The neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes has drawn a sizable online following that has fueled debate over his influence in the Republican Party as it grapples with how to address mounting antisemitism within its ranks, particularly among younger conservatives.

But a new report suggests that his rise may in part be artificially driven by a cluster of anonymous social media accounts largely based in foreign countries, and raises questions about the organic popularity of Fuentes’ movement in the United States as he seeks to grow his political reach to shape the coming midterm elections. 

The report, published on Monday by the Network Contagion Research Institute, a nonprofit watchdog group affiliated with Rutgers University, analyzed a recent sample of Fuentes’ posts on X and found that engagement within the first 30 minutes not only far exceeded his “legitimate reach” but also “routinely” outperformed accounts commanding significantly larger followings, including Elon Musk, who owns the platform.

For the 20 Fuentes posts examined by NCRI in that opening time window, just over 60% of initial amplification came from the same repeat accounts, pointing to a pattern of “behavior highly suggestive of coordination or automation,” the report states.

Nearly all those users were “fully anonymous,” with no real name, location or other identifying markers, according to NCRI, and a majority were “openly” or “functionally single-purpose” accounts dedicated to promoting Fuentes’ extremist positions, which have included Holocaust denial and admiration for Adolf Hitler.

Meanwhile, the report also found, roughly half of the accounts that promoted three of Fuentes’ most viral posts before the assassination of Charlie Kirk — whose death in September left a major vacuum in the conservative youth movement that Fuentes has been seeking to fill — originated from foreign users that were “heavily concentrated” in India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Malaysia and Indonesia, the sites of known content-engagement farms. 

“There is no organic explanation for this pattern,” the report notes, calling such activity “consistent with outsourced engagement infrastructure. These geographies describe the same low-cost amplification clusters and engagement farms that foreign actors often use to manufacture virality, distort platform metrics and manipulate recommendation systems.” 

The report argues that such alleged “manufactured engagement” artificially helped elevate Fuentes as a subject of heightened mainstream media interest in the wake of Kirk’s assassination, in addition to a friendly interview with Tucker Carlson weeks later, allowing “him to appear active, relevant and in position when a replacement narrative became available inside the broader MAGA ecosystem.”

Fuentes’ “manipulated reach is not accidental,” the report states, citing hundreds of instances from his show in which he has issued “real-time commands” to share his posts on social media — directives that the NCRI says run afoul of X’s content moderation policies prohibiting “orchestrated amplification.”

“Taken together,” the report concludes, “the evidence points to a deliberate, foreign-influenced campaign — relying on anonymous and possibly automated accounts — to artificially inflate Nick Fuentes’s reach, gaming the platform’s algorithm in a systematic effort to elevate his influence far beyond what genuine grassroots support could achieve.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and nearly all Senate Democrats are set to introduce a resolution on Monday condemning neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson for hosting Fuentes on his show. 

The legislation also highlights that Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts defended Carlson and Fuentes and notes that the Trump administration nominated an official who expressed affinity for the Nazis, referring to Paul Ingrassia.

The resolution comes weeks after Carlson’s friendly sit-down with Fuentes prompted a reckoning in the conservative movement over antisemitism on the far right and its normalization in certain circles. Schumer reportedly sought Republican backing for the resolution, but no Republicans have signed on at this point.

The resolution outlines Fuentes’ long history of overt antisemitic activity, as well as the series of antisemitic comments that Fuentes repeated on Carlson’s podcast. It highlights Carlson’s failure to “push back on or reject the claims made by Fuentes” and that Carlson “at times even validat[ed] his framing.” It also notes that Carlson was a keynote speaker at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

The legislation states that the Senate “strongly rejects the views of and platforming of Nick Fuentes” and “condemns the effort by Tucker Carlson to platform and mainstream Nick Fuentes.”

The resolution also specifically highlights that Roberts posted a video defending Carlson and attacking those criticizing him — accusing Roberts of employing “antisemitic dog whistles” — as well as for refusing to take down the video even as he as apologized for portions of it.

It calls on “all elected officials, thought leaders and community leaders to reject and condemn white supremacy and antisemitism whenever and wherever they occur.”

And it highlights that President Donald Trump nominated Paul Ingrassia — who said in an unearthed group chat that he has a “Nazi streak in me from time to time” — for an administration post and has since named him to a different role in the administration after his nomination was withdrawn. The resolution does not specifically name Ingrassia.

The resolution is being sponsored by every Senate Democrat.

The legislation has been supported by a series of Democratic-affiliated and progressive-minded Jewish groups, including Democratic Majority for Israel, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Jewish Democratic Council of America, Jewish Women International, the Union for Reform Judaism, Hadassah and the National Council of Jewish Women.

“The platforming of individuals who promote hateful, antisemitic, and white supremacist rhetoric is dangerous and entirely at odds with American values,” JWI CEO Meredith Jacobs said in a statement. She said that Congress “must forcefully condemn any attempt to mainstream antisemitism” and other hatred and “the fact that such condemnation is not universal underscores the very real and present danger that these ideologies are gaining ground in our society.”

JCPA CEO Amy Spitalnick said that antisemitic and white supremacist extremism “threatens every single one of our communities and the core of our democracy – yet we’ve seen political leaders continue to embrace and platform this deadly hate and those who peddle it, like Nick Fuentes” and urged all senators to support the resolution.

DMFI urged the Senate to “send a powerful message that there is no place for these hateful ideologies in our society by passing this measure.”

Halie Soifer, the CEO of JDCA, condemned Republicans for not signing onto the resolution.

“This issue should not be partisan, yet not one Republican has joined this resolution, and the President of the United States has refused to condemn Fuentes, Tucker Carlson’s platforming of Fuentes, and the hate they’ve espoused,” Soifer said in a statement. “We’re deeply concerned about Republicans placing politics above efforts like this one to combat white nationalism, antisemitism, and hate, and strongly encourage them to join this effort.”

