I don't think Kevin Roberts is an antisemite; at least I have no evidence that he is.
But he made a grave mistake by producing and publishing a "town hall" video declaring that he would stick by Tucker Carlson after his flattering podcast with Nick Fuentes. Tucker basically gave Fuentes, who calls Hitler "cool" and celebrates Josef Stalin's birthday, a stamp of approval.
It's been 7 weeks since @Heritage's "town hall" when @KevinRobertsTX told staff that while he was willing to resign, he felt a "moral obligation" to repair the situation: "I made the mess, let me clean it up." Since then, 3 board members have resigned, and 30+ staffers have left,… https://t.co/c4uw8iGEMf pic.twitter.com/QEJU5acV41
— Suzy Shofar (@suzylebo) December 23, 2025
It's been 7 weeks since @Heritage's "town hall" when @KevinRobertsTX told staff that while he was willing to resign, he felt a "moral obligation" to repair the situation: "I made the mess, let me clean it up." Since then, 3 board members have resigned, and 30+ staffers have left, with 12+ (along with entire centers) departing just over the past 3 days.Is this what "cleaning up a mess" looks like to Heritage?
Since that disastrous decision, Heritage has been bleeding staff, bleeding support, and presumably bleeding donations.
Some of the best and brightest minds at Heritage have left the premier conservative organization to join Mike Pence's foundation, and even Edwin Meese, after whom Heritage's Constitutional Center is named, has endorsed the staffers who have left and is lending his name to their new efforts.
Wow.
— Dominic Pino (@DominicJPino) December 22, 2025
It's not just that the staffers from Heritage's Meese Center are moving to @AmericanFreedom.
They're taking the name with them, with Edwin Meese himself in support of it. pic.twitter.com/La9f3mow3S
The heart and soul of Heritage has been ripped out, and whether he intended to or not, Kevin Roberts has driven them away. And in doing so, he has destroyed the irreplaceable goodwill that Heritage built up over the decades.
And it's not just goodwill. Heritage raises a hundred million of dollars a year and has an endowment and assets nearing half a billion dollars. And while that pile of assets has not been rendered exactly worthless, the mission for which it was donated has been rendered worthless.
You have to understand how goodwill works. It greatly multiplies the value of the underlying assets. If an institution or business has a big pile of cash but nobody wants what they are selling, the cash just gets frittered away. The biggest and richest companies in the world are valued at far more than their assets because investors believe that they will throw off more value in the years ahead.
Goodwill for nonprofits like Heritage works the same basic way. People invested in Heritage believing that it would continue to reshape the political and policy debate, and now...it won't.
That's on Kevin Roberts.
Some nuggets about the Heritage Foundation staff exodus to Advancing American Freedom, a major expansion for the Pence-founded think tank
— Emily Brooks (@emilybrooksnews) December 23, 2025
- Talks started a few weeks ago
- AAF board approved plan to take Heritage staff *if* it met 60 percent of $15 million fundraising goal,…
- Talks started a few weeks ago
- AAF board approved plan to take Heritage staff *if* it met 60 percent of $15 million fundraising goal, enough to fund $5M for 3 years
- AAF quietly went to select donors and raised $12 million in two weeks
- AAF is now doubling in size and working on expanding its downtown DC office space
Roberts may believe, and he may even be right, that the reaction to his enormous error is overblown. As I said, I don't believe he has hate in his heart in the way that Tucker and especially Fuentes do.
But so what? His decision to remain shouldn't be about him. He is supposed to lead, and confidence in him has collapsed. By now, it seems clear that Heritage will never recover.
Back when I ran a nonprofit, lo those many years ago, I had to fire an employee who, on the whole, was a very good and smart guy. But he made an enormous error, calling a legislator "racist" for opposing No Child Left Behind, which he supported. I tried to convince him to apologize, but he believed that he was tactically right to do so. Liberals did it, so why should he not be able to?
I fired him because of that. Not just because I thought the accusation was unfair; I had hoped an apology would smooth things over and we could get through the disaster. It was his failure to understand his error and his threat to the viability of the organization that mandated the dismissal.
Roberts' biggest mistake was not so much backing Carlson as caring more about himself than for Heritage. The first might be forgivable if handled well; the latter? Never.
If I were on the Heritage Board of Directors, I would close up shop and merge with Advancing American Freedom, since that is where the talent has gone. Transfer the assets, including their incredible headquarters building, and write off the loss of goodwill that is bound up with the name.
The goodwill is gone. And as a result the Heritage staff went with it.
