Carlson, a former Fox News host, drew widespread criticism for having Fuentes, a racist and Jew-hater, on his video podcast. Rothman was commenting on a video message in which Kevin Roberts, of Heritage, said that the conservative think tank wasn’t distancing itself from Carlson and that it is OK to criticize Israel.

“Conservatives should feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class or from their mouthpieces in Washington,” Roberts said. He added that the think tank wouldn’t be “policing the consciences of Christians.”

Kristol shared the post denouncing Heritage for defending Jew-haters, but the prior day, a snippet of an interview with the editor-at-large of the Bulwark that was published quoted Kristol referring to his “core praise” for Zohran Mamdani, an anti-Israel New York state representative, who is the Democratic nominee and frontrunner in the Big Apple’s mayoral race against Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York.

“Do you think you would vote for him if you were voting in New York?” Kristol, who is Jewish, was asked about Mamdani. “You know, I think so. I really can’t think,” he said. “The idea of going back to Cuomo is just, I think, ridiculous. I think if it had been the first round, I would’ve voted for someone else, and maybe wouldn’t have even ranked Mamdani and would’ve had other people who were more centrist, liberal types.”

“You’ve got Bill Kristol announcing his support for Mamdani and the president of Heritage excusing an antisemite,” stated Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host. “A strain of the right was more opportunistic than principled, and it is being revealed.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish, stated that it wasn’t surprising that Heritage was backing Carlson and Fuentes, but the decision is “deeply disturbing, an embrace of antisemitism and white supremacist conspiracy theories, all while trafficking antisemitic conspiracy theories of ‘globalist’ powers that control U.S. policy.”

Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, told Jewish Insider that “watching the statements from Kevin Roberts today, as somebody who has been involved and supportive of the Heritage Foundation since I came to Washington in 1987, I am appalled, offended and disgusted that he and Heritage would stand with Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes as somehow being acceptable spokespeople within the conservative movement.”

That defense of Jew-haters “is a total abrogation of their mission and what it means to be a conservative today,” Brooks told the publication. “Obviously, there’s going to be a reassessment of our relationship with Heritage in light of this.”

“They’re becoming more like Tucker Carlson and less like Ronald Reagan. Tucker Carlson represents the Barack Obama-Bernie Sanders wing of the Republican Party,” Brooks told the publication. “I believe that there’s still a vibrant Trump-Reagan wing of the Republican Party, and Heritage continues to position itself away from that, I think to their detriment.”

“We appreciate those who are speaking out. There is no room for antisemitism in American politics or society,” the Anti-Defamation League said, in response to the Jewish Insider story.

‘Make their voices heard’

Joel Griffith, policy adviser at Advancing American Freedom, told JNS that “as a former Heritage Foundation fellow, I am deeply disheartened by Dr. Kevin Roberts’s continued defense of Tucker Carlson.”

“Carlson has ridiculed Christians who affirm the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, slandered Israel as ‘genocidal,’ called for revoking citizenship from young Americans serving in the IDF and provided a platform to a Holocaust denier,” said Griffith, who urged “Heritage members and donors to make their voices heard.”

Roberts “does not speak for me as a patriotically American, proudly Jewish Heritage alumnus,” he told JNS. “Nor does he speak for the many pro-Israel conservatives, who remain within the institution and remain faithful to its founding principles.”

Many others denounced the Heritage social-media post directly. “Disappointing. Tucker’s not on the right anymore, just gone crazy,” wrote Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. “Fuentes definitely shouldn’t be welcome in anything called a conservative movement.”

Jason Brodsky, policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran, stated that he respects the work “many at Heritage do on Iran, Israel and antisemitism, but Tucker has gone down a very dark path. He’s obsessed with Jews and traffics in antisemitism. This video is disappointing and lacks moral clarity.”

Omri Ceren, legislative director for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), stated that “if Republican Jews don’t have a place at Heritage that’s a choice its current leadership is institutionally empowered to make, but it sits uncomfortably with the organization’s history.” (Ceren’s social-media handle states that he speaks personally, not for the senator.)

Dumisani Washington, founder and CEO of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel, wrote that Heritage would have dropped Tucker “like a bad habit the next day” if he were “coming for Black people the way he’s coming for Jews, including platforming neo-Nazis.”

“This is clear right-wing antisemitism,” Washington stated. “Oh, and good luck squaring ‘conservative values’ with denying jihadist organizations like Hamas aren’t terrorists. Maybe you can open a branch in Qatar.”

“‘Christians can critique the state of Israel without being antisemitic’ is an insulting response to Tucker Carlson gushing over a Hitler admirer and assuring the neo-Nazi of how much he, too, despises Israel and the Christians who support it,” stated Eliot Kaufman, a Wall Street Journal editorial board member.

Tal Fortgang, a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute, stated that “Heritage famously has a one-voice policy. Is it Heritage’s official institutional position that Tucker’s interview of Nick Fuentes is totally fine? That any criticism of Tucker’s conduct is ‘cancelation’?”

Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, wrote that Roberts had released a “reprehensible” statement.

“First, it is dishonest. Roberts opens by declaring that ‘Christians can critique the state of Israel without being antisemitic,’ as if the issue were free speech or foreign policy. It is not,” Doran stated. “Tucker Carlson is under fire for platforming Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier who preaches white Christian nationalism. The question is not whether one may criticize Israel. It is whether open antisemitism and racism are acceptable in conservative politics.”

“By reframing the issue as a debate about Israel, Roberts erases the real problem and covers for it,” Doran said.

The Heritage president’s statement is also Jew-hatred for its “thinly veiled reference to Israel and its supporters” when Roberts said Carlson received “slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda,” according to Doran.

“In other words, anyone who objects to platforming a Holocaust denier is accused of being an agent of a foreign power,” Doran said. “I am a Catholic American who voted for Trump three times. I believe that Holocaust denial and white nationalism have no place in conservative politics. Am I now a pawn of Israel?”