UPDATE: This article was updated to reflect that the legislation’s findings highlight Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts’s defense of Carlson and Fuentes but the resolution does not specifically condemn him.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced on Thursday that he will introduce a resolution condemning neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes and his white supremacist views after President Donald Trump declined to condemn Fuentes or Tucker Carlson’s platforming of him. 

Schumer announced the move while criticizing Trump’s comments from over the weekend, in which the president noted that Carlson has “said good things about me over the years” and defended his decision to host Fuentes on his show. 

After calling Trump’s remarks “disgusting, Schumer warned that antisemitism in the U.S. has “reached a dangerous tipping point. Jewish Americans are facing threats, harassment and violence at levels we have not seen in generations.”

“For Donald Trump to continue to excuse and protect the spread of Nick Fuentes’ ideology, confirms what many of us have long said: white supremacy and antisemitism are taking deep roots, unfortunately, within the Republican Party,” Schumer said from the Senate floor on Thursday.

“Just as we saw from the leaked texts from Young Republicans, just as we saw from text messages of administration officials, the Nick Fuentes saga on the right reveals that antisemitism and white supremacy have been growing with disturbing currency within the right wing,” he continued. “I know this is not true of everyone on the Republican side, especially not for many Republicans in this chamber.”

Schumer said that his resolution will be focused on “rejecting Nick Fuentes and his white supremacist views, condemning Carlson’s platforming of hate, and condemning antisemitism and white supremacy wherever and whenever it occurs.” He added that he plans to lobby senators on both sides of the aisle to consider supporting the resolution.

“I hope my Republican colleagues will join me in this effort and co-sponsor this resolution. Calling out antisemitism should not be a partisan issue,” Schumer said. “When we refuse to condemn antisemitism, we stay silent and fail to reject antisemitic rhetoric, when we normalize hateful figures spewing disgusting antisemitism, that is when antisemitism spreads throughout society like a poisonous wildfire.”

“Americans don’t want to see that happen, so my resolution will give every single senator a chance to make an important stand against hatred,” he continued. “The country must see us unite and fight this awful form of bigotry.”

Robert George, a prominent board member of the Heritage Foundation, said on Monday that he was resigning from the conservative think tank, in the latest sign of continued fallout over its president’s controversial defense of Tucker Carlson after his friendly interview last month with a neo-Nazi influencer.

“I could not remain without a full retraction of the video released by Kevin Roberts, speaking for and in the name of Heritage, on October 30th,” George said in a Facebook post Monday morning, referring to the group’s president. “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.”

His decision to step down indicates that Roberts is likely secure, for now, in his role atop Heritage, as its board remains split about his future, according to a former Heritage staffer familiar with internal discussions.

“It’s a good sign for Kevin, that’s for sure, because Robbie was clearly upset about the mistake Kevin made and thought there really needed to be drastic action to correct it,” the former staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity to address a sensitive issue, told Jewish Insider on Monday. “This means there’s now one less vote on the board for removing Kevin.”

George, a Heritage board member since 2019 who serves as director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals & Institutions at Princeton University, reportedly lobbied for Roberts’ removal behind the scenes.

In his announcement on Monday, George called Roberts “a good man” and said that he had “made what he acknowledged was a serious mistake,” but added, “What divided us was a difference of opinion about what was required to rectify the mistake.”

He said that he was “sad to be leaving the” think tank and still had “great affection and esteem for” his “board colleagues,” wishing Heritage “the very best.”

He did not respond to a request for comment from JI.

“We are thankful for Professor George and his service to Heritage,” a spokesperson for Heritage said in a statement Monday. “He is a good man, and we look forward to opportunities to work together in the future. Under the leadership of Dr. Roberts, Heritage remains resolute in building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish. We are strong, growing and more determined than ever to fight for our republic.”

George had argued in a social media post last month, in response to Roberts’ defense of Carlson, that “American conservatism today faces a challenge” from “those who reject our commitment to inherent and equal human dignity,” adding, “I will not — I cannot— accept the idea that we have ‘no enemies to the right.’”

“The white supremacists, the antisemites, the eugenicists, the bigots, must not be welcomed into our movement or treated as normal or acceptable,” he wrote.

Roberts, for his part, has apologized for his video remarks standing behind Carlson and refusing to “cancel” Nick Fuentes, whom the former Fox News host had interviewed in an amiable discussion that failed to challenge his admiration for Adolf Hitler, Holocaust denialism and other antisemitic views.

The Heritage president has also voiced regret for dismissing Carlson’s critics as part of a “venomous coalition,” claiming that he did not intend to invoke an antisemic trope, and denounced Fuentes. But he has otherwise continued to back Carlson, a personal friend, and declined to delete the video featuring his initial comments on the matter.

Some conservatives criticized the foundation on Monday for contributing to George’s departure.

Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said in a social media post that George “was the head of the ‘Kevin Roberts showed terrible judgment and there need to be consequences’ camp, which has apparently lost out to ‘everything is well, nothing to see here’ camp.” 

“Heritage will now decline as an institution (or we will decline as a nation). Sad,” Shapiro lamented.

George’s resignation marks the latest defection from Heritage in recent weeks, as the think tank continued to face backlash over Roberts’ handling of the controversy. Last week, for instance, a legal expert resigned from his role as a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, citing Roberts’ video and “subsequent interviews, videos, and commentary.” 

Earlier this month, an antisemitism task force that worked with Heritage cut ties with the organization, saying it “cannot allow the conservative movement to be corrupted and destroyed by those consumed with attacking America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and values, thereby distracting us all from the real challenges facing our nation.”

The former Heritage staffer told JI that there are still “a lot of conservatives inside the” foundation “who are not comfortable with the trajectory of the organization,” noting that George’s departure could fuel further resignations. “It feeds the narrative that movement conservatives feel they’re being squeezed out.”

