A top staffer at the Heritage Foundation has resigned, following Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts' defense of Tucker Carlson after he generated controversy over interviewing an antisemitic white nationalist.
A Heritage spokesperson confirmed Ryan Neuhaus, who was Roberts' chief of staff, has left his position at the influential right-wing think tank.
"Ryan was not fired. He offered his resignation, which was accepted," a Heritage spokesperson told The Hill.
"Ryan is a good man, we appreciate his service, and we have no doubt he will serve the movement in another capacity," the spokesperson added.
Neuhaus had been ardently defending Roberts on social media following the backlash to a video Roberts posted defending Carlson after he conducted an interview with Nick Fuentes.
In the interview, Carlson said Republican supporters of Israel were "seized by this brain virus," while Fuentes, who has a history of antisemitic comments, said "organized Jewry" is what is keeping the country divided.
In a video posted Thursday, Roberts said Carlson would always be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.
"Christians can critique the state of Israel without being antisemitic," Roberts said. "Of course, antisemitism should be condemned."
"The venomous coalition attacking him are sowing division," Roberts added. "Their attempts to cancel him will fail."
While saying he disagreed with and abhorred things Fuentes said, he said canceling him was not the answer.
Roberts' video prompted backlash from prominent conservatives, including Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
"The 'intellectual backbone of the conservative movement' is only as strong as the values it defends," McConnell wrote on social media. "Last I checked, 'conservatives should feel no obligation' to carry water for [antisemites] and apologists for America-hating autocrats."
"But maybe I just don't know what time it is …" McConnell added.
Cruz took shots at Carlson while speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual summit in Las Vegas last week.
"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," said Cruz.
In a follow-up post on X, Roberts said he condemned Fuentes' "vicious antisemitic ideology, his Holocaust denial, and his relentless conspiracy theories that echo the darkest chapters of history."
"We are disgusted by his musings about rape, women, child marriage, and abusing his potential wife," Roberts said.
Roberts said Fuentes' antisemitism was "explicit, dangerous, and demands our unified opposition as conservatives."
"He is fomenting Jew hatred, and his incitements are not only immoral and un-Christian, they risk violence," Roberts added.
"Our task is to confront and challenge those poisonous ideas at every turn to prevent them from taking America to a very dark place," Roberts continued.
"Join us — not to cancel — but to guide, challenge, and strengthen the conversation, and be confident as I am that our best ideas at the heart of Western civilization will prevail."
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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