Heritage Foundation President and author of Project 2025 Kevin Roberts faced brutal criticism on Wednesday in a think tank staff meeting for how he defended Tucker Carlson’s embrace of groyper Nick Fuentes, a self-admitted Hitler loving Nazi.
Roberts has revised his statements multiple times after calling critics of Carlson a “venomous coalition” for trying to cancel the former Fox News host for his interview of Fuentes.
The Washington Free Beacon published a YouTube video of the meeting, highlighting a Heritage senior legal fellow, Amy Swearer, giving a no-confidence call for Roberts’ resignation.
“Dr. Roberts, over the last week you have shown a stunning lack of both courage and judgment,” said Swearer. “There’s nothing ambiguous about what we saw happen. Tucker Carlson invited a Holocaust-denying neo-Nazi onto his show, and then spent roughly two hours doing little more than flirting with him.”
The clip below begins at Swearer’s remarks, in which she calls Roberts’ handling of the matter a “masterclass in cowardice.”
Roberts faced both critics and supporters for over an hour and a half, exposing a civil war within the institution.
There were other outraged detractors who had no confidence in Roberts’ leadership, referencing Carlson’s show as a “lunatic asylum,” and Heritage decisions being made by elites behind closed doors.
An unidentified young female staffer supported Roberts’ defense of Carlson, saying there were young people on the right divided on Israel.
Senior fellow Mike Gonzalez asked Roberts not to resign — saying it would be “disastrous to those of us who want to fight Mamdani,” in reference to the newly elected NYC mayor.