A member of the Heritage Foundation’s antisemitism task force resigned Wednesday after the think tank’s president, Kevin Roberts, apologized for defending Tucker Carlson following the podcaster’s controversial interview with Nick Fuentes.
According to Fox News, Laurie Cardoza-Moore announced she was leaving the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, also known as Project Esther, citing Roberts’ support for Carlson days after the Fuentes interview was released.
“I proudly accepted the invitation to serve on the Heritage Foundation’s Task Force as a tool to fight Jew Hatred, but I am being forced to stand down — unless they draw a clear line in the sand,” Cardoza-Moore said.
Cardoza-Moore, founder of the Christian Zionist group Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, said she had told Carlson “in person and publicly, he is a dangerous antisemite.”
“Kevin Robert’s recent statement following Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes was extremely concerning,” she added.
At a Heritage event, Roberts told attendees, “I let you down and I let down this institution. Period. Full stop. I made the mess, let me clean it up.”
“You can say you’re not going to participate in canceling someone,” he continued, “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.”
Carlson defended his decision to host Fuentes during a podcast appearance with comedian Dave Smith, saying he “thought a lot” before the interview after Fuentes had “tarred” his family.
“For one, Nick had attacked my father, my wife, one of my children,” Carlson said, suggesting Fuentes was “a federal op designed to tar sane, anti-neocon, pro-realist foreign policy people … tar us as Nazis.”
“But basically in the end, I decided, Nick Fuentes can’t be cancelled,” he added. “He is enormously talented, anyone who denies that is lying, and he has … a semi-coherent kind of position.”
“He’s the most influential voice for men under 30 in the United States,” Carlson continued.
“The idea that I hate Jews — obviously I don’t hate Jews at all,” Carlson said. “I’m not allowed to hate any person because of the group he’s attached to — I reject — that’s what identity politics is.”
Some Heritage staffers said they were “disgusted” by Roberts’ defense of Carlson, according to internal messages obtained by The Post.
“I’m disgusted by this and don’t understand how this premeditated and orchestrated response could come out of one of the biggest think tanks in the world,” one employee wrote.
Another questioned whether critics of Carlson were now “part of the venomous coalition for calling out Tucker for playing footsie with literal Nazis?”
The Fuentes interview, viewed tens of millions of times on X, featured the 27-year-old white nationalist denouncing “organized Jewry” and expressing admiration for Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Carlson also accused American Christians who support Israel of having a “brain virus.”
Roberts, who said he “didn’t know much about this Fuentes guy,” released a video statement on Oct. 30 defending Carlson as “a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.”
“We will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda,” Roberts said. “That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains, and as I have said before, always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.”
“The venomous coalition attacking him are sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail,” he added, while also saying, “I disagree with and even abhor things that Nick Fuentes said … but canceling him is not the answer either.”
“The new ‘conservative’ position is we’re for free speech unless you oppose war with Iran? This whole thing is so bizarre and embarrassing,” Carlson told The Post in a statement.
