Many feared the assassination of Charlie Kirk would tear apart the country.  Instead, it's ripping apart some of MAGA's biggest celebrities, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• Why it matters: Kirk's death unleashed an escalating MAGA fight over Israel, antisemitism and the normalization of hate speech on the right.

The fallout has riled MAGA, with Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes and critics of Israel vs. Ben Shapiro, Laura Loomer and the most intense Israel supporters.

🖼️ The big picture: We've told you about three tectonic plates shifting in America — AI, politics and how our realities are formed. On reality-forming, we've emphasized how America has hundreds of "realities," based on your politics, age, passions and profession.

• This fight takes you deep inside the reality for many MAGA activists — especially men, and especially young men who get most of their reality shaped by YouTube, podcasts and X influencers on the MAGA right.

🎧 If you listen to or watch Carlson or Shapiro — and tens of millions do — the weeks after Kirk's death have included never-ending fights over Israel's power in America, Qatar's funding of anti-Israel influencers on the right, and what Kirk would think if he were still alive.

• The enormous audience size for both Carlson and Shapiro shows why this debate echoes through and beyond MAGA.

📱 Both boast millions of social media followers — for Carlson, 16.7 million X followers and nearly 5 million YouTube subs; for Shapiro, almost 8 million X followers and over 7 million YouTube subs.

• Carlson yesterday topped the news category on Spotify's podcast charts and hit No. 7 for the same category on Apple's charts. Shapiro hit No. 10 and No. 8 on the respective charts.
• A ferocious attack yesterday by Shapiro on Carlson — calling the former Fox News star an "intellectual coward" and "dishonest interlocutor" — drew 6.1 million views on X in under six hours, with another nearly 130,000 YouTube views.

Carlson got clobbered by Shapiro and others for a soft, friendly interview last week with Nick Fuentes — a proud white nationalist who amplifies racism, sexism and antisemitism, and has grown popular among hardcore America First nationalists.

• Carlson didn't grill Fuentes on his most outrageous positions, from doubting Holocaust death counts to proclaiming his adoration of Stalin. Over two hours of conversation, Carlson did little to push or challenge Fuentes.

Carlson's interview with Fuentes has racked up 17.3 million X views and 5.2 million YouTube views.

• Shapiro said on his podcast yesterday: "This is how Tucker Carlson's ideological laundering works. You bring your dirty, ugly ideologies to Tucker Carlson's rhetorical car wash. He mixes it with some of the vestigial respect Americans have for him, from his Fox News days. And, voilà: Hideous ideas suddenly become mainstream."

Axios' Tal Axelrod, who tracks MAGA media full-time, said Fuentes' audience is hard to gauge. His show isn't supported by Apple or Spotify, so it doesn't appear on their charts. He doesn't have a YouTube channel. His X account was reinstated just last year by Elon Musk.

• Still, he has roughly 1 million X followers and almost 470,000 followers on Rumble — the conservative video streaming alternative to YouTube, where his Monday-Friday show, along with other content on his channel, has racked up almost 62 million views.
• His less inflammatory takes, often showcasing humor, regularly circulate on Instagram, TikTok and X, garnering many more views.

👀 Inside MAGA: Alex Bruesewitz, a close friend of Kirk's who's influential in MAGA social media, told us there have "always been competing factions within the right-wing internet; the media just covers the spats now! Our party allows for debate of ideas ... I think public spats and debates strengthen our party in the long term."

But it's hard for MAGA celebrities, GOP leaders and conservative groups to avoid getting sucked into this.

• Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) told The New York Times (under the headline "G.O.P. Figures Seek Distance From Tucker Carlson, Denouncing Antisemitism"): "We've got to be very clear we don't support antisemitism and we do support Israel."

Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts defended Carlson after the Fuentes sit-down, infuriating Republicans who find Fuentes deplorable. Some staff and Heritage supporters were livid. A Heritage shakeup did little to mitigate the fury. (Heritage told us there was one related departure out of nearly 350 employees — Roberts' chief of staff resigned.)

• The day after the video defending Carlson, Roberts also condemned antisemitism and Fuentes: "I denounce and stand against [Fuentes'] vicious antisemitic ideology, his Holocaust denial, and his relentless conspiracy theories that echo the darkest chapters of history. "
• 🗞️ "The New Right's New Antisemites," jeered yesterday's headline of a Wall Street Journal editorial. "Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation flounders in the Tucker Carlson-Nick Fuentes fever swamps."

The bottom line: If you're not on X, or don't marinate in MAGA media, you might not even know this intraparty fight was unfolding. But it holds huge stakes for the post-Trump trajectory of America's most muscular political movement.

• Share this column.

Just before President Trump met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea last week, top Trump officials — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio — told Trump that greenlighting Nvidia to export a new generation of AI chips to China would threaten national security, The Wall Street Journal reports.

• Why it matters: The aides said greenlighting the chip sales "would boost China's AI data-center capabilities and backfire on the U.S.," per The Journal.

