

Whatever minor credibility Fuentes had established in hard-right political circles was lost last year when he joined forces with rapper Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) for a dinner with former President Donald Trump followed by a string of disastrous, virulently antisemitic media appearances. Seemingly overnight, Fuentes went from a fringe, racist nuisance in a suit, to a reviled household name. 

Fuentes has since doubled down, and has maintained his large following and platform. Just this week, he appeared on Fresh and Fit Pod, which claims to be the “number one men’s podcast” that has millions of listeners around the world. Fuentes made a string of antisemitic and racist comments on that podcast, and praised Hitler while everyone laughed. 

In addition to Fuentes, Ryan Sanchez — aka “Culture War Criminal”– is also billed as a speaker at the College Republicans United event. Sanchez is a former member of the white supremacist fight club, Rise Above Movement. 

Not only are local GOP officials distancing themselves from the upcoming convention, but the organizers have also lost their venue. The Hassayampa Inn told The Arizona Mirror that College Republicans United had booked a space for a “college student awards ceremony” but that they were no longer hosting the event. 

And, only adding to the organizers’ logistical headache, a war of words has been brewing online between Fuentes and QAnon Shaman, the infamous horned Jan. 6 rioter whose real name is Jake Chansley. 

Chansley was dismayed to learn that he would be sharing the spotlight with Fuentes. He was responding to a clip, shared by Right Wing Watch, in which 24-year-old Fuentes says he hopes to find a 16-year-old child bride when he turns 30. "Right when the milk is good, I want to start drinking the milk,” Fuentes said. 

“Ok, to start, WTF?” said Chansley in a quote tweet. “When I agreed to speak at the AZ College Republicans United event I was not aware that I'd be sharing the stage with someone who wants a 16 year old wife. Should I back out? “

Chansley concluded that he would attend after all, with the goal of exposing Fuentes as a “false prophet” and showing “these college republicans what a REAL alpha male looks & sounds like.” 

Fuentes’ supporters trolled Chansley immediately. One of them surfaced a clip from Washington DC on Jan. 6 that shows Chansley trying to talk to Fuentes, who tells him to “go away” because he “smells bad,” and suggested that the Shaman might be harboring a grudge. “Not salty over childish schoolyard trash talk from an immature wannabe Nazi,” Chansley replied. “I guess Nick Fuentes doesn't know what a real man smells like... He must be used to the smell of 16 year old girls.”