Fierce
backlash within GOP after Tucker Carlson gives White nationalist Nick Fuentes a
platform
By
CNN
Digital Expansion 2018, Andrew Kaczynski
Andrew
Kaczynski
Steve
Contorno
Nov 6,
2025
Nick
Fuentes, the well-known White nationalist and Holocaust denier, has ignited a
civil war within the Republican Party — and inside one of Washington’s most
prominent conservative think tanks.
A bitter
split has erupted on the political right after former Fox News host Tucker
Carlson hosted Fuentes on his podcast for an overwhelmingly friendly
conversation. Some conservatives, including Dinesh D’Souza and Ben Shapiro,
have condemned Carlson for elevating a fringe figure who has expressed an
affinity for Adolf Hitler and regularly traffics in racist, sexist and
antisemitic tropes.
Much of
the pushback has focused on their sharp criticism of Israel during the show and
their mockery of Christians who have made support for the Jewish state a top
priority.
But
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts defended Carlson, a close ally who
addressed the organization’s annual gathering in April. Roberts argued that
criticizing Carlson and shunning Fuentes undermines the crusade against
censorship and so-called cancel culture.
“Christians
can critique the state of Israel without being antisemitic,” Roberts said in a
lengthy direct-to-camera statement that has since garnered more than 24 million
views on social media.
The
backlash has been swift against Roberts, triggering a wave of unrest within
Heritage and raising questions about the future of an institution that has for
decades been a pillar of the conservative movement.
In
interviews with current and former staff, and in internal messages among senior
employees reviewed by CNN, multiple people described deep frustration and loss
of confidence in Roberts’ leadership at Heritage.
“It’s an
absolute shitshow, he’s lost control of the organization,” one senior staff
member told CNN. “It is open rebellion, it is disgust … 85% are totally
disgusted.”
In the
chat messages reviewed by CNN, senior Heritage staff described a workplace
consumed by dissent — “flailing and in damage control,” as one wrote. Others
expressed frustration and disappointment. “It just makes me sad and mad,” wrote
one top level staffer. One senior staffer reposted a colleague’s comment, “This
crap is really hurting Heritage,” and added, “as it should.”
A source
who provided transcripts of the chat asked that their name not be used for fear
of retaliation.
Several
current and former Heritage employees, who did not want their names used for
fear of retribution, told CNN the episode has accelerated donor unease and
internal turnover, with some staff describing morale as the lowest in years.
Others said the backlash underscores a broader identity crisis within Heritage,
saying there was tension between its traditional policy experts and the newer
cadre of political operatives brought in under Roberts, who assumed the helm in
2021.
Attempts
by CNN to reach Fuentes and Carlson for comment were not successful. But on his
podcast, Fuentes has said disorder is central to his plan for pulling the GOP
toward his worldview.
“We want
disruption, we want chaos, we want infighting,” he said in September.
An
upside-down American flag is waved outside the Heritage Foundation building in
Washington, DC, during an anti-Project 2025 protest on March 16, 2025.
Heritage
takes a far-right turn
Founded
in 1973, Heritage has long been a driving force aiding Republican policymaking
— from past Republican administrations’ conservative tax agendas to President
Donald Trump’s judicial appointments.
Under
Roberts, it has pushed a harder-line message, positioning the organization at
the center of Project 2025 — a sweeping policy blueprint for a potential
Republican administration that included calls for restructuring the federal
government and curtailing federal workforce protections. The plan proved
controversial enough that even Trump publicly distanced himself from some of
its proposals.
The
Fuentes controversy has only deepened internal divisions over that direction.
“Many
staff are outraged,” a former top staffer who worked under Roberts also told
CNN. “I’ve spoken with numerous (staff).”
“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,”
another wrote in the text exchange.
Some of
the messages were first reported on Monday by the New York Post.
Neither
Roberts nor the Heritage Foundation responded to CNN’s requests for comment.
One major
donor, whose organization contributes more than half a million dollars annually
to the Heritage Foundation, told CNN they have lost faith in Roberts’
leadership. “I’m waiting to see how things play out, but if Kevin remains as
president we will not be giving to Heritage,” said the donor, who asked their
name not be used due to privacy concerns.
