Valuetainment - February 19, 2026


“I Apologized” - Heritage Foundation CEO ADDRESSES Nick Fuentes & Tucker Carlson Fallout


Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

185.85164

Word count

2,558

Sentence count

172

Harmful content

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Heritage Foundation President and CEO Kevin Collins responds to the controversy surrounding a controversial video of him and Nick Fuentes discussing anti-Semitism, and why he still stands by Tucker Carlson and his comments about the matter.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:00:16.860 When you make money, the profile of somebody that has money,
00:00:20.640 they're not easy people or else they wouldn't be successful.
00:00:23.160 They're drivers, right?
00:00:24.080 They're demanding.
00:00:24.780 They tend to typically get what they want.
00:00:27.900 So they could sit there and say, you know,
00:00:31.460 if I just cut you a million-dollar check and you got up there and, you know,
00:00:34.960 for example, let's use the instance of what happened, right,
00:00:37.320 where Tucker had Nick on, right?
00:00:41.020 Tucker had Nick on and they did a podcast together
00:00:42.880 and he got a lot of heat for it.
00:00:45.740 And right afterwards, I think you said we will always stand with Tucker
00:00:52.560 and the – you said something, very positive, complimentary towards Tucker.
00:00:55.820 And I think even Tucker spoke at Heritage two years ago,
00:00:58.700 two and a half years ago at one of your events.
00:01:00.700 So he's complimentary of you guys as well.
00:01:03.040 But when that came out and then some of the people walked,
00:01:06.140 there was an article that came out, maybe even you spoke about it,
00:01:09.480 about going to your staff and apologizing.
00:01:11.700 What did you apologize for?
00:01:12.980 I apologized for two things, mixing up personal friendship with institutional friendship.
00:01:19.640 And secondly, especially for Jewish friends, but for anyone,
00:01:23.900 a couple of phrases in there that I regretted.
00:01:26.600 And I can tell you my closest Jewish friend called me the next morning and he said,
00:01:32.280 Kevin, I know you're not an anti-Semite.
00:01:34.760 You've expanded the work of anti-Semitism at Heritage.
00:01:37.320 And he said, you're a Roman Catholic.
00:01:38.500 I know your faith well enough to know you couldn't be.
00:01:40.720 He said, but this is something that you need to address head on.
00:01:44.500 And so it's sort of like the conversation with my retired OBGYN friend and donor
00:01:50.000 that this Jewish friend up until this very moment as we sit here
00:01:53.860 has been a great guide in setting up conversations for me and for us at Heritage to have.
00:02:00.120 The reason those have gone well in spite of not just the news cycle,
00:02:03.660 but what seems to be an agenda that goes well beyond the video controversy is because people
00:02:09.200 know the record at Heritage.
00:02:10.920 I think it's safe to say, if you think about my colleagues who work on the scourge of anti-Semitism,
00:02:16.500 there's no organization, at least of our size and scope, that isn't a single issue organization
00:02:21.260 that's done more to expand work against anti-Semitism.
00:02:24.860 And so that's really carried the day.
00:02:26.280 And as we sit here with this recent flap and news cycle having concluded, people realize,
00:02:32.600 oh, I know Heritage.
00:02:34.420 I'd say people know me and the work I've done, especially as a Catholic leader against anti-Semitism.
00:02:39.880 But the most important thing is I know their aspirational policy vision for the future,
00:02:43.780 and we want to be part of that.
00:02:45.180 Let's get to work because, remember, we might just have six or eight or nine more months to get good policy.
00:02:50.700 But what were the two things you apologized for?
00:02:53.240 You said two things you said you apologized for.
00:02:55.040 I thought that the script of the video was, in a couple of cases, was ineloquent.
00:02:59.520 And I talked about that then, so I don't have to repeat them.
00:03:01.940 But the point is, I thought, from my Jewish friend's point of view,
00:03:05.400 that while he could excuse it, that maybe other people who didn't know me...
