Heritage antisemitism task force loses 2 members amid Carlson controversy

The Heritage Foundation’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism lost two members following Heritage President Kevin Roberts’s defense of Tucker Carlson’s interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes. 

Ian Speir and Mark Goldfeder both stepped down from their roles citing the controversy as a deciding factor in their decision to depart. 

“I cannot in good conscience stand with Heritage or continue on the task force under its current auspices,” Speir wrote in a Tuesday post on the social platform X, referring to Roberts’s statements at Hillsdale College as the catalyst for his resignation.

The Heritage chief told the audience, “Sometimes you can make a mistake with the best of intentions.”

Speir said his remarks were a “strategic non-apology that doubles down on ‘loyalty’ to Tucker Carlson, muses about welcoming groypers and the groyper-curious into the movement, and continues to gaslight everyone about ‘cancelation’ when that clearly isn’t the issue." 

“It is the elevation of blind loyalty and a thirst for power above principle — the very opposite of historical American conservatism. I cannot tread this path with you. The stakes for our country and for our Jewish friends are simply too high, too existential,” he added.

Goldfeder issued statements with his own concerns in a separate post on X over the weekend.

“Unfortunately, the recent decision by Heritage leadership to defend and even celebrate Tucker Carlson's decision to platform Nick Fuentes a figure whose record of overt racism, sexism, and antisemitism is beyond dispute makes continued participation impossible. Elevating him, and then attacking those who object as somehow un-American or disloyal, in a video replete with antisemitic tropes and dog-whistles no less, is not the protection of free speech: It is moral collapse disguised as courage,” Goldfeder wrote in his resignation letter, which he posted to X on Sunday.

Goldfeder said “defending the right to engage in abhorrent rhetoric is not the same as endorsing the platforming of those who use it to dehumanize others.”

Speir and Goldfeder aren’t the only two to depart from the Heritage Foundation in the wake of criticism of Roberts’s remarks. Ryan Neuhaus, who until Friday was chief of staff to Roberts, also left the conservative think tank, but for different reasons.

Neuhaus lauded Roberts for defending Carlson’s interview in several social media posts accusing naysayers of “virtue signaling” and attempting to sow “division” in the organization. 

He encouraged those who disagreed with his stance to resign.