The
episode also comes just weeks after similar divisions emerged on the right over
a trove of text messages from young Republican operatives published by
Politico, which included someone saying “I love Hitler,” with others
contributing Holocaust jokes and racial slurs.
“If you
sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool and 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,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — who
has sparred with Carlson before — said last weekend during remarks at the
Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual gathering.
‘Tucker
Carlson is a poison pill’
The
growing influence of Fuentes, especially following the death of conservative
activist Charlie Kirk, exposes a broader rift inside the Republican Party over
whether to distance the GOP from the kind of rhetoric he represents.
In
addition to Cruz, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell has also come out against
Carlson’s approach to Fuentes in recent days. So has Laura Loomer, the
far-right provocateur close to Trump, who warned that the GOP was “imploding”
over Fuentes and engaged in a “power struggle” to “try to hijack and redefine
what MAGA is and should be post-Trump.”
While
Loomer and Fuentes have publicly feuded in recent days over who had more sway
with the president and his followers, she was unsparing in whom she blamed for
the past week.
“Tucker
Carlson is a poison pill to the GOP,” she told CNN in a text message. “And he
will cost the GOP elections in 2026 and 2028.”
Fuentes
has suggested the past week has signaled his growing influence in today’s
Republican Party — especially with young men, a key force in Trump’s electoral
coalition last fall.
After
being cast to the edges of the conservative movement and getting banned from
social media over offensive statements, Fuentes and his devoted listeners —
whom he calls “groypers” — are making their presence felt, he said. Fuentes’ X
account, reinstated by Elon Musk, now has 1 million followers.
“We are
thoroughly in the groyper war,” Fuentes said on his web show last week as the
fight unfolded. “The civil war for the GOP.”
Last
fall, Fuentes said he did not vote for Trump because the Republican nominee did
not go far enough to push an America First agenda that’s more in-line with his
White nationalist views. Fuentes has said he wants to go back to the Middle
Ages and a time when women couldn’t vote and contraceptives and fornication
were banned. He celebrated Afghanistan falling under control of the Taliban
because they would “ban abortion, vaccines and gay marriage.” In his interview
with Carlson, Fuentes expressed admiration for former Soviet leader Joseph
Stalin, a brutal dictator whose tyrannical reign resulted in millions of deaths
from starvation and imprisonment in labor camps.
Roberts
apologizes to Heritage staff
At
Heritage, the fallout continues. On Monday, Heritage Chief of Staff Ryan
Neuhaus resigned, days after he reposted a comment on X urging internal critics
of Heritage’s defense of Carlson to leave the organization.
On
Tuesday, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the country’s oldest
pro-Israel advocacy group, announced it was withdrawing from the Heritage
Foundation’s Project Esther on Antisemitism, an initiative launched in 2024 to
combat antisemitism. In a statement provided to CNN, ZOA said it would end its
participation unless Roberts publicly apologizes, retracts his praise for
Carlson, and “condemns and permanently ends his affiliation with Carlson.”
On
Wednesday, at an all-staff meeting, Roberts acknowledged mishandling the
controversy. According to an audio recording obtained by CNN, Roberts told
Heritage employees, “I made a mistake, and I let you down, and I let down this
institution, and I’m sorry, period, full stop.”
Roberts
also said during the meeting that he had no intention of resigning.
Current
and former staffers are also accusing Roberts of political opportunism,
pointing to past statements they said contradict his current alignment with
figures like Carlson.
In tweets
posted after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and later deleted,
Roberts appeared to take aim at Trump and praised then-Vice President Mike
Pence and Texas Rep. Chip Roy for their criticism of the president’s effort to
overturn the 2020 election.
“Storming
the Capitol will do more to quash the need for real election reform than
anything the Left has done and will do to prevent it. This is stupid, and real
leaders would condemn immediately,” Roberts wrote in a since-deleted post.
In
another tweet, he praised Roy, a Texas Republican who condemned Trump’s false
claims of election fraud on the House floor saying, “the president should never
have spun up certain Americans to believe something that simply cannot be.”
“Times
like these, however challenging, have, in American history, always — ALWAYS —
produced the statesmen of our age. Amid this tumult, @chiproytx and @Mike_Pence
are two of those men. From a grateful nation, thank you! #StandUpForAmerica,”
he wrote in the purged tweet, linking to a video of Roy’s remarks.
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