00:03:08.280 I get that, but I'm trying to...
00:03:09.240 Your Heritage Foundation, you guys, your main cornerstone is freedom of speech, right?
00:03:12.920 So for...
00:03:14.560 I watched the video multiple times and multiple times.
00:03:18.380 It sounded like a very reasonable video.
00:03:21.500 I'm a Syrian-Armenian.
00:03:22.980 I don't have any problems with them, with anyone who's Jewish whatsoever.
00:03:30.200 We've had BB on, but we've had Nick Fuentes on.
00:03:32.680 We're the only podcast in the world that, within 30 days, had BB and Nick Fuentes on.
00:03:39.660 No one's ever done that before, not mainstream or podcasting.
00:03:42.100 We'll talk to anybody and have a great conversation with them.
00:03:44.320 But I want to go back to it.
00:03:46.580 Is it when you said you can be a...
00:03:50.540 You can be someone who supports the Jewish... 0.98
00:03:55.940 Someone who can criticize the Jewish community without being an anti-Semite?
00:04:00.740 I think you said something like that, right?
00:04:02.800 Do you still stand by that position?
00:04:04.080 Oh, absolutely.
00:04:04.700 Okay.
00:04:05.040 That's not what I apologize for.
00:04:06.340 Okay, so wasn't that what you...
00:04:07.060 No, it was mixing personal friendship with institutional friendship.
00:04:10.500 And it sort of goes back to one of your earlier questions about being a non-profit leader.
00:04:16.120 Heritage is not my business.
00:04:18.080 Heritage is a non-profit organization.
00:04:20.320 I get the privilege to lead.
00:04:21.280 Legislative, right?
00:04:21.300 Jim Collins said earlier, right?
00:04:22.620 And so that's the first thing.
00:04:24.160 And then the second thing is some really genuinely close friends of mine who are Jewish said,
00:04:29.660 Kevin, there are a couple phrases in there that we forgive you for.
00:04:33.040 But, you know, while we support your stance on free speech and not canceling people, it's
00:04:37.360 also a separate matter to make sure that one of the ways that we can sustain free speech
00:04:41.280 and speaking freely is to make sure that our words are carefully chosen.
00:04:45.000 That was a thing that I wanted to address.
00:04:46.580 So I live in Florida.
00:04:47.660 We came here because of DeSantis.
00:04:49.060 We like DeSantis.
00:04:49.980 I think he's the number one governor in America.
00:04:52.140 He's done a remarkable job.
00:04:52.740 I think he's done a phenomenal job.
00:04:54.680 And I'm a big fan.
00:04:56.900 And I recruit for him all day long to get people to come here.
00:05:00.220 And we moved a lot of people to Florida because I can easily promote him, unlike the previous
00:05:05.960 governor when I lived in California.
00:05:07.940 Newsom, I lived in Texas as well, and I could promote for him as well.
00:05:10.320 He was an easy governor to promote for.
00:05:12.860 Even Perry was an easy governor to promote for.
00:05:15.760 But, you know, sometimes when, you know, in our company, okay, we have people here that
00:05:21.240 work in our, that want to be part of entertainment.
00:05:23.540 They're hardcore Christians.
00:05:25.640 You know, and hardcore, we got to protect, you know, Zionists and we got to, you know, 1.00
00:05:29.320 you can't, and then we have guys that are, you know, on the other side where they're
00:05:33.620 like, wait a minute, why can't you criticize them?
00:05:35.820 You know, why, why are they coming up with a certain legislation where you can be critical
00:05:40.580 of some of the things they're doing with, you know, to criticize AIPAC or to criticize
00:05:45.220 this?
00:05:45.620 Why can't you do that?
00:05:46.660 And I'm right here is where I'm at, right?
00:05:48.540 And I watch both.
00:05:49.400 That's what I like.
00:05:50.060 I like to see both sides.
00:05:52.060 Where do you stand with it?
00:05:53.220 What's your position?
00:05:54.100 It's really important.
00:05:55.080 And this is Heritage's position that there's a difference between political Zionism, which
00:05:59.760 is the right of the Israeli state to exist, which we support 100%, probably rather famously.
00:06:06.440 The second, and divorce that from theological Zionism.
00:06:09.960 And those of us who are Christians, depending upon what our particular Christian faith is,
