Legal scholar and campus antisemitism advocate Jeffrey Lax, in an interview with Newsmax on Monday, condemned the Heritage Foundation’s handling of the uproar over extremist commentator Nick Fuentes.
Lax, on “Wake Up America,” spoke out following Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ defense of Tucker Carlson, who recently interviewed Fuentes, a rightist influencer known for antisemitic rhetoric.
Roberts initially called those criticizing Carlson “a venomous coalition” and said their “attempt to cancel him will fail.”
Lax said Roberts’ response was “so vile and it just taps into the same historic — and really thousands of years old — antisemitic tropes that Jews control the world.”
He added, “Tucker has gone on record to say that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu controls the American government.
“He’s even gone on to say … that there were actually Israeli spies controlling what was going on in the Pentagon, going room to room and telling them what to do, as if that could ever possibly happen with no evidence.”
Lax said, “Tucker cites this disgusting trope,” which he said helps “feed into the Nick Fuentes’ … supporters and that neo-Nazi stuff that we’re talking about.
“And all it does is push hate and divisiveness.”
Roberts later wrote on social media that he “abhorred” Fuentes’ views but maintained that “canceling him is not the answer.”
Lax, a professor of law at the City University of New York and founder of the nonprofit S.A.F.E. Campus, has long spoken against antisemitism in academia.
He previously filed a discrimination complaint against CUNY and later said the university had become “nearly Judenrein” following faculty union resolutions that supported the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement.
Judenrein is a term of Nazi origin to indicate an area that has been “cleansed” of Jews.
Lax emphasized that the issue is not criticism of Israeli policy but the failure to challenge explicit bigotry.
He said that within the Republican Party, indulging conspiracy theories and historic slurs, fuels divisiveness at a moment when conservatives should be focused on governing.
He warned that echoing unfounded accusations only emboldens extremist supporters of Fuentes and similar figures.
Lax said Heritage’s posture is “so despicable” precisely because “nobody from our side is saying you can’t criticize Israel or can’t have a debate about it,” adding that Carlson’s session with Fuentes “wasn’t a debate.”
He said that Carlson “didn’t challenge Fuentes” and noted Fuentes cited the late philanthropist Sheldon Adelson as if he were active in politics, saying “Sheldon Adelson has been dead for five years,” yet “not one time” did Carlson correct him.
The controversy has sparked broader condemnation from Jewish and conservative leaders, who accuse Carlson of promoting age-old antisemitic tropes about Jewish control and influence.
Heritage now faces questions about its commitment to drawing boundaries around extremism and defending its own credibility.
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