“What you’re not yet seeing is a mass exodus in terms of the scholars inside the organization, but that could be coming,” the former staffer predicted. 

In his resignation note on Monday, George expressed hope that “Heritage’s research and advocacy will be guided by the conviction that each and every member of the human family, irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion or anything else, as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, is ‘created equal’ and ‘endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.’”

“The anchor for the Heritage Foundation, and for our nation, and for every patriotic American is that creed,” he wrote. “It must always be that creed. 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.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called on his Republican colleagues to speak out against Tucker Carlson, arguing in a fiery Friday morning speech that they need to rise above their fear of alienating the popular conservative podcaster to denounce his platforming of antisemitism.

“It’s easy right now to denounce Nick Fuentes. That’s kind of safe. Are you willing to say Tucker’s name?” Cruz said in a speech at the Washington National Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group. 

“Now I can tell you, my colleagues, almost to a person, think what is happening is horrifying. But a great many of them are frightened, because he has one hell of a big megaphone.”

Cruz’s speech escalates a feud within the Republican Party about antisemitism on the party’s rightward fringes, after Carlson, the former Fox News host, held a friendly interview with Fuentes, a neo-Nazi agitator and commentator.

Following Carlson’s interview with Fuentes, Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, released a video defending Carlson from attacks by the “globalist class” and standing by his right to interview Fuentes. Since then, the influential conservative think tank has been navigating internal dissension and public blowback — with Roberts apologizing for the video but so far refusing to take it down. 

Speaking to a room of lawyers, Cruz emphasized his support for the First Amendment and made the case that calling out Carlson is not akin to “canceling” him. 

“My complaint about Tucker having Nick Fuentes on was not that he platformed him. That’s a choice you can make or not. But the last I checked, Tucker actually knows how to cross examine someone,” said Cruz, who had his own heated discussion with Carlson on his podcast in June. “If you want to cross examine and challenge him, that’s fine. But he didn’t. He fawningly gazed at him.”

Fuentes and Carlson, Cruz continued, “have a right to say what they are saying. But every one of us has an obligation to stand up and say it is wrong.”

At the start of his speech, Cruz outlined the rise of antisemitism on the American left, arguing that “there is a real and cognizable pro-Hamas wing of the Democrat Party.” But, he added, antisemitism does not end there.

“When that happened on the left, those of us on the right were quite comfortable standing up and denouncing it. In some ways, that’s easy. But now it’s happening on the right,” said Cruz. “In the last six months, I’ve seen more antisemitism on the right than I have at any time in my life. It is growing. It is metastasizing.”

Cruz invoked Ronald Reagan’s famous 1964 speech, “A Time for Choosing,” as he implored conservatives to speak strongly and loudly against antisemitism. 

“I believe now, today, is a time for choosing as well. I think it is a time for every elected official, I think it is a time for every editorialist, I think it is a time for every lawyer, for every student, to decide, where do you stand?” said Cruz. “We will stand for liberty. We will stand for the Constitution. We will stand for the Bill of Rights, but we will also stand for truth, and we will call out lies where they occur, and we will call out hatred when they occur. And the best antidote to lies is truth. The best solution to darkness is light.”

He walked off the stage to a standing ovation.

An antisemitism task force affiliated with the Heritage Foundation announced on Thursday that it would cut ties with the conservative institution, as the prominent think tank has come under fire for its defense of Tucker Carlson after the firebrand podcaster hosted neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes for a friendly interview. 

The co-chairs of the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced in a Thursday email, viewed by Jewish Insider, that they will continue their work “outside the Heritage Foundation for a season.” 

A member of the task force told JI that its members had not ruled out working with Heritage again if the organization improves. “We hope that one day we’ll be able to collaborate with Heritage again,” said the member, who requested anonymity to talk about confidential discussions.

The task force was formed following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and was instrumental in the drafting of Project Esther, Heritage’s signature counter-antisemitism framework released last year in response to the Biden administration’s national strategy to combat antisemitism. 

The Project Esther report made no mention of antisemitism on the political right. In their Thursday email, the co-chairs of the task force said they can no longer ignore it.

“The NTFCA will also now expand our work to fight the rising scourge of antisemitism on the Right, beyond our previous work combating the pro-Hamas movement on the Left,” wrote the co-chairs, announcing that they will co-host a conference on “Exposing & Countering Extremism and Antisemitism on the Right” on Nov. 18 in Washington, in partnership with the Conference of Christian Presidents for Israel. 

The task force’s leaders are Mario Bramnick, a Florida pastor and president of the Latino Coalition for Israel; Victoria Coates, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation; Ellie Cohanim, who served as deputy antisemitism special envoy in the first Trump administration; and Luke Moon, a pastor and executive director of the Philos Project. 

The Heritage Foundation has been awash in controversy since its president, Kevin Roberts, released a video last week defending Carlson as the conservative commentator faced criticism for his interview with Fuentes. 

In a staff meeting on Wednesday, Roberts apologized for the video, which remains on X. He acknowledged the video did not go far enough in making clear that although he is opposed to “canceling” anyone, including Carlson, he is not thereby “endorsing everything they’ve said.”

Still, he has resisted requests to remove the video, according to a source familiar with the deliberations. Deleting the video was one of the recommendations made earlier in the week by the task force members.

The four task force co-chairs pledged to continue the work they had started with the support of the Heritage Foundation, which played a major role in the task force’s launch and operations, according to the task force member. The organization gave the task force access to meeting rooms, publishing resources and research assistance, as well as paid administrative and policy staff members. The task force co-chairs did not say where the group would go next. 

“The future of the Conservative movement will include a broad coalition of people that love America and all she stands for,” the co-chairs wrote. “We cannot allow the Conservative movement to be corrupted and destroyed by those consumed with attacking America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and values, thereby distracting us all from the real challenges facing our nation.” 