00:06:14.720 have differences of opinion on that.
00:06:16.120 Because they're theological and because Heritage is a non-sectarian organization, we honor all of
00:06:22.520 those.
00:06:22.780 And we have some people who work on very pro-Israel policy who are Christian Zionists. 0.89
00:06:29.060 Within the organization.
00:06:29.960 Within Heritage.
00:06:30.680 We have others who are not Christian Zionists.
00:06:33.280 They agree 100%.
00:06:34.940 We at Heritage agree 100% on political Zionism.
00:06:38.200 But we have to, as a non-sectarian organization, allow this theological disagreement, which really,
00:06:43.900 inside the workings of Heritage, don't have a place because we're not a religious organization.
00:06:47.520 And I think one of the fruits that's come out of the last few months is Heritage playing a role in
00:06:54.960 reminding people of that delineation.
00:06:57.240 And it's helped some of the fracturing of the conservative movement because people, whether
00:07:01.140 through ignorance, just, you know, not having read about this or maybe having forgotten, they
00:07:05.640 have conflated political Zionism and theological Zionism.
00:07:09.420 They're two different things.
00:07:10.360 And I think that may be a helpful way for people like you and me who are in the middle
00:07:14.100 of those questions, although, you know, 100% supportive of Israel's right to exist, that
00:07:19.880 we remind people of that.
00:07:22.020 Got it.
00:07:22.700 So when you're getting calls and let's just say you have a big donor that's calling you
00:07:30.760 and they're saying, hey, we don't like what you said.
00:07:33.580 Maybe it could have been different on how you approach this situation on Israel.
00:07:36.500 Do you guys put events together and allow folks from opposing sides to debate and have
00:07:43.200 conversation where the donors can't see it?
00:07:45.040 Yes, we do.
00:07:45.680 In fact, we pride ourselves on it.
00:07:46.760 Can you give me an example of that?
00:07:48.200 Sure.
00:07:48.800 Let me take back up one step real briefly, if I may, because this is a really important
00:07:52.720 context, although it's going to sound like nerdy think tank talk.
00:07:55.640 Heritage is famous for something called its one voice policy.
00:07:59.260 Unlike other policy organizations in D.C. where different scholars at the same organization
00:08:04.380 can have different voices, different positions on issues.
00:08:07.560 Heritage, if we speak on something, it's as an institution, a single voice, one voice.
00:08:11.720 Why?
00:08:12.320 Because we're advocating for policy change.
00:08:14.240 You can't write a white paper.
00:08:15.660 Meaning you guys at the top have to be aligned 100%.
00:08:18.240 We, publicly, we have to be, have one position, the same position on a policy issue.
00:08:24.180 In front of the donors, you guys have to be aligned.
00:08:29.180 Behind closed doors, we can debate and discourse, but...
00:08:31.400 There's total sausage making.
00:08:32.840 There has to be, right?
00:08:33.440 I agree fully.
00:08:34.360 Okay, I got it.
00:08:35.000 Okay.
00:08:35.400 So, but at the end of the day, once we get out of that door, in front of everybody, we're
00:08:38.900 on the same page, united.
00:08:40.060 That's right.
00:08:40.480 Okay.
00:08:40.760 So, that's the important context for the story I'm going to tell.
00:08:43.040 So, we have this one voice policy.
00:08:47.540 It had become sort of moribund when I and my leadership arrived in late 2021, for whatever
00:08:52.280 reason.
00:08:52.620 I don't know.
00:08:53.300 But we were charged by the board, revitalized the one voice policy.
00:08:56.960 And the way, interestingly, although it doesn't quite meet the eye initially, the way you do
00:09:01.380 that is to actually increase the debate internally.
00:09:05.540 Our rules are, it's got to be collegial, it's got to be professional, can't be personal.
00:09:09.100 And the way you amplify that is to have competing voices come in and do public events.
00:09:15.840 We're not saying that having someone who disagrees with us on tax policy or education policy
00:09:21.180 is somehow going to now change our own policy.
00:09:24.680 But we're saying we're confident enough in our own research, our own position, that,
