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‘The Whole Thing Is Imploding’: Chaos and Rebellion at America’s Top Right-Wing Think Tank
Founded in 1973, the Heritage Foundation has become what its president, Kevin Roberts, now hails as the “intellectual backbone” of the conservative movement. It crafted the policy blueprint that powered President Ronald Reagan’s right-wing revolution — and today, under Roberts’s leadership, it’s once again shaping the machinery of power. Through its highly controversial Project 2025 — a plan widely credited to Roberts as its chief architect — Heritage laid out a road map for President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda. But Roberts’s recent missteps have rattled the institution, raising strong questions about his leadership — and the future direction of the conservative movement itself.
Roberts gained widespread attention in July 2024 when he issued a warning to Democrats: “we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
At the time, Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said, “they are threatening violence.”
As did others.
“Kevin Roberts is threatening violence to anyone not following his dear leader,” former Republican and former U.S. Congressman Denver Riggleman wrote. “Every network should cover this.”
Roberts’s remarks had come just after the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a new constitutional principle of “presidential immunity” for official acts — a decision critics say President Donald Trump has wielded to expand his power.
Late last month, Roberts came under tremendous criticism after throwing his support behind former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who had a two-hour interview with far-right extremist leader Nick Fuentes, whom many see as promoting Christian nationalism, white supremacy, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and Islamophobia.
“There has been speculation that @Heritage is distancing itself from @TuckerCarlson over the past 24 hours,” Roberts wrote on October 30 when posting the video that sparked this current firestorm. “I want to put that to rest right now.”
The editors of the right-wing National Review in a scathing editorial explained the issue: “Tucker Carlson, knee-deep already, has taken another step into the muck with a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes.”
HERITAGE “WILL ALWAYS DEFEND OUR FRIENDS … THAT INCLUDES TUCKER CARLSON”
Roberts had wasted no time in coming to Carlson’s defense.
“The Heritage Foundation didn’t become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians. And we won’t start doing that now,” he said in his video supporting Carlson.
Roberts insisted that Heritage “will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda. That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains, and as I have said before, always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.”
Criticism of Roberts was immediate.
Journalist Yashar Ali called it a “watershed moment.”
“In his statement,” Ali wrote, “Kevin condemns what he calls a ‘venomous coalition’ that is ‘sowing division’ by attacking Tucker. That ‘venomous coalition,’ includes MAGA Republicans as well as Jewish conservative commentators, activists, and donors.”
“Kevin also frames Nick Fuentes’s rhetoric as worthy of debate, rather than something to be condemned outright. A shift like this would’ve been unthinkable for Heritage just three years ago.”
Condemnations came, and continue to do so — from both outside and inside Heritage.
CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski on Thursday reported on what one senior staffer called the “absolute s–” swirling inside Heritage.
“The staff that we talked to told us the Heritage Foundation is in open revolt over the president’s defense of Carlson,” Kaczynski explained.
That senior staffer also told CNN that Roberts had “lost control over the organization.”
Kaczynski noted that they also “said there’s an open rebellion, and this really all came to a head [Wednesday], where they had this all hands meeting … this was kind of going around social media, where Roberts publicly apologized, according to her recording we obtained, Roberts told employees, ‘I made a mistake. I let you down. I let this institution down. I’m sorry.'”
“But,” Kaczynski added, Roberts “also made clear he has no plans to resign.”
On Friday, Reason senior editor Stephanie Slade wrote that at a Thursday night event, “I was asked if the crisis at Heritage Foundation seemed to be blowing over. This morning I received a message from someone inside the building about Kevin Roberts: ‘He needs to be made to resign by the [Heritage] Foundation Board of Trustees.'”
“In speaking to current and former Heritage staffers over the last week,” Slade continued, “the emotion I’ve most commonly encountered is disgust and the words I’ve most commonly heard are ‘Kevin Roberts has to go.'”
By Wednesday, as Ali noted, Roberts had “made his fourth public statement on the Tucker Carlson/Nick Fuentes situation … over the course of six days.” After the initial video that ignited the firestorm, Roberts made three other attempts to “clean up” his remarks.
According to The Wall Street Journal’s Elliot Kaufman, Heritage senior fellow Amy Swearer, in remarks before Heritage staff, told Roberts, “over the last week, you have shown a stunning lack of both courage and judgment.”
She called Roberts’ initial defense of Carlson “at best … equal parts incoherent, unhelpful and naive.”
“At worst, it was more akin to a master class in cowardice that ran cover for the most unhinged dregs of the far right.”
“LOST MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN DONATIONS”
Heritage also appears to be losing important donors.
“One major donor, whose organization contributes more than a half million dollars annually to Heritage Foundation, told us that they had totally lost faith in Roberts,” Kaczynski reported.
“They said, ‘I see how things play out, but if Kevin remains as president, we will not be giving to Heritage.'”
“Likewise, the Zionist Organization of America, that’s actually the oldest pro-Israel group in the United States, announced that it has withdrawn from Heritage’s initiative on antisemitism, unless Roberts publicly apologized, and retract his praise for Carlson.”
Newsmax reported that “Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein told Newsmax Friday that Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts should resign immediately.”
“My organization has many of the same donors as Heritage,” Klein also said. “They’ve told me that they’re stopping all funding for Heritage until they get rid of Kevin Roberts, so yes, they have lost millions of dollars in donations since this controversy arose.”
Klein also “pointed to longtime Heritage fellow Stephen Moore’s recent departure.”
“He doesn’t want to be involved with Heritage, which is now tainted as an antisemitic, bigoted organization,” Klein told Newsmax. “It’s harmed everything else they do.”
Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, told The Wall Street Journal on Friday that “Any tent that is big enough for them …is too big for me,” referring to Fuentes and his allies.
The Journal reported that “Goldfeder resigned from Heritage’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism in the aftermath of Roberts’s video.”
“CIVIL WAR AT THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION”
Other critics outside Heritage have also been observing Roberts’ crumbling support, and what it means for the future of the organization, its president, and the conservative movement.
“The civil war at the Heritage Foundation is far more consequential than most people realize,” noted Mike Madrid, the prominent Latino Republican political consultant. “The divide seems irreconcilable and it could splinter the American right irreversibly.”
Conservative New York Times opinion columnist David French wrote on Sunday, “I don’t know if Roberts will survive at Heritage.”
“I do know that Carlson and Fuentes and their constellation of friends and allies are far too popular to cancel or even to contain,” he noted, and observed: “The fight for the future of the Republican Party is underway.”
And pointing to a Washington Post article on the crisis at Heritage, Madrid declared: “The whole thing is imploding.”
“Absolute shitshow.”
An exclusive KFILE investigation reveals the fierce backlash within the GOP against Tucker Carlson for his interview with controversial white nationalist and holocaust denier Nick Fuentes as The Heritage Foundation, which helped create project 2025, goes… pic.twitter.com/MPkdSMP57u
— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) November 7, 2025
Image via Shutterstock
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
