Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts declined to distance the conservative organization from Tucker Carlson, in response to criticism that Tucker has become “anti-semitic.”

KEVIN ROBERTS: I’ll have more to say on this in the coming days, but today I want to be clear about one thing. Christians can critique the state of Israel without being anti-Semitic. Of course, anti-Semitism should be condemned. My loyalty as a Christian is to Christ first and to America always. When it serves the interest of the United States to cooperate with other allies, we do so with partnerships on security, intelligence, technology. But when it doesn’t, conservatives should feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class or their mouthpieces in Washington. The Heritage Foundation didn’t become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing consciences. Christians, and we won’t start doing that now. We don’t take direction from comments on X, though we are grateful for the robust free speech debate. We also don’t take direction from members or donors, though we are inherently grateful for their support, and we’re adding more every day. This is the robust debate we invite with our colleagues, movement friends, our members, and the American public. We will always defend truth. We will always defend America. And we’ll 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. The venomous coalition attacking him are sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail. Most importantly, the American people expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the left, not attacking our friends on the right. I disagree with, and even abhor things that Nick Fuentes says. But canceling him is not the answer either. When we disagree with a person’s thoughts and opinions, we challenge those ideas and debate. In debate, and we have seen success in this approach as we continue to dismantle the vile ideas of the left. As my friend Vice President Vance said last night, what I am not okay with is any country coming before the interest of American citizens. And it is important for all of us, assuming we are American citizens, to put the interests of our own country first. That’s where our allegiance lies. And that’s where it will stay.

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