Donald Trump Jr. has declared that the old Republican Party is dead, and that his father now leads the “America First Party” and the “Make America Great Again Party.”
Speaking on the final day of Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference, the 47-year-old discussed how to continue the legacy of the group’s assassinated leader, Charlie Kirk, while lashing out at anyone who dares to criticize President Donald Trump or the MAGA movement.
“We have to stay involved. We have to stay in the game. Midterms are coming around the corner, and make no mistake, the Democrat Party wants to do whatever they possibly can to shut this movement down,” Trump Jr. told the crowd.
“Not just the Democrats. The RINOs [Republicans in Name Only]. You see the manufactured attacks on JD [Vance], myself, my father—anyone who understands that this isn’t the Republican Party anymore. It’s the America First Party. It’s the Make America Great Again Party, and we are not going back.”
Trump Jr. received a standing ovation from the crowd after effectively acknowledging that his father has reshaped the GOP in his own image.
The AmFest conference in Phoenix, Arizona, was the first held by Turning Point USA since its founder, Charlie Kirk, was murdered in September.
The event was intended to commemorate Kirk and chart a path forward for conservatives amid fears Republicans could suffer major losses in next year’s midterm elections, as Trump enters the final years of his presidency.
Instead, the conference underscored just how fractured both the Republican Party and the MAGA movement have become, highlighting an increasingly ugly battle over control of the conservative movement’s future.
The opening day of AmFest saw some of MAGA’s most prominent figures publicly airing grievances in a remarkable display of infighting. Disputes ranged from criticism of figures who refused to condemn podcaster Candace Owens for spreading conspiracy theories about Kirk’s death, to outrage over attempts to normalize white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. Fuentes’ far-right Groyper movement is proving attractive to many younger Republicans.
Ben Shapiro, co-founder of The Daily Wire, set the tone Thursday with a blistering attack on “frauds and grifters” in the MAGA world, targeting Owens, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Steve Bannon.
“In motive accusations, conspiracy theories, and just gasping questions—that’s lazy and stupid and misleading. None of them are a substitute for truth. None of them are a substitute for evidence,” Shapiro said. “So when Candace Owens says, ‘I don’t know, but I know,’ that is ret***ed, and we are all more ret***ed for having heard it.”
Carlson later fired back, mocking Shapiro on stage at AmFest for “deplatforming and denouncing people at a Charlie Kirk event.”
Vice President JD Vance, whose wife, Usha Vance, has been the target of vile racist attacks from Fuentes, attempted to spin the MAGA civil war as a positive development during his Sunday AmFest speech.
“I know some of you are discouraged by the infighting over any number of issues. Don’t be discouraged,” Vance said. “Wouldn’t you rather lead a movement of freethinkers who sometimes disagree than a bunch of drones who take their orders from George Soros?”
