The Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts is walking back his defense of Tucker Carlson.

Carlson caused a major stir on the right last week when he decided to interview Nick Fuentes, a known white supremacist and Hitler fan. The interview was immediately flamed by conservative Jews, who condemned the ex–Fox News host’s decision to elevate Fuentes’s talking points.

Despite the opposition, Roberts released a video on X Thursday in support of Carlson and Fuentes, noting that while he disagreed with Fuentes’s beliefs, he did not believe that the “venomous” coalition “cancelling” the Christian nationalist Holocaust-denier had an appropriate reaction to the interview.

Since then, the Heritage Foundation has been embroiled in internal controversy, with at least one staffer exiting the institution over the mess. Roberts addressed the schism Wednesday.

“I made a mistake and I let you down and I let down this institution. Period. Full Stop,” the conservative think tank’s president told employees at an all-staff meeting, according to The Washington Free Beacon.

  • DoctorNope@lemmy.world
    23·
    10 hours ago

    Question: is Tucker sanewashing Fuentes by giving him an in to mainstream media? Or is Fuentes “nazi-washing” Tucker and helping him out by giving him access to Fuentes’ audience? For a much better breakdown than I can give, Dan & Jordan at Knowledge Fight just covered this in episode 1089.

    Tucker has already debased himself, as if that were possible, by interviewing the likes of Alex Jones (who of course has had Fuentes on his show multiple times). It’s not like he’s any more guilty by direct association. Given that 30-40% of young republican DC staffers may be groypers (not exactly a scientific poll but I mean…doesn’t this comport with recent experience), is it surprising that he’s cozying up to a literal nazi in a desperate attempt to stay relevant to the next generation of republicans?

    And as Knowledge Fight (honestly pretty exhaustingly exhaustively) shows: Fuentes has been making the rounds lately. All the right-wing grifters and shitheels have had him on—they are fully on board with the sentiment. This is precisely what 4chan circa 2016 hath wrought: the old guys are still “hiding their power level” but the young republicans are out and proud nazis. This is just Tucker tapping into that base. For money.

    As bleak as all that is, I still hold on to hope that there are enough of us who have resisted the brainrot and redpill propaganda enough to see these goofy assholes for what they are. Because listening to what they have to say should be a potent vaccine against their ideas. If you’ve got even a shred of humanity left in you.