Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts came under scathing attack from his own staff and fellows who were convened for a special internal meeting Wednesday — with several castigating his leadership and calling for his resignation.
In a video of the private conference made public by the Washington Free Beacon on YouTube, which lasted almost two hours, one Heritage member said the organization was “bleeding” under Roberts’ leadership.
“So it’s been six days … where we, as an organization, have been unable to utter the words … if you want to cut through it, [that] Tucker [Carlson] is an antisemite — as we, as Heritage, do not want to associate with him. And we still do not have a statement about that.”
The Heritage staff member said he has been barraged by calls and emails asking where Heritage stands on Carlson’s antisemitism and platforming of other bigots, adding, “I don’t know where the institution stands.”
Despite the staff conclave, Roberts still offered no clue as to his personal or the organization’s position on Carlson’s antisemitism or efforts to platform antisemites.
Roberts used the opening of the forum to apologize to staff Wednesday for the brouhaha but never renounced Carlson or his antisemitic and racial statements that sparked the controversy.
During a more than 10-minute mea culpa, Roberts claimed he made a mistake but seemed to indicate his only error was allowing his chief of staff to write a script he failed to properly vet.
At no time did Roberts retract his support for Carlson or Heritage’s sponsorship of him.
The controversy for Heritage began last week when Roberts released a video defending Carlson’s podcast interview with radical white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
In his video, posted Oct. 30, Roberts instead praised Carlson as “a courageous truth-teller” and “a friend of Heritage,” dismissing the uproar and saying conservatives should focus on “our political adversaries on the left, not attacking our friends on the right.”
In that video, Roberts also condemned what he called a “venomous coalition” trying to cancel Carlson — a remark viewed as a thinly veiled antisemitic trope.
In his presentation Wednesday, Roberts continued to insist Carlson was a close personal friend.
He assigned blame for the video to his former chief of staff, Ryan Neuhaus, who he said wrote the script but did not follow normal processes and clear it with other colleagues at Heritage.
After the incident, Neuhaus stepped down as chief of staff but still holds a top job at Heritage.
On Monday, Roberts made a fresh attempt at reconciliation after his first apology — delivered at Hillsdale College last week — was poorly received.
“I made a mistake and I let you down and I let down this institution. Period. Full stop,” Roberts told staffers.
But he also added, “We don’t cancel friends,” indicating he would not condemn Carlson’s actions.
Roberts also bragged that Heritage had just completed a major sponsorship of Carlson’s podcast — which often carries antisemitic, racial, and conspiracy-laden claims — justifying it by noting that Heritage also buys ads on Mark Levin’s radio show.
“You can say you’re not going to participate in canceling someone … while also being clear you’re not endorsing everything they’ve said, you’re not endorsing softball interviews, you’re not endorsing putting people on shows, and I should’ve made that clear,” Roberts added, claiming he doesn’t “know much about this Fuentes guy.”
Roberts said he offered to resign but felt he had a “moral obligation” to fix the “mess” he created. He also indicated the Heritage board of directors remains “fully supportive.”
Roberts claimed his plan to fix the current mess was to “do what we have always done, which is to confront those noxious ideas.”
But multiple Heritage staffers seemed to indicate they had a different view.
Longtime fellow Robert Rector spoke at the forum, noting Fuentes says “he adores Hitler and says he was a f**kin’ cool guy.” Rector asked Roberts, “Do we want him in the conservative movement?”
He also questioned why Heritage did not challenge Carlson for conducting a softball interview with Fuentes.
“What is the role of someone [Carlson] who is mainstreaming a neo-Nazi Stalinist online … what role does that person have inside the conservative movement?” Rector again asked Roberts.
Heritage Thatcher Fellow Niles Gardiner said the controversy was a “defining moment for the Heritage Foundation,” noting Carlson’s extreme positions and emphasizing Heritage “really has to speak out against that” — a clear indication they had not.
Amy Swearer, a legal scholar at Heritage, said, “After the events of the last week, I stand here today with no ability to say I have confidence in your leadership for this institution moving forward.”
She indicated the sentiment that Roberts should resign is widely shared among staff but that many are fearful of speaking out.
She noted that Carlson “invited a Holocaust-denying neo-Nazi onto his show” and then spent two hours “flirting with him.”
When conservative friends rightly criticized Carlson, Swearer said, Heritage could have rebuked him.
Instead, Roberts engaged in a “masterclass in cowardice that ran cover for the most unhinged dregs of the far right.”
“Instead of confronting this evil,” Swearer said, Roberts spent days working to “dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge any real accountability.”
Swearer claimed that after Roberts’ ruse of blaming his chief of staff failed, he only then decided to admit, “I made a mistake.”
She called the supposed apology a “weak response.”
Swearer castigated Roberts for saying “nothing about the guy [Carlson] who just said he dislikes nothing more than Christian Zionists.”
Rachel Greszler, a senior research fellow, echoed Swearer, arguing Heritage increasingly was being “asked to defend and promote certain people without regard to their policies or their morals.”
Greszler said it was the “last straw” and joined Swearer in calling for Roberts to resign.
“I do not believe you are the right person to lead the Heritage Foundation,” she said.
Another staff member, who described himself as Jewish, said the “damage done to the reputation of Heritage is the worst I have ever seen. … All the conservatives I know at organizations, institutions, everywhere, are just appalled at what’s happened. … And I have to tell you, if you don’t dump Tucker Carlson publicly, we’re not going to repair that damage.”
Fallout from Roberts’ actions since last week appears to be severe and growing.
Several major Jewish figures and organizations have already quit Heritage’s Task Force on Antisemitism, including the Coalition for Jewish Values, Young Jewish Conservatives, Combat Antisemitism Movement, the National Jewish Advocacy Center, and the Israel Innovation Fund.
In a sharply worded opinion piece published this week by JNS, Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, accused Roberts of whitewashing and allying with “Jew-hating, Israel-basher Tucker Carlson,” and warned that the ZOA would sever all ties with Heritage if the organization refuses to distance itself from Carlson.© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
