“I Apologized” - Heritage Foundation CEO ADDRESSES Nick Fuentes & Tucker Carlson Fallout
Episode Stats
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Summary
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
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When you make money, the profile of somebody that has money,
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they're not easy people or else they wouldn't be successful.
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if I just cut you a million-dollar check and you got up there and, you know,
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for example, let's use the instance of what happened, right,
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Tucker had Nick on and they did a podcast together
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And right afterwards, I think you said we will always stand with Tucker
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and the – you said something, very positive, complimentary towards Tucker.
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And I think even Tucker spoke at Heritage two years ago,
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two and a half years ago at one of your events.
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But when that came out and then some of the people walked,
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there was an article that came out, maybe even you spoke about it,
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I apologized for two things, mixing up personal friendship with institutional friendship.
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And secondly, especially for Jewish friends, but for anyone,
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And I can tell you my closest Jewish friend called me the next morning and he said,
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You've expanded the work of anti-Semitism at Heritage.
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I know your faith well enough to know you couldn't be.
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He said, but this is something that you need to address head on.
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And so it's sort of like the conversation with my retired OBGYN friend and donor
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that this Jewish friend up until this very moment as we sit here
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has been a great guide in setting up conversations for me and for us at Heritage to have.
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The reason those have gone well in spite of not just the news cycle,
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but what seems to be an agenda that goes well beyond the video controversy is because people
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I think it's safe to say, if you think about my colleagues who work on the scourge of anti-Semitism,
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there's no organization, at least of our size and scope, that isn't a single issue organization
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that's done more to expand work against anti-Semitism.
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And as we sit here with this recent flap and news cycle having concluded, people realize,
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I'd say people know me and the work I've done, especially as a Catholic leader against anti-Semitism.
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But the most important thing is I know their aspirational policy vision for the future,
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Let's get to work because, remember, we might just have six or eight or nine more months to get good policy.
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But what were the two things you apologized for?
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You said two things you said you apologized for.
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I thought that the script of the video was, in a couple of cases, was ineloquent.
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And I talked about that then, so I don't have to repeat them.
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But the point is, I thought, from my Jewish friend's point of view,
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that while he could excuse it, that maybe other people who didn't know me...
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Your Heritage Foundation, you guys, your main cornerstone is freedom of speech, right?
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I watched the video multiple times and multiple times.
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I don't have any problems with them, with anyone who's Jewish whatsoever.
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We've had BB on, but we've had Nick Fuentes on.
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We're the only podcast in the world that, within 30 days, had BB and Nick Fuentes on.
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No one's ever done that before, not mainstream or podcasting.
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We'll talk to anybody and have a great conversation with them.
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Someone who can criticize the Jewish community without being an anti-Semite?
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No, it was mixing personal friendship with institutional friendship.
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And it sort of goes back to one of your earlier questions about being a non-profit leader.
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And then the second thing is some really genuinely close friends of mine who are Jewish said,
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Kevin, there are a couple phrases in there that we forgive you for.
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But, you know, while we support your stance on free speech and not canceling people, it's
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also a separate matter to make sure that one of the ways that we can sustain free speech
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and speaking freely is to make sure that our words are carefully chosen.
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I think he's the number one governor in America.
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And I recruit for him all day long to get people to come here.
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And we moved a lot of people to Florida because I can easily promote him, unlike the previous
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Newsom, I lived in Texas as well, and I could promote for him as well.
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Even Perry was an easy governor to promote for.
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But, you know, sometimes when, you know, in our company, okay, we have people here that
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work in our, that want to be part of entertainment.
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You know, and hardcore, we got to protect, you know, Zionists and we got to, you know,
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you can't, and then we have guys that are, you know, on the other side where they're
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like, wait a minute, why can't you criticize them?
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You know, why, why are they coming up with a certain legislation where you can be critical
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of some of the things they're doing with, you know, to criticize AIPAC or to criticize
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And this is Heritage's position that there's a difference between political Zionism, which
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is the right of the Israeli state to exist, which we support 100%, probably rather famously.
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The second, and divorce that from theological Zionism.
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And those of us who are Christians, depending upon what our particular Christian faith is,
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Because they're theological and because Heritage is a non-sectarian organization, we honor all of
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And we have some people who work on very pro-Israel policy who are Christian Zionists.