This story was updated at 6:31 p.m.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts apologized in a staff meeting on Wednesday for  his video last week defending Tucker Carlson and refusing to “cancel” neo-Nazi leader Nick Fuentes, saying that the video was the result of internal failures of communication and consultation that left too few people involved in its production.

Roberts and other Heritage leaders also repeatedly made reference to a plan under development for how Heritage will approach its relationship with Carlson going forward, amid strong pressure from numerous staff members to forcefully disavow the right-wing podcast host  and his activities, but provided little clarity about what that approach will entail and sidestepped the full-throated denunciation of Carlson that several Heritage staffers sought.

In opening remarks, Roberts said ultimate responsibility for the video lay with him, but that Heritage’s former chief of staff, Ryan Neuhaus, who recently resigned, was responsible for writing the script. Roberts also criticized Neuhaus for retweeting a post saying that those upset by Roberts’ video should resign.

Roberts said that he himself was willing to resign but that he also felt a “moral obligation” to stay on to clean up the “mess” he created.

Roberts said that the video was the result of a “short circuited” process which violated Heritage’s “one voice” policy, adding that he wrongly believed the script had been approved by others in Heritage’s leadership, but that he should have personally checked in with colleagues.

“Some of the substance, maybe most of the substantive points, are things that I and I think we believe, but there are a couple of pain points that I want to address specifically,” Roberts said. 

He said that the intention of the video was to address public and private pressure on Heritage to disavow Carlson as well as to denounce the antisemitic and otherwise “grotesque” stances maintained by Fuentes, the latter of which he addressed in a separate post following backlash to his video. 

But Roberts also largely pleaded ignorance about both Carlson and Fuentes’ views and content in the staff meeting. Roberts’ video remains on his X profile.

“About ‘no cancelation,’ is there a limiting principle to that? I should have said that there was, especially in light of Tucker hosting not just Fuentes, but a handful of other people,” Roberts said. “You can say you’re not going to participate in canceling someone — a personal friend, an institutional friend — while also being clear you’re not endorsing everything they’ve said. You’re not endorsing softball interviews. You’re not endorsing putting people on shows. And I should have made that clear.”

At the same time, Roberts also indicated that he had engaged privately with Carlson about objectionable content on his show in the past, including Carlson’s hosting of Holocaust revisionist Daryl Cooper.

Roberts repeatedly alluded to plans in development to clarify the relationship between Heritage and Carlson, and said that a variety of senior Heritage staff will be involved in developing those plans. He said he does not approve of much of Carlson’s recent activity, but generally withheld direct rebuke.

“I made the mistake of conflating too much the personal friendship I have with Tucker — although I want to be really clear, I don’t think that everything, or maybe even most, of what he does now is helpful or good — but conflating that with, particularly the word ‘always,’ as the institution,” Roberts said. “Even the institution can say, ‘Tucker will be a friend,’ but that’s different than saying that you endorse everything your friend does.”

Addressing revelations that Heritage had a paid partnership with Carlson, Roberts noted that the partnership ended this summer, and that Heritage had similar arrangements with various other media figures including Fox News commentator Mark Levin, who has spoken out against Carlson’s antisemitism.

Roberts said that his approach in the video and going forward was and will be driven, in some capacity, by a desire to appeal to and “drive a wedge” between Fuentes and followers of his who might be persuadable or do not share Fuentes’ bigotry.

“Fuentes … has an audience of several million people. At least some of that audience might be open to be converted. My video didn’t do that, although the intention was to open that idea — not to endorse what Fuentes was saying, but quite the opposite, to appeal to them,” Robert said. “There’s a segment of that audience who might be with us, and they really are not Nazis and antisemites, then maybe we can eventually bring them into the fold.”

Roberts offered an apology for the specific terminology he used in describing Carlson’s critics as a “venomous coalition,” saying he did not intend to invoke antisemitic tropes. 

A staffer later pressed him on his description of Carlson’s critics as a “globalist class and their mouthpieces,” which the staffer said also seemed to be an antisemitic trope. Roberts apologized for those comments as well, and said his use of “globalist” was meant differently.

“I misread the situation and the advice that I got,” Roberts said. “I took the advice. I didn’t stop. I own that. [It] was bad, and I should have been better in that moment.”

During a Q&A with Heritage staff, Roberts faced frustration and disappointment from a series of Heritage staffers, some of whom said they had lost confidence in his leadership and argued that both the initial video and his subsequent response and belated apology had been insufficient and wrongheaded. Many said that Heritage needed to make a clear and unequivocal statement disavowing Carlson in order to move forward.

“Only after it became clear that Ryan falling on his sword would be insufficient to quell the outrage, both inside and outside of this building, did we finally see you manage the courage to utter the words, ‘I made a mistake,’” Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at Heritage, said. “It took you four days to say that, and even then, the mistake was couched largely in terms of, ‘Well, I’m sorry you guys just didn’t really understand the words that were coming out of my mouth, and maybe I should have spoken better, but also maybe try to listen better.’ With all due respect, Dr. Roberts, we all understood what you said in the video and in the ensuing response.”

Swearer also charged that Roberts has continued to avoid going after Carlson directly.

“We watched you seem perfectly willing to attack all of our friends and allies on the right, but say nothing about the guy who just said he dislikes nothing more than Christian Zionists,” she continued. “We watched this sort of incoherent defense for days of, ‘Well, we can’t participate in cancel culture, and anyone who attacks Tucker is participating in cancel culture, but also we’re going to attack the people who are participating in that cancel culture, and that’s not cancel culture.’”

Several staffers said that the video and the fallout from it had severely damaged Heritage’s reputation and partnerships with other institutions, that serious work would be needed throughout the organization to repair that damage and that Heritage had thus far failed to articulate any such plan or clearly disavow Carlson after nearly a week.

