Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts released a remarkable video Thursday defending Tucker Carlson’s friendly two-hour interview with far-right personality Nick Fuentes.
Carlson has been drawing some harsh criticism from right-wing political figures for platforming Fuentes, who has declared his love for Adolf Hitler and told Carlson that he has always been an admirer of Josef Stalin. Fuentes responded to those critics with an antisemitic rant saying his Jewish critics should “get the fuck out of America and go to Israel.” That makes Robertson’s decision to ride to Carlson’s rescue even more notable.
Fuentes is using his recent tour of right-wing podcasts to simultaneously downplay his bigotry and anti-democratic extremism while establishing that his racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and Christian nationalist fascism deserve a place at the conservative movement’s table.
Carlson’s interview was Fuentes’s biggest success in that effort – until Roberts gave it the endorsement of the enormously influential Heritage Foundation. No wonder Fuentes is grateful.
“I disagree with, and even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer, either,” Roberts said in his video.
The American people, Roberts said, “expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the left, not attacking our friends on the right.” Having Roberts even imply that Fuentes is one of his “friends on the right” that the movement should not be attacking is a massive victory for Fuentes and the extremism he promotes.
Roberts claimed that Heritage did not become the powerhouse it is by “canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians, and we won’t start doing that now.” Heritage certainly has never had a problem “policing” the consciences of more progressive Christians, and Roberts bragged that the group will “continue to dismantle the vile ideas of the left.”
But does Roberts consider Fuentes to be one of the movement’s “own people” as well as Carlson? Does Fuentes’ claimed Christian faith mean that Heritage is unwilling to “police” his “conscience” even when he declares that non-Christians will be put to death once his movement takes power?
During their interview, Carlson and Fuentes bonded over what they portrayed as their mistreatment by the Republican establishment for their criticism of the nation of Israel. Roberts seemed to endorse that claim, declaring, “Conservatives should feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class or from their mouthpieces in Washington.”
Roberts’ framing—“globalist” is often thinly veiled right-wing code for antisemitism—is particularly remarkable given Heritage’s role in the religious-right movement, whose leaders have often portrayed unwavering support for Israel as being a religious obligation for Christians. Roberts’ video was quickly criticized by Republican Jewish Leaders; it will be interesting to see how religious-right leaders respond. During his interview with Fuentes, Carlson derided Christian Zionists as heretics and said U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has been “seized by this brain virus.”
Carlson’s relationship with the Heritage Foundation includes his role as keynoter for Heritage’s day-long policy fest on the first day of last year’s Republican National Convention, in which Carlson told the audience that they were in a “spiritual battle” against “anti-human” forces that want to “eliminate Christians.” During that interview, Roberts agreed with Carlson that “strong” fathers should be willing to beat up school counselors who “indoctrinate kids and try and turn them into freaks, circus freaks.”
Roberts has led the Heritage Foundation’s embrace of Trump and the MAGA movement. He oversaw the development of the Project 2025 agenda that the Trump administration is imposing on Americans.
