Overview
- After defending Tucker Carlson on Thursday, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts issued a follow-up Friday condemning Nick Fuentes’s Holocaust denial and antisemitic rhetoric while rejecting calls to “cancel” him.
- Sen. Ted Cruz castigated the unchallenged platforming of Fuentes as “complicit in that evil,” and Sen. Mitch McConnell rebuked Heritage for carrying water for antisemites.
- The Republican Jewish Coalition said it would reassess its relationship with Heritage, and Heritage staffers publicly signaled dissent as other conservative groups and National Review criticized Carlson’s soft interview.
- Roberts maintained that debate, not deplatforming, is the proper response, drawing praise from figures aligned with the MAGA right, including Steve Bannon and leaders at the Center for Renewing America and American Moment.
- Carlson’s Monday podcast with Fuentes, where critics say extremist claims went unchallenged, has intensified a larger split on the right over U.S. support for Israel and the place of Christian nationalism in America First politics.