Republican Paul Gosar's fundraiser with notorious white nationalist may finally cause political blowback

Controversial Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) may finally be in political trouble for his political relationship with white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

"In an unsubtle rebuke to his many critics, Rep. Paul Gosar is planning a fundraising event with a white nationalist who has been banned from YouTube for repeatedly violating rules against hate speech," the Arizona Republic reported Tuesday. "A post on the conservative social media platform Telegram may have teased a fundraiser with Gosar, R-Ariz., and Nick Fuentes, who attended the deadly 2017 Charlottesville rally. The post came from an account said to have ties to Fuentes."

This is not the first time Gosar has worked with the extremist.

"Earlier this year, Gosar skipped a vote on a COVID-19 relief bill to attend Fuentes' America First Political Action Committee, a far-right conference that took place ahead of the traditional Conservative Political Action Conference that had come to be seen by some Republicans as lacking sufficient passion for former President Donald Trump and his policies," the newspaper reported. "Gosar famously intimated in a 2017 Vice News interview that billionaire liberal donor George Soros may have been a Nazi collaborator as a youth and was the only member to skip an address to Congress by Pope Francis in 2015. His views were seen as so caustic that six of his nine siblings memorably taped a campaign ad for the Democrat challenging him in 2018."

Reporter Nick Martin, who tracks far-right extremism, noted that Gosar's extreme views may finally be catching up with him. He was referring to a tweet by Arizona Republican Kirk Adams, saying "a crack just appeared in that dam."

He linked to a tweet by Kirk Adams, who became the Republican Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives at age twenty-five and went on to serve almost four years as chief of staff to GOP Gov. Doug Ducey.

"I believe in free speech & free association. I believe that wokeness and snowflakes who can't handle contrary ideas are epidemic. I also believe that a Congressman who associates with vile racists begs the question," Adams posted to Twitter.

He said Arizona "can do a lot better than Paul Gosar."

His positioned may have been strengthened by a video Fuentes posted 48 hours later.

The fundraiser, scheduled for Friday evening, appears to be still be happening despite the uproar.