“It has been six days, almost a week, where we as an organization have been unable to utter the words … ‘Tucker’s an antisemite and we as Heritage do not want to associate with him,’” Daniel Flesch, a senior policy analyst at Heritage involved in its Middle East and antisemitism work, said. “We still do not have a statement about that. … We are bleeding trust, reputation, perhaps donors, who knows what else — support.”

“If the Heritage Foundation and you do not dump Tucker Carlson publicly, we are not going to repair that damage,” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow at Heritage, said, adding that it would be unworkable to make a public distinction between Carlson being a personal friend of Roberts versus being a friend of Heritage as an institution.

While the majority of those who raised questions during the meeting were deeply critical of Carlson, a pair of staffers stood out as taking a different stance 

One, describing herself as a member of Gen Z, said that she and many young staffers agreed with Roberts’ video. She also claimed that charges of antisemitism against Carlson were driven by his opposition to foreign intervention.

“Gen Z has an increased unfavorable view of Israel, and it’s not because millions of Americans are antisemitic,” the staffer said. “It’s because we are Catholic and Orthodox and believe that Christian Zionism is a modern heresy. We believe it does go against church doctrine and the teachings of the early church fathers to use Christianity as a defense for a secular nation.”

Roberts responded that Heritage must be “agnostic” on theological questions of Christian Zionism. 

Derek Morgan, Heritage’s executive vice president, added that Heritage’s institutional position is that, “Israel has been a great ally of the United States” and that, “When it’s in the American interest to support the nation of Israel, we will do so.”

Another staffer, Evan Myers, raised particular concern about a request from the Heritage-aligned National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, that young Heritage staffers be offered the opportunity to attend Shabbat dinners as a space for education.

Myers said that doing so would violate his and others’ religious beliefs and that he was concerned that attendance at such events would be used as a “litmus test.” He further suggested that those involved in the task force would leak to the media the names of those who declined to participate.

Victoria Coates, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at Heritage and a board member of the task force, said she took offense with Myers’ characterization of the request.

“This was a recommendation … That was an open offer from the task force. It was made in generosity of spirit and in the hopes of increased dialogue on this issue,” Coates said. “And Evan, I’m deeply sorry that you could not see that as a generous offer, but rather a personal attack on you. It was not.”

Roberts expressed frustration that communications between himself and members of the antisemitism task force had been shared with the press.

“It’s hard for me and for this institution to consider recommendations when we can’t do that privately,” Roberts said. “I just want to let you know as we move forward on a detailed plan … it’s got to be under the terms that we get to have the conversations privately.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) criticized Tucker Carlson’s platforming of neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes, adding his voice to the growing list of Republicans who have publicly admonished the former Fox host for mainstreaming the avowed antisemite. 

The House speaker made the comments on Tuesday when asked in the Capitol if Carlson should still have a place in the conservative movement given his embrace of antisemitic figures like Fuentes. Johnson criticized what he described as Fuentes’ “anti-Christian” and “antisemitic” views and said conservatives have an obligation to call out antisemitism “wherever it is.”

“Look, I heard a compilation of some of the worst things that Nick Fuentes has said. It’s absolutely outrageous,” Johnson told National Review’s Audrey Fahlberg. “Some of the things he’s said are just blatantly antisemitic, racist and anti-American. Anti-Christian, for that matter. I think we have to call out antisemitism wherever it is.” 

“Whether it’s Tucker or anybody else, I don’t think we should be giving a platform to that kind of speech. He has a First Amendment right, but we shouldn’t ever amplify it. That’s my view,” Johnson added.

Asked later Tuesday if Carlson’s views and voice belong in the conservative movement, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) did not directly reject Carlson but said that the party should have no space for antisemitism.

“Well, there are lots of voices, obviously, out there, but I don’t think there ought to be any — there just should be no room at all whatsoever for antisemitism or other forms of discrimination. That’s certainly not what our party is about,” Thune said. 

“Our party is a party that welcomes all comers,” he added. “We want to stand up for and on behalf of the American people who work hard every day to make a living and just want a government that works for them, hopefully at the lowest possible cost and in a way that enables them to go about their lives and provide for them and their families.”

Less than a day after an antisemitism task force aligned with the Heritage Foundation pledged to stand by the embattled conservative organization, the group’s co-chairs are now demanding concrete reforms from Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts — and warning that they may cut off ties with Heritage if their requests are not met. 

In a Tuesday afternoon email to members of the conservative National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, which was viewed by Jewish Insider, the task force co-chairs shared the text of an email they sent to Roberts earlier in the day. They asked Roberts to remove the controversial video he posted to X last week defending firebrand commentator Tucker Carlson, in which Roberts alleged that Carlson’s critics are part of a “venomous coalition” and that “their attempt to cancel him will fail.” 

“Many of us on the NTFCA are among those who believed you called us part of a ‘venomous coalition’ and implicitly questioned our loyalty to the United States. It makes collaboration with Heritage difficult for our members,” wrote the co-chairs. Roberts’ video came after Carlson faced criticism for hosting neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes on his podcast.

The email to Roberts, which the co-chairs said was drafted in collaboration with other task force members, contained five other “recommendations.” 

They asked for an apology “to those Christians and Jews who are steadfast members of the conservative movement and believe that Israel has a special role to play both biblically and politically,” and for a condemnation of Carlson’s antisemitic content. In Roberts’ video last week, he said “conservatives should feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government,” even under pressure “from the globalist class.” 

The task force co-chairs also requested that Heritage host a conference about understanding the boundaries of the conservative movement and discussing “how best to keep unity without needing to include the worst among us.” They asked Heritage to hire a visiting fellow “who shares mainstream conservative views on Israel, Jews and Christian Zionists” to win over young people. Lastly, they said they would like to host Shabbat dinners with Heritage’s interns and junior staff members to educate them about Judaism.

The task force’s leaders are Mario Bramnick, a Florida pastor and president of the Latino Coalition for Israel; Victoria Coates, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation; Ellie Cohanim, who served as deputy antisemitism special envoy in the first Trump administration; and Luke Moon, a pastor and executive director of the Philos Project. 

