WASHINGTON — One of the largest conservative think tanks in Washington, DC, has been roiled by their president’s embrace of Tucker Carlson after the conservative podcaster hosted white nationalist Nick Fuentes on his show, prompting an outcry from senior staff.
Internal chats reviewed by The Post show high-ranking members of the Heritage Foundation told each other privately how “embarrassed” and “disgusted” they were by Kevin Roberts’ “ridiculous” decision to come to Carlson’s defense over the sitdown with Fuentes, 27, who has expressed antisemitic views and denied that the Holocaust happened.
“I’m disgusted by this and don’t understand how this premeditated and orchestrated response could come out of one of the biggest think tanks in the world,” one wrote.
Another declared the incident was “the most embarrassed I’ve ever been to be a Heritage employee. It’s not close.”
In Carlson’s two-hour interview, which has racked up more than 17 million views on X, Fuentes called himself “a fan” of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and denounced the influence of “organized Jewry” in US politics, while Carlson accused American Christians who support the state of Israel of being heretics with a “brain virus.”
Roberts, 51, released a video statement Oct. 30, three days after the Carlson-Fuentes interview was posted, condemning efforts by movement conservatives aimed at “canceling our own people.”
“We will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda. That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains, and as I have said before, always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation,” declared Roberts, whose statement has more than 23 million views on X. “The venomous coalition attacking him are sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail.”
“I disagree with and even abhor things that Nick Fuentes said,” added Roberts, “but canceling him is not the answer either.”
The following day, according to an internal email first reported by National Review, Roberts chief of staff Ryan Neuhaus was reassigned to work as a senior adviser focused on housing issues — which one source described as “the Siberia of Heritage.”
Heritage spokesman Cody Sargent confirmed to The Post Monday that Neuhaus had since “offered his resignation, which was accepted.”
“Ryan is a good man, we appreciate his service, and we have no doubt he will serve the movement in another capacity,” Sargent added.
The ripple effect from Roberts’ statement has gone beyond staff issues, with sources close to the think tank saying that it has been “hemorrhaging” evangelical Christian and Jewish contributors.
“This is ridiculous, on the one hand, KDR [Roberts] says that we can’t ‘cancel our own people,’ referring to Tucker and Fuentes, when, on the other hand, he literally cancelled the Boston College Republicans by calling them a bunch of ‘soft men‘ to whom the future doesn’t belong,” one Heritage staffer said in the private chat group.
A second asked whether members of the think tank were “part of the venomous coalition for calling out Tucker for playing footsie with literal Nazis?”
“Saying we can’t cancel someone is safe space wokeism,” offered a third.
“If we are labeled on the same side as Nick Fuentes, then we deserve to lose,” chimed in a fourth Heritage colleague, who later added: “Talking with some of the interns I think that there are a growing number of them who actually agree” with the views Fuentes espoused.
Roberts issued a second statement on Oct. 31 affirming that he stood against Fuentes’ “vicious antisemitic ideology, his Holocaust denial, and his relentless conspiracy theories that echo the darkest chapters of history.”
References to Heritage’s sponsorship of The Tucker Carlson Network, which hosts the show Fuentes appeared on, seem to have been scrubbed from the think tank’s donations page since some point last week.
Roberts has since been interviewed several times, describing his entry into the debate as aimed at providing “nuance” on a lightning-rod issue that involved free speech and America’s relations with Israel.
“You can detest things that people say, as I and Heritage do about so much of what Fuentes has said, without making the tactical error of saying that they ought to be canceled,” Roberts told RealClearPolitics. “Because if you cancel him, then all that will happen is that his audience will grow.”
Roberts has also stressed that staffers will “absolutely not” face repercussions for speaking out about the incident and its fallout.
“That’s not how we operate at Heritage,” he said over the weekend. “It’s certainly not how I’ve ever operated in a long career of leadership. We value all of our people, appreciate their service, and stand unequivocally with those denouncing antisemitism.”
David Bernstein, a professor at George Mason University’s Atonin Scalia Law School and former member of a task force at Heritage called “Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism,” told The Post Monday that he had resigned from his position over Roberts’ remarks.
“The language that to me was most problematic was a ‘venomous coalition’ aligned against him [Carlson] — because that’s me and any Jewish person who cares about condemning antisemitism,” Bernstein said.
“That felt like a real attack against Jewish political agency on the American scene,” he added, rebuking Roberts for expressing the idea that conservatives should have “no enemies to the right.”
“I think that’s very dangerous because it allows you to justify almost anything said in the name of political conservatism, and I think that that empties it of all meaning,” he also said.
Heritage reps have pushed back on reports that an emergency Board of Trustees meeting occurred Saturday in the wake of the Roberts statements, but some of its members took to X to issue lengthy statements sounding the alarm about antisemitism gaining ground in the conservative movement.
“American conservatism today faces a challenge. That challenge comes from those who reject our commitment to inherent and equal human dignity. They are seeking acceptance in the conservative movement and its institutions, and they do so with the ultimate objective of transforming them by undermining that commitment,” Princeton University professor Robert P. George posted.
“They openly preach white supremacy and the hatred of Jews, among other noxious ideas. They no longer feel the need even to try to hide their bigotry,” added George, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Sources close to the foundation reported that George had been reaching out to fellow board members to gain support for ousting Roberts late last week, with one person saying that the president’s defenders “barely saved his bacon here.”
Heritage is expected to host a town hall with its staffers on Wednesday, which had been planned before the controversy, but Roberts has cancelled several appearances on his schedule set for later in the week, with the exception of an address at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan Monday night.
“Dr. Roberts regularly meets with staff from across the organization, in addition to our monthly staff town halls. He of course plans to meet with colleagues this week,” Sargent added. “We will not comment on the internal schedule of Dr. Roberts or any staffers, especially in response to gossip that has been consistently wrong. Heritage’s Board of Trustees continues to support Dr. Roberts and our entire team.”
According to a March 2025 Pew Research poll, 72% of white evangelical Protestants in the US have a favorable view of Israel, while 57% of all American Protestants support Israel along with 73% of American Jews.
The same survey found majorities of US Muslims (81%), religiously unaffiliated Americans (69%), and US Catholics (53%) have unfavorable views of Israel, along with half of white non-evangelical Protestants.
GOP lawmakers and commentators who convened in Las Vegas this past weekend for the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Leadership Summit called out the alarming rise of anti-Israel and antisemitic views in their coalition.
“In the last six months, I’ve seen more antisemitism on the right than I have in my entire life. This is a poison, and I believe we are facing an existential crisis in our party and in our country,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) Friday night.
“Now is the time for choosing, now is the time for courage,” Cruz added in an address that referenced other guests on Carlson’s podcast who have downplayed Nazi atrocities and the Holocaust.
“If you say nothing, then you are a coward and you are complicit in that evil.”
