Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who defended Tucker Carlson’s choice to interview Nick Fuentes, apologized Wednesday to the conservative think tank’s staff Wednesday, saying “I made a mistake.”
Carlson hosted Fuentes, the far-right, “America First” political commentator last week on his YouTube show. In his original defense, Roberts denounced the “venomous coalition” trying to get Carlson canceled for platforming Fuentes, who’s known for unapologetically promoting racist, antisemitic, and misogynistic views and policies.
“I made a mistake and I let you down and I let down this institution. Period. Full Stop,” Roberts said in a video first obtained by The Washington Beacon.
He added: “You can say you’re not going to participate in canceling someone … while also being clear you’re not endorsing everything they’ve said, you’re not endorsing softball interviews, you’re not endorsing putting people on shows, and I should’ve made that clear.”
On Sunday, Mark Goldfeder, CEO and director of the nonprofit National Jewish Advocacy Center, resigned from the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, a project that falls under the Heritage Foundation. In his resignation later posted to X, Goldfeder said that Heritage has done “valuable work … I cannot serve under someone who thinks Nazis are worth debating.”
Roberts explained that his former chief of staff Ryan Neuhaus had been in charge of writing the script for the initial video that caught Roberts so much flak. Neuhaus has since resigned, but Roberts said he still should have checked with more colleagues before moving ahead.
“When the script was presented to me … I understood from our former colleague that it was approved, it was signed off on by the handful of colleagues who are part of that. Still my fault, I should have had the wisdom to say, ‘Time out, let’s double check this.’”
For his part, Roberts added in his apology Wednesday that he considered resigning as well. Instead he thought he was better served as fixing where he went wrong.
“I made the mess, let me clean it up,” he said.