Others against the approval included Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, The Journal reports:

"The U.S. was already preparing to make other concessions in the meeting with Xi, in exchange for Beijing allowing exports of rare-earth magnets. Faced with nearly unified opposition from his top advisers, Trump decided not to discuss the advanced Nvidia chips during his Oct. 30 meeting with Xi."

Keep reading (gift link).

"The First Big Elections of the New Trump Era" ... President Trump's "leadership and policies dominated the debate in almost every race" ... "the shutdown effect" ... Fox News: "Trump looms large over key ... contests despite not being on ballot."

• 🔮 Why it matters: Today's coast-to-coast off-year elections — contests that would be down the nation's mental ballot in a midterm or presidential year — will get outsize scrutiny as clues to the national mood.

🏛️ One real effect: Capitol Hill/K Street buzz tells us that the shutdown could end when tonight's results are the Hill's rear view.

• To give you a sense of how tonight's coverage might unfold, poll closing in key races (ET), via AP:

📺 Coverage plans: Fox News ... CNN ... MSNBC ... CBS ... NBC ... C-SPAN ... NewsNation.

At least 25 million people tuned into the final game of the World Series on Saturday — raising the average rating for the entire seven-game series to more than 14 million viewers, Axios Media Trends author Sara Fischer writes.

• Why it matters: It was the highest-rated World Series finale since 2017.

This year's World Series ratings shine especially when compared to the NBA Finals.

• The NBA Finals, despite a strong showing for Game 7, averaged just 10.3 million viewers this year.

Keep reading.

In an interview last night with Axios' Amy Harder, Bill Gates doubled down on his controversial memo calling for a shift to prioritizing human welfare in climate debates.

• Why it matters: The polarizing reactions, and his response, underscore his influence as a major funder of both climate and public health initiatives.

Gates, in an interview in front of about 1,000 Caltech students, said: "I'm glad people are listening," before adding that it was hard to convey "nuanced positions nowadays."

• "I didn't think the memo was going to convert the non-believers into believers, and sure enough, it didn't convert them," he said.

State of play: Conservative leaders — including President Trump — cheered what they believed was a wholesale retreat for the billionaire philanthropist.

• Trump posted last week: "I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue."
• Gates called Trump's characterization of his memo "a gigantic misreading." Gates said his funding toward addressing climate change and public health measures are both increasing, not declining.

Disclosure: Amy Harder is a former employee of Breakthrough Energy in her role leading Cipher News, an independent news outlet supported by Breakthrough Energy.

• Share this story.

A weekend of chaos at the FDA is prompting questions around how much more the agency can take before its functionality is seriously impaired, Axios Vitals authors Caitlin Owens and Peter Sullivan write.

• Why it matters: The pharmaceutical and biotech industries depend on the agency being predictable and reliable to shepherd millions of dollars in investments.

🔎 Zoom in: An agency is only as good as its workforce. After months of high-profile departures and open hostility from top health officials, some argue the FDA's performance is already deteriorating.

• Text messages from current FDA staffers shared confidentially with Axios show people disturbed by the turmoil and increasingly motivated to leave the agency — a threat heightened by the number of experienced career officials who've left.

"If they could get enough money elsewhere, if they could get remote jobs, if they could get as much vacation, they would just leave," a former FDA staffer told Axios, speaking of current staffers.

• "I don't know that I've talked to anyone who's happy there."

Keep reading.

Jake Sullivan, President Biden's national security adviser, and his former deputy Jon Finer are out Friday with a new weekly show — "The Long Game" — to "bring the President's Daily Brief to podcast form."

• Why it matters: The video podcast, published by Vox Media, draws on the duo's decades of experience shaping U.S. foreign policy under Presidents Biden and Obama.

Sullivan and Finer, a Washington Post foreign correspondent before entering government, have known each other for decades. They first met playing touch football at Oxford circa 2000.

• 🎥 Watch the trailer.

⚜️ Emeril Lagasse's flagship restaurant in New Orleans — now run by his son E.J. — was the only restaurant to earn two stars in Michelin's first-ever guide to the American South, Axios New Orleans' Chelsea Brasted writes.

• Why it matters: Landing a nod within the Michelin Guide brings life-changing prestige and promotion for selected restaurants and chefs.

In recent years, Lagasse handed the reins of Emeril's over to his son, E.J., who quickly took on a full renovation and menu reboot.

• It was money well spent. The 22-year-old chef is picking up accolades left and right, including a special nod in last night's ceremony as a Michelin Young Chef.

🧑‍🍳 Zoom in: 10 other restaurants — in Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee — earned one star.

• Michelin expanded to North America two decades ago. It's slowly added more cities and states as tourism agencies have begun footing the bill.
• The U.S. South expansion, for example, came with a $1.65M price tag for the involved states.

Full list of winners ... New Orleans ... The Carolinas ... Nashville.