The task force co-chairs said in the email that if an agreement is not reached soon, their relationship with Heritage “will be irrevocably harmed.” 

“If the terms aren’t met, we will take the NTFCA elsewhere,” Moon told JI on Tuesday. The task force’s members played a major role in the drafting of Project Esther, an antisemitism plan published by the Heritage Foundation last year. 

A spokesperson for the Heritage Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Several organizations have already pulled out of the task force to protest Heritage following the release of Roberts’ video last week, including the Zionist Organization of America, Young Jewish Conservatives, the Coalition for Jewish Values and Combat Antisemitism Movement. 

In a Monday night speech, Roberts said Heritage “will never, ever, ever stop fighting against antisemitism in all its forms.” He offered an apology to his “Jewish friends” without addressing the controversy over Carlson directly.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) warned on Monday against the mainstreaming of antisemitic figures within the conservative movement in response to Tucker Carlson’s platforming of neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes.

Hawley, an ally of the national conservative movement who has advocated for the Trump administration to take an aggressive approach to combating campus antisemitism, made the comments while speaking to Jewish Insider about the controversy surrounding Fuentes’ appearance on Carlson’s podcast late last week. 

“I just think on the substance of what he says, I mean, it’s antisemitic. Let’s just call it for what it is, let’s not sugarcoat it,” Hawley said of Fuentes. 

“That’s not who we are as Republicans, as conservatives. Listen, this is America. He can have whatever views he wants. But the question for us as conservatives is: Are those views going to define who we are? And I think we need to say, ‘No, they’re not. No. Just no, no, no,’” he continued. “We need to be really clear, and I say that not only as a conservative, but also as a Christian. There is no place for antisemitic hatred, tropes, any of that stuff. I just think we’ve gotta say that stuff.”

The Missouri senator drew a parallel between the antisemitism seen at universities across the country since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and Fuentes’ views. 

“Do we really want to be part of what we’ve seen happen on college campuses, for instance, in this country in the last two or three years? Conservatives have been decrying that,” Hawley said. “Are we now to believe that, oh, actually, we have no problem with that? And that all of the things they were saying about Jews and Jewish Americans, that was fine? That’s not my view. I wasn’t fine with it then, I’m not fine with it now.”

“I thought it was morally repulsive then, I think it’s morally repulsive now. I’m not going to change my opinion on that. I want to be really clear: that’s above all a moral issue,” he added. 

Hawley was not the only Republican senator to voice their objections to a GOP embrace of Fuentes or the avowed antisemite’s appearance on Carlson’s program.

The fallout now involves the Heritage Foundation, the result of its president, Kevin Roberts, coming to Carlson’s defense in a video last Thursday that called out the “venomous coalition attacking” Carlson and warned that “their attempt to cancel him will fail.” Roberts has since clarified that he and Heritage do not support Fuentes’ antisemitic views, though he refused to disavow him, and is facing growing calls to walk back his comments. 

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), the co-chair of the Senate antisemitism task force, told JI that he was “a little surprised that Heritage jumped out in support of [Carlson] and Nick Fuentes to say, ‘Hey, we want them in our camp’ after the statements that were made.”

“Heritage could have just sat back and not said anything, but instead, they chose to jump out on their side,” Lankford continued. “I don’t get that.”

He, like Hawley and other Republican lawmakers, warned that the right faces a similar crisis of antisemitism as is roiling the left if conservatives do not proactively confront and shun antisemites in their midst.

“The left has seen an implosion of their party based on antisemitism rising in their party. I don’t want to see the same thing on the right,” Lankford said. “To say the least, I want to make it very, very clear we are not the party of antisemitism. We’re not the party that believes Hitler was a good guy and that Winston Churchill was the bad guy. We’re not the party that blames media issues on the Jews and all these weird tropes that are out there. That’s not who we are, that’s not what we stand for, nor what we should stand for.”

He said that he does not understand the impulse to “allow it to be a big tent and allow antisemitism in our party. If there are [antisemites] that are there, we should call it out and say that’s wrong.”

“What I’ve tried to be very clear on is [that] the ‘New Right’ is now quoting an old wrong. It’s wrong,” Lankford continued.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) offered a similar message.

“The Democrat Party — we already have a party that’s for antisemitism [and] is against Israel,” Scott told JI. “The Republican Party [is going to] stand for Israel and we’re going to stand against antisemitism. I don’t think there’s any question.”

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, the executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told JI that Roberts’ message “was the most tone-deaf comment, in both its content and its timing, that I’ve ever heard from a major Washington organization on any political side.” 

Menken resigned from Heritage’s Project Esther, the group’s antisemitism initiative, last week in response to Roberts’ video message defending Carlson. Along with Menken and CJV, several other groups have also publicly disaffiliated from Heritage’s antisemitism task force, including the National Jewish Advocacy Center, the Zionist Organization of America and Young Jewish Conservatives.

LAS VEGAS — Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) called Tucker Carlson “the most dangerous antisemite in America” in remarks on Saturday at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership conference, in what was an unusually direct rebuke of the far-right commentator who is facing backlash over his recent friendly interview with the neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes.

“He has chosen to take on the mantle of leader of a modern day Hitler Youth,” Fine, a freshman congressman from Florida who is one of four Jewish Republicans in the House, said of Carlson. “To broadcast and feature those who celebrate the Nazis, those who call for the extermination of Israel, to defend Hamas, to even criticize President Trump for stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

Fine’s remarks came as the RJC now reckons with rising antisemitism within the Republican Party in the wake of the Fuentes interview last week, where Carlson, in a podcast conversation that ran for more than two hours, failed to challenge his guest’s praise for Adolf Hitler and Holocaust denial, among other antisemitic views. 

Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, a leading conservative think tank, has also drawn criticism for standing by Carlson in the days after the interview, even as he has condemned Fuentes.

But while many speakers at the RJC summit have alluded to anti-Jewish prejudice on the right, few have explicitly mentioned Carlson or the Heritage Foundation in their own remarks, instead focusing largely on left-wing antisemitism.

“I can stand up here all day and take shots at the left,” Fine said in a ballroom at the Venetian Resort, standing in front of a long line of younger attendees who lined up before him with red posters declaring “Tucker is not MAGA,” a line he used in his speech.

“But I’m here for the kids down here, because it’s easy to talk about antisemitism on the left,” Fine continued. “I want to talk about the dark force rising on our side. Multiple speakers have talked about the rise of antisemitism on the right. But it is not enough to speak in platitudes or generalities about the fight. We must call evil by its name.”

The congressman said that Carlson’s “fall from grace has been one of the most extraordinary implosions in political history, and the rapidity of it has created real challenges for us all, because our friends don’t have our shared experience.”

“I can deal with this with my colleagues in the House,” he said. “See, they remember the Tucker of five years ago. They don’t live with antisemitism every day. They don’t think about it the way that we do, and it’s jarring for them to try to understand: How did this person become who he is today? But the challenge is, he’s inspired a movement of hate in our midst, and I’m not done calling people out.”

In his speech, Fine also said that he “was supposed to do an event with” the Heritage Foundation next week but had since changed his mind. “They don’t know what I’m about to tell you,” he told the crowd. “Right now we’re canceling it.”

“They have no future in my office, and I will be calling on all of my colleagues on the Republican side to do the same,” he said. “If those who support Tucker Carlson want to see a venomous coalition,” he said, referring to language from Roberts’ recent defense of Carlson, “all they need to do is go look in the mirror.”

In addition to Carlson and the Heritage Foundation, Fine turned his sights on two of his GOP colleagues, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), both outspoken critics of Israel who have faced accusations of using antisemitic rhetoric.

“Some days, I marvel at their stupidity, other days, at their evil,” he said. “It makes my stomach crawl that I have to sit in the same room with them.”

“Now we have to choose: Will we ignore these embarrassments to our party?” he asked in his concluding remarks. “When we pretend they don’t matter or that they don’t exist, we make the same mistakes that Democrats made so many years ago.” 

“Today in this room and at this time, we speak with one loud and convincing truth,” Fine said to cheers from the audience. “We will not let our party fall to this darkness.”

LAS VEGAS — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spoke out against Tucker Carlson for giving a friendly platform to Nick Fuentes, the neo-Nazi influencer, on his podcast this week, calling it “a wake-up call” for the Republican Party as it grapples with rising antisemitism within its ranks.

“How many times does he have to play footsie with this antisemitic view of the Jewish people and Israel until you figure out that’s what he believes?” Graham said of Carlson in an interview with Jewish Insider on Friday on the sidelines of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit at the Venetian Resort. 

Graham said that “antisemitism has been with us, and it’ll always be with us, and the goal is to limit it, fight back and contain it.”

“I am confident that if anybody in the Republican world ran for office as a member of Congress, for the Senate or any major elected office and spouted this garbage, it would get creamed,” Graham told JI. “This is a niche market. It won’t sell to a wider audience.”

Carlson, a frequent critic of Graham, has faced backlash this week for failing to challenge Fuentes’ antisemitic views, including praising Adolf Hitler and engaging in Holocaust denialism. During the interview, Fuentes railed against “organized Jewry” while Carlson expressed his disdain for Christian Zionists including Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, saying he had been seized by a “brain virus.”

“To suggest that evangelical Christians are confused or got it wrong says more about the critic than it does evangelical Christians,” Graham countered. “The guy that’s doing the talking is a raving antisemite white nationalist, and if you want to hook your wagon to that, you’ll have a very short journey in the Republican Party.”

Graham said that Carlson and Fuentes “did us all a favor by being so brazen. It’s kind of a wake-up call.”

Even as Carlson, a close ally of Vice President JD Vance, remains influential in the GOP, Graham argued that “being anti-Israel in the modern Republican Party is a death sentence to political viability.”

“We’re not gonna put up with that crap. We’re not that kind of party,” he said.

The South Carolina senator also joined other senators in raising concerns about the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, who has faced widespread criticism for defending Carlson’s interview and for soft-pedaling Fuentes views in a video he posted to social media on Thursday. “That’s the decision made, and we’ll see how well it plays in the marketplace,” Graham, who is facing a primary challenge next year from a former Heritage Foundation staffer, reiterated. 

Amid the criticism Friday, Roberts posted a follow-up statement on X where he condemned Fuentes’ “vicious antisemitic ideology, his Holocaust denial, and his relentless conspiracy theories that echo the darkest chapters of history” but made no further comment about Carlson.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who spoke at the RJC summit on Thursday night, and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have spoken out against right-wing antisemitism after Carlson’s Fuentes interview.

Vance also drew scrutiny this week from conservative Jewish critics after he spoke at a campus Turning Point USA event and avoided  forcefully confronting students who had asked him questions about Israel that used antisemitic tropes, such as suggesting Jewish control of U.S. politics and claiming that Jews oppress Christians.

Graham said he believed that the students were “espousing stereotypes about the Jewish people and the Jewish state,” which he called “pretty unnerving.”

“I think JD handled it well,” he said, but added: “I wish he would have been more direct.”

“I would have been real direct and said, ‘Let me tell you, if you think our relationship with Israel is less than beneficial, you’re ignorant. Israel’s fighting our fight,” he said. “My goal is to keep the threats over there so they don’t come here,” he added. “My goal is not to fight alone, to have other people fighting with us. And you can’t have a better partner in the fight than Israel.”

Desmond Holly, the suspected shooter who critically injured two students at Evergreen High School in Colorado on Wednesday, shared antisemitic and white nationalist views online, according to the Denver Post and the Anti-Defamation League.

