Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts appears with Tucker Carlson, who pushed Nazi apologias and Holocaust denial

Roberts: “I guess I should say I’m Kevin Roberts with Project 2025 and I’m here to help”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the September 6, 2024 Tucker Carlson Live tour, posted to YouTube

TUCKER CARLSON: I don't think a lot of DC think tanks, but Heritage is an exception in my mind. And the reason that it is is that they are totally sincere about what they're trying to do, which is to improve the country. 

…

Heritage is the place that makes it its job to actually understand it, not in just broad terms, thematic terms, but in the precise terms necessary to make things better. And it looks like Trump's going to win, if I'm being totally honest.

…

Kevin Roberts is the guy who's actually thought this through, and I thought it'd be really interesting just to, like, sit down for 10 minutes and ask when and if Trump wins, how do you make the system non-corrupt? What do you actually do? I think this will be really interesting.

…

KEVIN ROBERTS (PRESIDENT, HERITAGE FOUNDATION): I guess I should say I’m Kevin Roberts with Project 2025 and I’m here to help.

…

I can report to you on behalf of these folks and the rest of common sense, normal Americans, that the first thing that these people would ask for is for the southern border to be closed 100%.

CARLSON: Amen.

KEVIN ROBERTS: And illegal aliens, which is what they are by our Constitution. Nothing against them as human persons, but they are illegal aliens. They must be cut off from government benefits immediately.

…

The third thing that we would encourage any policy maker to do is, and I think that we can say this will be a policy priority of a Trump-Vance administration, is that when they get to Washington, DC, they correct the abuses and overreach of the American administrative state.

…

It happened because it's more important for them to play DC than it is to actually govern on behalf of the American people. And the real, the real gist of the work we do at Heritage, of Project 2025, which includes, I should say, 111 organizations, is that. That we're trying to break the power of the elites in DC.

As Media Matters' Matt Gertz previously documented, Carlson has been “pushing Nazi apologias and Holocaust denial”:

Tucker Carlson no longer shapes national media narratives the way that he did at Fox News, but he may be more powerful than ever within the Republican Party. Behind the scenes, Carlson reportedly lobbied former President Donald Trump to pick Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate and midwifed Robert F. Kennedy’s endorsement of the GOP presidential nominee. He addressed the Republican National Convention in July and has a series of public events lined up featuring guests including Vance and Donald Trump Jr.

Carlson’s increased GOP prominence has coincided with his descent to new levels of unhinged crackpottery: The latest edition of his eponymous program dabbles in Holocaust denial and presents “Zionist” financiers as a motive force behind World War II.

On Monday, Carlson published a two-hour interview with Darryl Cooper, the right-wing host of the history podcast Martyr Made. Previewing their discussion on X, Carlson wrote: “Darryl Cooper may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States. His latest project is the most forbidden of all: trying to understand World War Two.” 

Carlson praised his guest at the top of their discussion, comparing him favorably to popular historians like Jon Meacham and Anne Applebaum, whom he described as “the dumbest people in the country” who are also “dishonest political actors.”