During a livestreamed conversation with white supremacist Nick Fuentes last week, the CEO of the Daily Wire, a major right-wing media outlet, praised the prominent fascist influencer and offered only mild criticism about some of his political views a stark difference from how he has spoken about Fuentes in the past.

On March 25, Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing joined Fuentes on X Spaces (formerly Twitter Spaces), a live audio chat room. Boreing told Fuentes he listens to Fuentes show quite often and that he thinks Fuentes is very funny and one of the most talented political influencers, even if he is very concerned about some of what Fuentes says.

Later in the discussion, Boreing said hed be thrilled to have Fuentes on one of the Daily Wires shows to debate the media companys popular pundits, some of whom have millions of viewers.

The Daily Wire declined to comment on Boreings appearance with Fuentes on X Spaces.

The cordial tone of the conversation was a drastic departure from how Boreing has typically addressed Fuentes, who has expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and has called for the execution of non-Christians, including perfidious Jews.

In recent years the Daily Wire CEO has called Fuentes a wicked little s**t with evil ideas and a trolling little racist bastard. He has also encouraged people not to give Fuentes attention at all.

Supporting free speech does not require one to engage with racists, Boreing wrote on X in 2022. It only requires one to support a racists right to engage. Fuentes should have access to the means of communication. Decent people should refuse to communicate with him.

Experts say the X Spaces event served to further mainstream Fuentes and his noxious ideas, as well as demonstrate how the firewall between relatively mainstream conservatives and outright fascists is disappearing.

The far right has a decades-long history of using mainstream outlets to launder the more extreme versions of their beliefs, to insert them into the range of what counts as acceptable political discourse, Jessie Daniels, a professor of sociology at Hunter College who studies right-wing media, told HuffPost.

The discussion last Monday was hosted by Lauren Chen, a BlazeTV personality who serves as an ambassador to Turning Points USA, a conservative youth organization closely affiliated with the Republican Party. Chen is a booster of Fuentes, and shed invited guests to debate whether one of Fuentes signature phrases Christ is King can be antisemitic.

Fuentes and his followers have used Christ is King as a signifier for antisemitism, chanting it at rallies and using it as a bludgeon in the political discourse asking people if they believe Christ is King, and then dismissing them as heretics or demonic if they say no. Its a rhetorical trap for Christians who might believe in the scriptural assertion that Christ is King but who dont subscribe to Fuentes bigoted worldview.

At its core, Fuentes uses Christ is King as a form of trolling, one not dissimilar from previous white supremacist sloganeering campaigns, including 2017s Its okay to be white. That phrase, which was developed on the extremism-plagued message board 4chan, might sound innocuous to the untrained ear, but in context is an assertion of racism and white nationalism.

The phrase Christ is King was in the news before Chens X Spaces discussion because Boreing had announced a few days prior that the Daily Wire was parting ways with one of its most famous hosts, Candace Owens, after Owens made a series of antisemitic remarks. She claimed her show that secret Jewish gangs control Hollywood and do horrific things. She had also liked a tweet accusing a rabbi of being drunk on Christian blood, a reference to an age-old antisemitic conspiracy theory . And she publicly sparred with her Daily Wire colleague Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish, including responding to a tweet of Shapiros by stating Christ is King.

About a dozen far-right figures joined the X Spaces discussion, many of whom were angry over Owens firing. The conversation, which some 7,000 people listened to live, was steeped in antisemitism, with one participant stating that Jews had Christ killed and that free speech is under attack by the Jewish lobby. Other participants pressed Boreing on the specifics of Owens departure from the Daily Wire; Boreing refused to address personnel matters at the company, citing legal reasons.

Fuentes complained to Boreing that Shapiro by far one of the Daily Wires most popular hosts refuses to say the words Christ is King.

I think its notable that Ben Shapiro has never uttered those words, Fuentes said. He added that people who refuse to say Christ is King should not have leadership in America and ultimately should forfeit their ability to lead essentially an argument for excluding Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians from public office.

Ill say this, Nick, that I listen to your show quite often, Boreing responded. I think youre one of the most talented people out there. And Im very concerned about some of the things that youre saying. I think that youre a very gifted communicator and so its hard for me to imagine that you consistently miscommunicate some of these things.

At another point in the conversation, Boreing said he disagreed with the decision by X, which is owned by Elon Musk, to suspend Fuentes from the platform. (Fuentes joined the X Spaces discussion from a new, pseudonymous account that X later suspended.)

I disagree with Nick quite profoundly and have a lot of concerns about what his movement stands for, but if I owned a broad platform that presented itself as being the public square of the country, Boreing said, he wouldnt ban any opinion that doesnt actually call for violence.

We could argue about whether or not Nick has called for violence in some of the things that he said, Boreing went on. Ill give him the benefit of the doubt in this moment ... at least for the sake of this argument. Nick should still be on X and be able to express his opinions.