Local authorities said Thursday that Holly had been “radicalized by some extremist network,” without specifying further.

According to the Denver Post, one of Holly’s online accounts used a coded slogan for Holocaust denial and reposted antisemitic videos and other videos showing individuals in Nazi uniforms.

The ADL’s Center on Extremism said Friday that Holly’s TikTok accounts were “filled with white supremacist symbolism,” including a reference to the white nationalist “14 words” slogan, and utilized a neo-Nazi symbol in his profile photo.

The ADL reported that Holly, in online interactions, shared photos of patches he had created featuring neo-Nazi symbols, similar to those used by prior mass shooters. He also shared a photo of himself in a mask that featured multiple white nationalist symbols and slogans, including “TJD” — standing for “Total Jew Death.”

According to the ADL, Holly collected tactical gear — inspired in some cases by past mass shooters — which he decorated with extremist symbols, posted internet content mimicking prior shooters and suggested in online comments that he was preparing to carry out an attack. 

His accounts included numerous references to Brenton Tarrant, the far-right killer who murdered 51 at two mosques in New Zealand, among other mass killers.

Holly also maintained an account on an internet forum where users share images and footage of various deaths and murders, and commented on posts about past mass shootings, according to the ADL research. The platform has been used by multiple prior mass shooters.

Similar fascinations with extremist and antisemitic views and prior school shooters, as well as apparent interactions with online extremist networks, have been a feature of several recent mass attacks.

“The deeply disturbing specifics of this case follow a pattern recently discovered by ADL Center on Extremism, which its analysts have found in at least three school shootings committed by young people over the past year,” the ADL report stated, including engagement with some of the same online forums.

The Colorado shooting took place shortly after the killing of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk in Utah.

President Donald Trump lambasted “interventionalists” and “neo-cons” who previously led foreign policy discourse in the Republican Party in a speech on Tuesday at a U.S.-Saudi Arabia investment forum event in Riyadh. 

“The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neo-cons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions failing to develop [Kabul], Baghdad, so many other cities,” Trump said. “In the end, the so-called nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.”

“They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves,” Trump continued. “Peace, prosperity and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly.”

Trump also condemned American presidents who “have been afflicted with the focus that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins” — an apparent condemnation of former President George W. Bush. 

He said that it’s “God’s job to sit in judgement, my job to defend America and to promote the fundamental interests of stability, prosperity and peace,” but that he would “never hesitate” to defend the U.S. or its allies.

The remarks were cheered by several notable members of the isolationist wing of the GOP, including Dan Caldwell, a former Pentagon adviser fired for allegedly leaking sensitive information. 

A conservative foreign policy analyst compared the speech to President Barack Obama’s “A New Beginning” speech in Cairo in 2009. “It’s his apology tour,” the analyst told Jewish Insider.

“It’s crazy to air your dirty laundry in a place that bore the Al-Qaida hijackers. This is Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s ‘Blame America’ on the right,” the analyst continued, warning that an “Arabist view” appeared to be making its way into the administration “at the expense of Israel,” a trend they said was previously mainly seen among Democrats. 

Trump also announced the “cessation” of sanctions against Syria “in order to give them a chance at greatness” and the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Syria. He said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be meeting with the Syrian foreign minister this week.

Trump characterized these moves as a favor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill had argued for a targeted, cautious approach to sanctions relief for Syria, in a reversible fashion, in return for measurable progress and results on U.S. priorities. Trump said that “we’re taking them all off.” It was not clear from his remarks if the U.S. would be attaching conditions to that sanctions relief.

The Israeli government has advocated against sanctions relief for the regime out of concerns about the new government’s ties to Islamist extremists.

Addressing the leaders of Iran, Trump said he was willing “to offer them a new path and much better path towards a far better and more hopeful future,” adding that he’s shown he is “willing to end past conflicts and forge new partnerships for a better and more stable world.”

He warned that “if Iran’s leadership rejects this olive branch and continues to attack their neighbors, then we’ll have no choice but to inflict massive maximum pressure, drive Iranian oil exports to zero like I did before … and take all action required to stop the regime from ever having a nuclear weapon.”

Trump also said that the clock is ticking for Iran to accept that offer.

The U.S. president lavished praise on Saudi Arabia and its crown prince for the development the country has seen in recent years. He said it’s his “fervent hope, wish and even my dream that Saudi Arabia … will soon be joining the Abraham Accords.”

“You’ll be greatly honoring me and you’ll be greatly honoring all of those people that have fought so hard for the Middle East, and I really think it’s going to be something special,” Trump said. “But you’ll do it in your own time. That’s what I want, that’s what you want, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

Trump repeatedly insisted that the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel would not have happened had he been president at the time and said that the “people of Gaza deserve a much better future” but that cannot happen as long as the leaders of Gaza continue to pursue violence. He said he wants to see the Gaza war “ended as quickly as possible” and the hostages all returned, a seeming contradiction to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plans to expand Israeli operations in Gaza.

He also said that the U.S. “stands ready to help Lebanon create a future of economic development and peace with its neighbors,” adding that its new government provides “the first real chance in decades for a more productive partnership with the United States.”

Regarding the U.S. strikes on the Houthis, Trump said that the U.S. “got what we came for and then we got out,” referring to the U.S. ceasefire with the group. He said that the U.S. “[doesn’t] want them shooting at Saudi Arabia,” but the deal, as publicly outlined, did not contain provisions to protect Israel, Saudi Arabia or any other U.S. partners.

Houthi attacks on Israel have continued since the deal was struck.
He additionally claimed that he had requested a $1 trillion military budget from Congress to ensure “peace through strength,” adding “hopefully, we’ll never have to use any of those weapons.” But top conservative foreign policy leaders on Capitol Hill have said that the administration’s budget request does not actually meet that $1 trillion benchmark and have called the request insufficient.