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We at Heritage agree 100% on political Zionism.
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But we have to, as a non-sectarian organization, allow this theological disagreement, which really,
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inside the workings of Heritage, don't have a place because we're not a religious organization.
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And I think one of the fruits that's come out of the last few months is Heritage playing a role in
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And it's helped some of the fracturing of the conservative movement because people, whether
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through ignorance, just, you know, not having read about this or maybe having forgotten, they
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have conflated political Zionism and theological Zionism.
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And I think that may be a helpful way for people like you and me who are in the middle
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of those questions, although, you know, 100% supportive of Israel's right to exist, that
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So when you're getting calls and let's just say you have a big donor that's calling you
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and they're saying, hey, we don't like what you said.
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Maybe it could have been different on how you approach this situation on Israel.
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Do you guys put events together and allow folks from opposing sides to debate and have
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Let me take back up one step real briefly, if I may, because this is a really important
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context, although it's going to sound like nerdy think tank talk.
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Heritage is famous for something called its one voice policy.
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Unlike other policy organizations in D.C. where different scholars at the same organization
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can have different voices, different positions on issues.
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Heritage, if we speak on something, it's as an institution, a single voice, one voice.
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Meaning you guys at the top have to be aligned 100%.
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We, publicly, we have to be, have one position, the same position on a policy issue.
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In front of the donors, you guys have to be aligned.
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Behind closed doors, we can debate and discourse, but...
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So, but at the end of the day, once we get out of that door, in front of everybody, we're
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So, that's the important context for the story I'm going to tell.
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It had become sort of moribund when I and my leadership arrived in late 2021, for whatever
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But we were charged by the board, revitalized the one voice policy.
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And the way, interestingly, although it doesn't quite meet the eye initially, the way you do
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that is to actually increase the debate internally.
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Our rules are, it's got to be collegial, it's got to be professional, can't be personal.
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And the way you amplify that is to have competing voices come in and do public events.
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We're not saying that having someone who disagrees with us on tax policy or education policy
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But we're saying we're confident enough in our own research, our own position, that,
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The big issue example I want to offer is our changing policy on China.
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On most Americans' beliefs, certainly mine, that America was going to prevail on China
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because our free market and American values were going to turn China into us.
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And when I got to Heritage, by the time I got to Heritage, I was convinced by none other
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than Donald Trump that that was wrong, that China had been taking advantage of us, that
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So at that time, we can convince China to think like us.
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The prevailing mindset, not just of Heritage, but of the conservative movement under George W. Bush's presidency.
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And so I get to Heritage, and I had the same misguided thought, right?
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So this is not Kevin saying, man, I've been right for 25 years.
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I get to Heritage, and I say, guys, we have to change our policy.
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We start having public debates, conversations on our stage at Heritage, introducing, including
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for our own colleagues that, you know, maybe we were wrong, well-intentioned.
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And everything for us starts with the research in order for us to talk about it, right?
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Because that's not the prevailing Republican establishment thought.
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We're going to turn China into the United States.
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This story leads to one of my favorite stories in my tenure at Heritage.
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Our aforementioned longtime president, Ed Fulner, calls me, and he says, Kevin, we were wrong
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on China, and I want to come to an all-staff meeting, and I want to explain why.
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People will think that, you know, it's your fault.
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He came to a staff meeting, and he said, I want to tell all of you that the policy we're
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now embarking on, which is a hawkish position on China, where now the conservative movement
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is, certainly the Trump administration is, we have to be with.
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And he said, if we're going to have the humility to persuade people that we were wrong, and
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now we're right, it starts with conversations internally.
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It starts with conversations on this stage, because sometimes policymakers need to develop
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I am extremely proud, ironically, of that humble moment by Dr. Fulner, by Heritage as
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an Institution, because what we said was, our research was good, we were well-intentioned
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in the policy prescriptions that we offered, but that was a generation ago, and circumstances
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And if we don't read reality truthfully and see what China has been doing, who in Washington
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will, and so that really is how we operate, which is why, to connect to the recent story
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that you were asking about, we'd never doubted that we were going to flourish through that
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kind of news cycle, because every three or four or five years, there's some controversy
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that Heritage starts, because we are willing to take a look at the facts and tell the story
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