Heritage Foundation Antisemitism Initiative Collapses Over Tucker Carlson Interview

The Her­itage Foun­da­tion Project Esther anti­semitism ini­tia­tive is rapid­ly unrav­el­ing as Jew­ish orga­ni­za­tions resign en masse fol­low­ing the con­ser­v­a­tive think tank’s defense of Tuck­er Carl­son. On 3 Novem­ber 2025, the Jew­ish Tele­graph­ic Agency report­ed that at least eight indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions affil­i­at­ed with Her­itage’s Nation­al Task Force to Com­bat Anti­semitism have resigned or threat­ened to do so after pres­i­dent Kevin Roberts defend­ed Carl­son’s friend­ly inter­view with white nation­al­ist Nick Fuentes and described crit­ics as a ven­omous coali­tion. The arti­cle begins:

The Her­itage Foun­da­tion’s mar­quee effort to com­bat anti­semitism, a coali­tion known as Project Esther, is rapid­ly los­ing mem­bers fol­low­ing the con­ser­v­a­tive think tank’s pub­lic defense of Tuck­er Carl­son after he gave a friend­ly inter­view to the white nation­al­ist and anti­se­mit­ic provo­ca­teur Nick Fuentes. At least eight indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions affil­i­at­ed with Her­itage’s Nation­al Task Force to Com­bat Anti­semitism, launched last year under the Project Esther ban­ner, have resigned or threat­ened to do so, cit­ing Her­itage pres­i­dent Kevin Roberts’ deci­sion to stand by Carl­son and his descrip­tion of the tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ty’s crit­ics as a “ven­omous coali­tion.” The defec­tions sug­gest that Project Esther — unveiled on the first anniver­sary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack as a con­ser­v­a­tive “nation­al strat­e­gy to counter anti­semitism”— could be implod­ing. Nei­ther the co-chairs of the ini­tia­tive nor the Her­itage Foun­da­tion imme­di­ate­ly respond­ed to a request for com­ment about the resignations.

Read more: https://www.jta.org/2025/11/03/united-states/jewish-exodus-underway-from-heritage-foundations-antisemitism-initiative-over-tucker-carlson

Key Points

• At least eight indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions resigned from Her­itage’s anti­semitism task force, includ­ing Rab­bi Mark Goldfed­er, David Bern­stein, the Deb­o­rah Project, Young Jew­ish Con­ser­v­a­tives, and the Israel For­ev­er Foundation.
• Her­itage pres­i­dent Kevin Roberts ini­tial­ly defend­ed Carl­son and described his crit­ics as a ven­omous coali­tion, though he lat­er apol­o­gized at Hills­dale Col­lege call­ing his video a mis­take made with the best of intentions.
• Project Esther was con­ceived as a coun­ter­weight to the Biden admin­is­tra­tion’s anti­semitism strat­e­gy and focused almost entire­ly on left-wing activism while down­play­ing anti­semitism on the polit­i­cal right from the outset.
• Mul­ti­ple groups Her­itage named as par­tic­i­pants at Project Esther’s launch, includ­ing Chris­tians Unit­ed for Israel, the Hud­son Insti­tute, the Atlantic Coun­cil, and the Repub­li­can Jew­ish Coali­tion, denied any involve­ment in the initiative.

Heritage Foundation Drives MAGA Movement Through Project 2025 Blueprint

The Her­itage Foun­da­tion has under­gone a dra­mat­ic trans­for­ma­tion from its Rea­gan-era roots into the insti­tu­tion­al back­bone of the US MAGA move­ment. Under pres­i­dent Kevin Roberts, who explic­it­ly describes his role as “insti­tu­tion­al­iz­ing Trump­ism,” the orga­ni­za­tion shift­ed from tra­di­tion­al free-mar­ket con­ser­vatism to embrace nation­al con­ser­vatism, immi­gra­tion restric­tion, and expand­ed exec­u­tive pow­er. This trans­for­ma­tion cul­mi­nat­ed in Project 2025, a sprawl­ing 900-page blue­print launched in 2022 that out­lines plans to dis­man­tle civ­il lib­er­ties, gut civ­il ser­vice pro­tec­tions, and impose Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist poli­cies across fed­er­al agencies.

Project 2025 rep­re­sents Her­itage’s most ambi­tious insti­tu­tion­al pow­er grab, fea­tur­ing per­son­nel data­bas­es vet­ting loy­al­ists, train­ing mod­ules for appointees, and spe­cif­ic poli­cies con­sol­i­dat­ing exec­u­tive author­i­ty. Despite Trump’s cam­paign attempts to dis­tance him­self from the ini­tia­tive, analy­sis found near­ly two-thirds of Trump’s exec­u­tive actions in his sec­ond term mir­ror Project 2025 pro­pos­als. At least 140 peo­ple who worked in Trump’s first admin­is­tra­tion con­tributed to the project, with sev­er­al archi­tects now appoint­ed to senior gov­ern­ment posi­tions includ­ing Russ Vought as direc­tor of the Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get. CNN analy­sis revealed that 36 of 53 exec­u­tive orders Trump signed in his first week as pres­i­dent mir­rored Her­itage Foun­da­tion pro­pos­als, demon­strat­ing the blue­print­’s direct implementation.

Beyond domes­tic restruc­tur­ing, Her­itage has posi­tioned itself as archi­tect of what it calls a glob­al “nation­al­ist inter­na­tion­al­ism.” In June 2025, Her­itage released a report call­ing for Trump to estab­lish a glob­al alliance of con­ser­v­a­tive, nation­al­ist, and pop­ulist move­ments to counter transna­tion­al left insti­tu­tions. This alliance includes strate­gic part­ner­ships with Hun­gar­i­an auto­crat Vik­tor Orbán’s gov­ern­ment-backed Math­ias Corv­i­nus Col­legium and Poland’s illib­er­al Ordo Iuris. Fol­low­ing Project 2025’s imple­men­ta­tion, Her­itage con­vened a March 2025 closed-door work­shop fea­tur­ing pro­pos­als to dis­man­tle the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion and Euro­pean Court of Jus­tice, with Roberts explic­it­ly call­ing for Euro­peans to “reclaim sov­er­eign­ty” from Brussels.

The MAGA move­ment itself has become increas­ing­ly frac­tured over ide­o­log­i­cal direc­tion and for­eign pol­i­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing Israel and inter­na­tion­al engage­ment. In May 2025, promi­nent anti-woke pun­dit James Lind­say attacked reli­gious and nation­al­ist con­ser­v­a­tives as the “woke right,” while nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive leader Yoram Hazony warned these attacks threat­ened coali­tion uni­ty. The Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union warns that Project 2025 threat­ens to erode democ­ra­cy through rad­i­cal exec­u­tive branch restruc­tur­ing serv­ing a con­ser­v­a­tive agen­da, while The Nation notes Her­itage aims to “recruit, train and plant MAGA oper­a­tives through­out the gov­ern­ment” with the pri­or­i­ty to “bring the per­ma­nent bureau­cra­cy to heel.”

Exter­nal References:
— Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025. A CNN review found at least 140 peo­ple who worked for him are involved
— Project 2025, Explained | Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union
— Will the Her­itage Foun­da­tion’s Project 2025 Turn Trump­ism Into a Gov­ern­ing Agen­da? | The Nation

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