Heritage Foundation leader apologizes for backing Tucker Carlson's interview with white nationalist

Source: The Guardian

Thu 6 Nov 2025 10.40 EST
Last modified on Thu 6 Nov 2025 11.08 EST


The leader of the conservative thinktank behind Project 2025 apologized for supporting a white nationalist amid turmoil on the right over the mainstreaming of extremist ideology, but is resisting calls to resign. Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, previously defended the former Fox host Tucker Carlson for having Hitler fan Nick Fuentes on his podcast without pushing back on his white supremacist views.

In leaked footage of a Heritage town hall from Wednesday, staffers largely said Roberts’s decision to align the thinktank with Fuentes was a mistake. “I made a mistake and I let you down and I let down this institution. Period. Full Stop,” he told Heritage staff. He also claimed he “didn’t know much” about Fuentes before he recorded a video and posted it on X in which he defended Carlson as a “close friend of the Heritage Foundation”.

He said that a chief of staff, who has since resigned, wrote the video’s script. Some called for him to step down. Roberts, who holds a PhD in history and spearheaded the rightwing manifesto Project 2025, has moved the foundation into more of a Trumpian stance since he joined in 2021. He has said he will not resign his position, writing on X: “I’m staying. I’m all in.”

The Washington Post reports that “at least” five members of an antisemitism taskforce at the organization have resigned in protest. One staffer in the internal meeting called the issue her “final straw”.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/06/heritage-foundation-tucker-carlson-nick-fuentes