- The Heritage Foundation has lost one of its most well-known conservative thinkers, Robert George.
- George said that the conservative movement must continue to prioritize human equality and dignity.
- Heritage president Kevin Roberts previously defended Tucker Carlson's interview of Nick Fuentes.
Embattled conservative think tank Heritage Foundation continued to bleed support from some of the highest profile conservatives in the country on Monday with the resignation of noted political philosopher, and Deseret News contributor, Robert George.
George said his resignation from the board of trustees was in response to Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts refusing to retract an Oct. 30 statement defending podcast host Tucker Carlson’s interview of white nationalist Nick Fuentes and condemning Carlson’s critics as a “venomous coalition.”
“Although Kevin publicly apologized for some of what he said in the video, he could not offer a full retraction of its content. So, we reached an impasse,” wrote George, who is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, in a post on his Facebook page.
During Fuentes’ appearance on Carlson’s show, the former Fox News host offered minimal pushback as Fuentes identified “organized Jewry in America” as the “main challenge” to keeping the country together, and blamed “Jewishness” as the “common denominator” pulling it apart.
Three days later, Roberts said he abhorred “things that Nick Fuentes says” but vowed to never engage in “canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians,” and said that Carlson “always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.”
What is the Heritage Foundation?
Since the first Reagan administration, the Heritage Foundation has been recognized as one of the most effective conservative policy shops inside the beltway, vetting originalist judges and preparing the Project 2025 policy brief during the 2024 election.
Roberts’ response to Carlson’s Fuentes interview prompted a debate among conservative influencers and intellectuals about whether there was a need to erect better guardrails within the conservative movement against the bigotry, including antisemitism, demonstrated by Fuentes and others.
Following the backlash, Roberts issued a statement outlining which views of Fuentes’ he abhorred, and gave a speech at Hillsdale College acknowledging he made a mistake by not mentioning the threat of antisemitism “not just on the left, but on the far fringes of the right.”
Despite Roberts’ public apology, the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism chose to break ties with the Heritage Foundation, and some of the think tank’s most well-known scholars, Chris DeMuth and Stephen Moore, also submitted their resignations.
Since Roberts’ initial statement, George has explained in a series of posts he does not believe in “canceling” speech, but said that the conservative movement cannot budge on one principle: “the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of each and every member of the human family.”
“The anchor for the Heritage Foundation, and for our Nation, and for every patriotic American is that creed. It must always be that creed,” George said on Monday. “If we hold fast to it even when expediency counsels compromising it, we cannot go wrong. If we abandon it, we sign the death certificate of republican government and ordered liberty.”
In a statement to National Review, a Heritage Foundation spokesman thanked George for his service to the institution and pointed to future collaboration. George is currently the director of Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.
“Under the leadership of Dr. Roberts, Heritage remains resolute in building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish,” the statement said. “We are strong, growing, and more determined than ever to fight for our republic.”