The Heritage Foundation is facing internal turmoil and public criticism from MAGA movement allies, funders, and board members over President Kevin Roberts’ extraordinary defense of Tucker Carlson’s friendly interview with white nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes, who is notorious for his vicious antisemitism, racism, misogyny, and hostility to democracy. In a video posted to social media, Roberts said conservatives should not “cancel” Fuentes.
As Right Wing Watch reported last week, Fuentes described himself during the interview as an admirer of Josef Stalin and Carlson did not ask any follow-up questions about that. Neither did he question Fuentes about his professed love for Adolf Hitler.
Criticism of Carlson for giving Fuentes a platform without seriously challenging his bigotry and extremism was swift and intense, including from conservative and right-wing leaders and organizations. As that criticism flared, Roberts posted an extraordinary interview slamming Carlson’s critics as “venomous” and declaring that Carlson was and would always be a “close friend” of the Heritage Foundation.
One Heritage researcher posted a meme Thursday declaring NAZIS ARE BAD, and posted on Friday that Heritage’s chief of staff had asked for his resignation; he added that “if losing my job at Heritage is the consequence of posting ‘NAZIS ARE BAD’, it’s a consequence I’m prepared to face if it comes to that.”
Roberts was clearly feeling the heat by Friday afternoon, when he published a social media post denouncing some Fuentes statements, many of which appear to have first been reported by Right Wing Watch. (That also appears to be the case with clips used by Ben Shapiro while blasting Carlson and Fuentes on his show Monday.)
Judging by the harsh comments, many conservatives found his statement unconvincing given how ardently he defended Carlson. And indeed, the backlash built over the weekend.
Rep. Randy Fine, a Jewish Republican, called Carlson “the most dangerous antisemite in America,” cancelled a scheduled appearance at Heritage and said its representatives are no longer welcome in his office.
One member of the Heritage Foundation’s two-year-old National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism quit over Roberts’ message. “Elevating him and then attacking those who object as somehow un-American or disloyal in a video replete with antisemitic tropes and dog whistles, no less, is not the protection of free speech,” he wrote. “It is a moral collapse disguised as courage.” He said that “if we equivocate when hatred dresses itself in the language of populism, we betray both our mission and our values.”
Heritage chief of staff Ryan Neuhaus was reportedly removed from his post over the weekend and given another position at Heritage.
Back in 2022 when Donald Trump had dinner with the relatively unknown Fuentes and the openly antisemitic performer Ye (previously known as Kanye West), mainstream media turned to Right Wing Watch for its expertise and reporting on Fuentes. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow used the occasion to call Right Wing Watch as ‘a fire alarm system for the whole country’ and to praise People For the American Way for “this great public service.”
