Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts doubled down on the influential conservative group’s support for Tucker Carlson, who has been leaning into increasingly explicit antisemitism and opposition to Israel on his podcast, and expressed unwillingness to “cancel” neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes.

Roberts’ comments come after a friendly Carlson interview with Fuentes, in which Carlson described Christian Zionists as infected by a “brain virus.” Carlson said he dislikes Christian Zionists “more than anybody. Because it’s Christian heresy, and I’m offended by that as a Christian,” pointing to conservatives including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has repeatedly sparred with Carlson over Israel and antisemitism, and Ambassador Mike Huckabee. On Wednesday, reports arose that Heritage had scrubbed references to Carlson from one of its donation pages.

Roberts, in a video posted on X on Thursday amid online discussion of Heritage’s relationship with Carlson, said he refused to cancel Carlson or Fuentes and that the group would “always” defend Carlson from the “pressure” of the “globalist class.”

“When it serves the interest of the United States to cooperate with Israel and other allies, we should do so with partnerships on security, intelligence and 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 from their mouthpieces in Washington,” Roberts said. “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 the group would “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.”

Roberts rejected those criticizing Carlson as a “venomous coalition” and said that “their attempt to cancel him will fail.” 

He added that it is the responsibility of Heritage to attack the left, not to criticize those on the right. “I disagree with and even abhor things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer either,” Roberts continued.

Roberts, whose group assembled the Project Esther plan to combat antisemitism — focused on anti-Israel left-wing groups — also said in the video, “I want to be clear about one thing, Christians can critique the State of Israel without being antisemitic. And of course antisemitism should be condemned.”

Roberts quoted a statement by Vice President JD Vance at a Turning Point USA event on Wednesday: “What I am not OK 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 interest of our own country first. That’s where our allegiance lies, and that’s where it will stay.”

Roberts’ comments come amid an uproar from pro-Israel conservatives about Vance’s response to an antisemitic question he faced from a member of the audience at that event.

The questioner declared that Judaism does “not agree with [our religion] but also openly supports the [persecution] of ours,” to enthusiastic applause from the crowd.

Vance said in his response, “When people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the president of the United States — they’re not controlling this president of the United States, which is one of the reasons why we’ve been able to have some of the success that we’ve had in the Middle East.”

He said that the Gaza peace deal was only possible because President Donald Trump was “actually… willing to apply leverage to the State of Israel.”

The vice president also said that ensuring Christian access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is an “obvious area of common interest” and that he is “fine” with working with Israel on the issue. “What I am not OK with is any country coming before the interests of American citizens,” he continued.

Vance did not address or condemn the questioner’s accusations that Jews are attempting to persecute Christians.

Fuentes has been celebrating the recent developments, posting on X, “The Groypers have taken over. We run this” in response to questions posed to Vance at the TPUSA event.

Responding to Roberts, Fuentes said, “I don’t know what exactly you ‘abhor’ about my views, but we can all agree that free speech, Christ, and America First should be the pillars of our movement. Thank you for your courage in standing up for open discourse and defending Tucker against the Israel First Woke Right.”