The latest battleground in the war over MAGA’s future is one of the conservative movement’s most illustrious think tanks: the Heritage Foundation. On Thursday, its president, Kevin Roberts, released a video to defend the honor of Tucker Carlson only a few days after the former Fox News host interviewed white Christian nationalist and proud antisemite Nick Fuentes.
In his video post, Roberts began by saying, “Christians can critique the state of Israel without being antisemitic. And of course, antisemitism should be condemned.” He then went on to attack supporters of President Donald Trump who had been attacking Carlson.
“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,” he said. “The venomous coalition attacking him are [sic] sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail.”
The Roberts video has sparked a near-insurrection inside his think tank. This is understandable. There was no need for Roberts to say anything at all. The day before he published his video, Heritage scrubbed Carlson’s name from its website’s donation page. For years, Heritage has produced policy papers and hosted conferences that have not only defended the U.S.-Israel relationship but also called out the rise of antisemitism in the U.S. In 2024, it launched Project Esther, an initiative to develop a national strategy for combating antisemitism.
