Cruz, McConnell At Odds With Heritage Foundation’s Tucker Carlson Defense

Some of the GOP’s most powerful leaders firmly denounced Tucker Carlson and the Heritage Foundation after the right-wing think tank behind Project 2025 gave a full-throated endorsement of the ousted Fox News host platforming white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

Both Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the former majority leader, and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) spoke out shortly after Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts affirmed that his right-wing think tank was not distancing itself from Carlson, who did little to challenge Fuentes when he bemoaned “organized Jewry in America” and praised Joseph Stalin during his interview.

McConnell took direct aim at Roberts’ comments, using his own words against him in a post on X.

“The ‘intellectual backbone of the conservative movement’ is only as strong as the values it defends,” McConnell wrote Friday. “Last I checked, ‘conservatives should feel no obligation’ to carry water for antisemites and apologists for America-hating autocrats.”

Hours after Roberts released his video, Cruz condemned Carlson’s interview while speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual legislative conference.

“If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing,
then you are a coward and you are complicit in that evil,” Cruz said without explicitly naming Carlson.

In his video, Roberts said that while he disagrees with Fuentes, “canceling him is not the answer.” The activist quickly responded, thanking Roberts for his “courage in standing up for open discourse and defending Tucker against the Israel First Woke Right.”