A firestorm erupted last week within the U.S. conservative movement after Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes — a figure long associated with white nationalist ideology and antisemitic rhetoric — and Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, publicly defended Carlson’s decision to host him.
The fallout has laid bare fractures within the GOP and the broader conservative movement over antisemitism, Israel, and the boundaries of allowing extremist speech to go unanswered.
Roberts’ video statement posted to X declared, “Their attempt to cancel him will fail … Carlson is a close friend of Heritage — and always will be.”
He said he “disagree[d] with and even abhor[red] things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer either.”
And he added: “Christians can critique the state of Israel without being antisemitic. And of course, antisemitism should be condemned.”
For many on the right, Roberts’ choice to defend Carlson triggered alarm.
Conservatives weren’t saying Carlson had no right to interview Fuentes; rather, they objected to his giving a platform — and apparent sympathy — to the ultranationalist’s most extreme views.
Similarly, critics said that by standing with Carlson and Fuentes, Roberts was implicitly sanctioning the normalization of bigotry — even as he publicly condemned it.
Carlson’s interview with Fuentes, which ran over two hours, was striking for the deference Carlson appeared to grant Fuentes, and for the virulently antisemitic claims Fuentes made.
Among the most troubling:
-Fuentes said that the “big challenge” to unifying the country was “organized Jewry” in America.
-Fuentes described “neoconservatism” as a Jewish-dominated phenomenon tied to Israel and opposed “these Zionist Jews.”
-He also expressed admiration for authoritarian leaders — Fuentes claimed he was “always an admirer” of Joseph Stalin.
-Carlson himself attacked Christian supporters of Israel, calling what he termed “Christian Zionists” a “dangerous heresy” and a “brain virus.”
-On the Israel–Gaza war front, Carlson told Fuentes: “One of the reasons I’m mad about Gaza is because the Israeli position is, everyone who lives in Gaza is a terrorist because of how they were born … That’s not a Western view. That’s an Eastern view. That’s non-Christian. That’s totally incompatible with Christianity and Western civilization.”
These statements undercut the longstanding conservative consensus around Israel as a democratic ally and raise profound questions about what the “America First” right now stands for.
Carlson framed U.S. support for Israel and its conduct in Gaza as inimical to Western values.
Roberts’ video in support of Carlson arrived at a moment when Heritage was already under pressure: the organization runs “Project Esther,” an initiative meant “to combat antisemitism.”
Yet by defending Carlson’s decision to platform Fuentes, Roberts invited criticism that Heritage was undermining its own mission.
In his video, Roberts condemned what he called a “venomous coalition” attacking Carlson and argued that conservatives must not be hostage to “cancel culture.” He repeated that while Fuentes’ views were abhorrent, “canceling him is not the answer either.”
But that position triggered significant backlash within and outside conservative circles. Among the most forceful critics:
-Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said: “If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very cool … and you say nothing, then you are a coward, and you are complicit in that evil.”
-Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wrote: “Conservatives should feel no obligation to carry water for antisemites … maybe I just don’t know what time it is.”
-Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks said he was “appalled, offended and disgusted that [Heritage] would stand with Carlson and Fuentes as somehow being acceptable spokespeople within the conservative movement.”
Critics also pointed out the timing: this protects Carlson’s platforming of Fuentes, even as the broader GOP deals with antisemitic incidents among Young Republican chapters and staffers with Nazi-symbol imagery.
Roberts’ backing of Carlson came when many believed the moment demanded clarity and a red line.
Rabbi Yaakov Menken, a leading Orthodox voice who heads the Coalition for Jewish Values, sharply criticized the Heritage Foundation for publicly standing by Tucker Carlson.
Menken said Heritage had “chosen to vocally stand with an antisemite,” accused the think tank of smearing Jewish critics as a “venomous coalition,” and warned the consequences “will be far-reaching,” citing the group’s past partnerships with his organization to combat antisemitism.
His remarks underscore an accelerating rift between conservative institutions and Jewish leaders over whether platforming Fuentes can be squared with credible efforts to fight Jew-hatred.
Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center and a member of Heritage’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, tendered his resignation, calling the think tank’s defense of Carlson “moral collapse disguised as courage.”
In a letter, Goldfeder wrote that defending free speech does not obligate organizations to “provide a megaphone for a Nazi,” and that continuing on the task force had become “impossible” after Heritage “defend[ed] and even celebrate[d]” Carlson’s decision to host Fuentes.
The task force was launched under Heritage’s “Project Esther,” which the think tank billed as a coalition to counter antisemitism and reaffirm U.S. support for Israel, magnifying the dissonance between its stated mission and recent actions.
Former Trump National Security Council chief of staff Fred Fleitz added to the conservative backlash in a post on X, condemning what he called Carlson’s “growing and inexplicable antisemitism and hatred of Israel” and the decision to host Fuentes.
Fleitz argued that an “America First” foreign policy must include standing firmly with Israel and denouncing antisemitism without compromise, praising former President Donald Trump’s pro-Israel posture and insisting the Republican Party “has no place for anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and Israel haters.”
The Wall Street Journal amplified those concerns in a Dominic Green column arguing that parts of the MAGA movement are flirting with racist and antisemitic currents that threaten conservatism’s coalition.
Green cast Carlson’s Fuentes episode as a “watershed” for efforts to make “racism respectable again,” faulting conservative institutions—including Heritage—for failing to “draw a clear line” and warning that surrendering to dog-whistles and resentment would jeopardize the right’s future.
The piece links Carlson’s rhetoric about Israel and “Christian Zionists” to a broader attempt to undermine longstanding GOP support for the U.S.–Israel alliance.
For Green the problem is not Fuentes but a growing antisemitism on the right that is being led by Carlson.
Green writes: “After leaving Fox News in 2023, he went over the edge. He donned the plaid shirt of the people, rediscovered Christianity, cashed in on his legacy status as a ringmaster of the right, and reinvented himself as the second coming of Alex Jones.”
Green finds Carlson’s podcasts over the top, not so much for the fact he interviews controversial figures, but for appearing to embrace their farfetched claims.
“Mr. Carlson has interviewed a podcaster who thinks Winston Churchill was the villain of World War II, raised discredited claims that Ashkenazi Jews are immune to Covid, and claimed that Benjamin Netanyahu openly tells Israelis, ‘I control the United States. I control Donald Trump.'”
Green claims such extremism has long been a feature of U.S. though – “a market for the circus” – but, he argues, “Mr. Carlson has become one of the freaks.”
And, the Heritage Foundation, apparently, has now become the ring master.
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