With Friends Like Tucker…

The Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts took a bullet in the chest for Tucker Carlson, and his career is on life support. The Heritage Foundation itself has been seriously damaged as a result of his ill-considered decision to come out in defense of Tucker after his embarrassing tongue bath of Nick Fuentes, whom he treated as a comrade in arms against the weak-kneed RINOs like…Ted Cruz. 

I sorta-kinda get what Roberts was trying to do, as stupidly as he executed the idea. I think he wanted to defend the principle of free speech, which is worth defending, and was correctly suggesting that merely conversing with a despicable but influential person is not, in itself, a cause for cancellation. For instance, if a reporter got an interview with Osama bin Laden or the Ayatollah Khamenei, they should take the opportunity to ask tough questions to probe how they think. 

Yeah, well, that isn’t what Tucker did at all. He gave Fuentes a tongue bath, and by doing so, he legitimized a man who said he was on “Team Hitler” and who admires Josef Stalin. Fuentes is not only not on “our” side; he is a disgusting little man with a lust for attention and destruction. 

Progressive Democrats and nationalist Republicans need to work together.

The left will have to give up on immigration, and the right on the free market. That would be a popular compromise and a blueprint to remove support for Israel. pic.twitter.com/CjMzafqr7X

— Fuentes Updates (@FuentesUpdates) November 19, 2025

Tucker himself chooses Fuentes over Cruz and blames Cruz for the split. 

Ted Cruz didn’t create Nick Fuentes, and Churchill wasn’t the villain of World War II.

We don’t have to embrace the lunatic fringe just because it exists, and we don’t have to change our core American values just to please the people who love Hitler & celebrate Stalin’s birthday https://t.co/esVm3FVpCy

— Joel M. Petlin (@Joelmpetlin) November 20, 2025

I bring up all this background because, in thanks for Roberts blowing up his career and the Heritage Foundation, Tucker Carlson has dumped all over him. For much of the content, I think William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection. 

Tucker finds Roberts insufficiently loyal, so he considers his (former) friend a “weak man.”

Tucker Carlson torches @KevinRobertsTX, “who I knew, and really liked,” saying, “He was weak. He decided he wanted his job more than to tell the truth.”
Of @Heritage, Tucker says, “They should be a force for good, but I don’t see how they ever will be.” h/t @AudreyFahlberg pic.twitter.com/4N8IVecUtf

— Jason Hart (@jasonahart) November 21, 2025

Here’s his extended musings from the 1819 Podcast:

Carlson: There’s a man called Kevin Roberts, who I knew and really liked, took over the Heritage Foundation a couple of years ago, and I thought and—and that’s the biggest foundation in Washington, and I thought that he could steer it into a positive direction. I think he certainly wanted to. He tried. Um, and in the end, 10 days ago, he got—he was completely destroyed by this —by this fighting within the within the Republican party and the conservative movement. Very very sad. And and you know, I think the Heritage Foundation will—and I say this, again, with sadness because there are smart people there. They have a ton of money. They should be a force for good. But I don’t see how they ever will be.

Dawson: Not after that.

Carlson: Not after that.

Dawson: Absolutely cannibalized him.

Carlson: Yep. And he allowed it. He was—he was weak. he decided he wanted his job more than to tell the truth. And that’s a, you know, that’s a—a moment that I think every man faces inevitably in life. And, and I understand the fears. I mean, I’ve certainly been there a lot. And um, you know, not wanting to lose your job. I get it. I’m not judging. But you have to choose the truth because if you don’t, you’ll never recover. It’ll break you. Like Winston Smith at the end of 1984 who has been broken. You know, they’ve—they’ve shown him his greatest fears and something snapped inside of him. I can’t handle. he reached the end of his, his ability to to withstand uh the terror and the punishment and he gives in. But unfortunately, when you do give in, you know, it’s, it’s you’re, you’re done. You’re dead in a way. And so, just don’t do that. Just resolve not to do that.

Yes, indeedy, not blowing everything good in your life up in service to defending Tucker Carlson’s desire to promote a Nazi who wants to create an alliance with the left and radical Islamists in order to destroy the Joos is like spiritual death. 

Yep. Got it. Now I need to go listen to Candace Owens and help her fight the French assassins whom Emmanuel Macron is sending to kill her. 

For God’s sake. Is there no limit to this man’s ego? 

I wish I could say that Tucker and Candace are irrelevant to the conservative movement, but for now, they are not. There are some non-bots (many of their followers on X have been shown to be foreign bots, but not all of them by any means) who are now drifting into the Tucker/Owens orbit. 

Some of whom I have followed on X, and who I am beginning to cull from my feed. Not all, though, because I worry about the drift into ugliness. 

Tucker Carlson continues to advocate for feudalism: “I do really prefer the feudal model – it’s the model of all time.”

In August, he said: “Feudalism is so much better than what we have now. At least the leader is invested in his people’s prosperity.” pic.twitter.com/RodMke6b6v

— Nathan Livingstone (MilkBarTV) (@TheMilkBarTV) October 10, 2025

I do not adhere to the “no enemies on the right” philosophy, especially because some of these people are leaving the right. Tucker is now dropping his support for American Liberalism out of disgust. 

Tucker Carlson: “Feudalism is so much better than what we have now.”

pic.twitter.com/NaGGddpBvW

— Micah (@micah_erfan) August 24, 2025

Kevin Roberts’ career may not be over yet, but it is grievously wounded because he decided to give Tucker Carlson more grace than he deserved. I am quite certain that Roberts does not share Tucker’s view that we should return to a system with the Divine Right of Kings, droit de seigneur, and serfdom. He mistakenly thought that Tucker was still a conservative, I suspect. 

But that is not the point, really. The point is that Tucker has become an illiberal megalomaniac, and that is sufficient reason to reject him and try to expel him from the movement. 

It’s vital we have vigorous and at times even rancorous debates about ideas and policies. But once you reject the Founding principles, don’t claim the mantle of conservatism. 

I’m a Scottish Enlightenment guy. Classical Liberalism. It was upon that foundation that the country was built, and it was the remnants of the feudal order that we were turning our backs on. 

Feudalism begins with taxation without representation, for God’s sake. Rule without representation. Learn a little European history. 

What this episode shows is not just that Tucker has left conservatism in the sense that we speak of it, but also that he has become a bad person as well. He imagines himself a philosopher king or something, and has lost his way. 

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