00:09:29.000 of course, we want to have public debates.
00:09:31.140 The big issue example I want to offer is our changing policy on China.
00:09:37.180 Heritage led the way.
00:09:39.980 On most Americans' beliefs, certainly mine, that America was going to prevail on China
00:09:45.440 because our free market and American values were going to turn China into us.
00:09:49.380 And when I got to Heritage, by the time I got to Heritage, I was convinced by none other
00:09:54.440 than Donald Trump that that was wrong, that China had been taking advantage of us, that
00:09:58.620 American policy had been too weak.
00:10:00.060 So you guys got started in 73.
00:10:04.140 This is Nixon.
00:10:05.800 Nixon, triangular diplomacy.
00:10:08.820 We go to strengthen China.
00:10:10.540 We open up the market.
00:10:11.620 They go from number 10 to number 2 in GDP.
00:10:14.260 Russia drops to weakened USSR, Soviet.
00:10:17.500 So at that time, we can convince China to think like us. 0.71
00:10:20.740 That was the mindset of Heritage?
00:10:21.980 The prevailing mindset, not just of Heritage, but of the conservative movement under George W. Bush's presidency.
00:10:27.940 Ties them into our way of thinking.
00:10:29.140 Exactly.
00:10:29.960 And the thing is, that was well-intentioned.
00:10:32.380 And so I get to Heritage, and I had the same misguided thought, right?
00:10:37.320 So this is not Kevin saying, man, I've been right for 25 years.
00:10:39.620 Listen to me.
00:10:40.120 I get to Heritage, and I say, guys, we have to change our policy.
00:10:43.780 And so what do we do?
00:10:44.960 We start having public debates, conversations on our stage at Heritage, introducing, including
00:10:52.740 for our own colleagues that, you know, maybe we were wrong, well-intentioned.
00:10:56.140 And then we publish this big paper in 2023.
00:10:58.880 And everything for us starts with the research in order for us to talk about it, right?
00:11:02.320 A new Cold War with China in 2023. 0.71
00:11:04.460 The Washington establishment went nuts.
00:11:07.700 Why?
00:11:08.280 Because that's not the prevailing Republican establishment thought.
00:11:11.700 We're going to turn China into the United States. 0.99
00:11:14.380 This story leads to one of my favorite stories in my tenure at Heritage.
00:11:19.260 Our aforementioned longtime president, Ed Fulner, calls me, and he says, Kevin, we were wrong
00:11:26.620 on China, and I want to come to an all-staff meeting, and I want to explain why.
00:11:31.200 I said, Ed, you don't have to do that.
00:11:32.360 You know, there's risk to you.
00:11:33.360 People will think that, you know, it's your fault.
00:11:35.760 They said, you've got nothing to be blamed on.
00:11:37.140 I had the same idea.
00:11:38.140 He came to a staff meeting, and he said, I want to tell all of you that the policy we're
00:11:42.340 now embarking on, which is a hawkish position on China, where now the conservative movement
00:11:46.620 is, certainly the Trump administration is, we have to be with.
00:11:50.080 And he said, if we're going to have the humility to persuade people that we were wrong, and
00:12:01.640 now we're right, it starts with conversations internally.
00:12:04.900 It starts with conversations on this stage, because sometimes policymakers need to develop
00:12:09.180 that humility.
00:12:09.740 I am extremely proud, ironically, of that humble moment by Dr. Fulner, by Heritage as
00:12:17.020 an Institution, because what we said was, our research was good, we were well-intentioned
00:12:21.940 in the policy prescriptions that we offered, but that was a generation ago, and circumstances
00:12:26.980 have clearly changed.
00:12:28.260 And if we don't read reality truthfully and see what China has been doing, who in Washington
00:12:32.860 will, and so that really is how we operate, which is why, to connect to the recent story
00:12:39.220 that you were asking about, we'd never doubted that we were going to flourish through that
00:12:44.400 kind of news cycle, because every three or four or five years, there's some controversy
00:12:49.100 that Heritage starts, because we are willing to take a look at the facts and tell the story
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