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Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) slammed The Heritage Foundation over its defense of Tucker Carlson on X Friday, writing that “conservatives should feel no obligation to carry water for antisemites.”
On Thursday, the president of The Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, posted a highly disputed video in which he defended Carlson’s recent interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes — despite calls for the organization to distance itself from the former Fox News host.
“We will always defend truth, we will always defend America, and we will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda. That includes Tucker Carlson,” said Roberts. “I disagree with, and even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer either.”
“The ‘intellectual backbone of the conservative movement’ is only as strong as the values it defends,” wrote McConnell. “Last I checked, ‘conservatives should feel no obligation’ to carry water for antisemites and apologists for America-hating autocrats.”
Additionally, at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s leadership summit on Thursday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) disavowed the Carlson-Fuentes interview, calling it “cowardly and complicit” for offer a stage to someone who praises Hitler. He warned that “if you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and you say nothing, then you are a coward and you are complicit.”
The backlash wasn’t limited to Capitol Hill. Inside Heritage, several staffers openly rebuked their boss’s stance, subtweeting Roberts with pointed condemnations, emphasizing that defending Fuentes crossed a moral and strategic line for the conservative think tank. Their criticism echoed a growing chorus on the right, as prominent conservative voices warn that legitimizing Fuentes’ rhetoric risks dragging the movement into openly extremist territory.
The post Mitch McConnell Slams The Heritage Foundation: ‘Conservatives Should Feel No Obligation to Carry Water for Antisemites’ first appeared on Mediaite.
