The Heritage Foundation has been onboarding new scholars and aides in the few months since dozens of top members resigned from the conservative think tank over its handling of conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s friendly interview with right-wing antisemite Nick Fuentes.
With 21 new hires since last November, the organization is trying to recover from the controversy that caused a deep rift within the Republican Party.
Among the figures that the think tank welcomed in February were school choice advocate Corey DeAngelis, conservative thought leader Daniel McCarthy, and federal budget policy veteran Daniel Kowalski.
There was also a series of internal promotions and fresh recruits, the latter of which included Stewart Whitson, who was brought on as chief of staff to Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.
Former chief of staff Ryan Neuhaus departed the organization last November due to the intense backlash over Roberts’s initial response to the viral Carlson-Fuentes interview.
At the time, Roberts defended Carlson for letting Fuentes speak his mind and denounced the “venomous coalition” for trying to “cancel” the former Fox News host. Afterward, Roberts apologized to staff for downplaying antisemitism on the Right. Many perceived that his comments about a “venomous coalition” were aimed at the Jewish community.
At one point during the podcast interview, Fuentes talked about “organized Jewry” holding enormous influence in the United States, while Carlson left his guest unchecked.
Neuhaus wrote the script for the video in which Roberts came to Carlson’s defense. The former chief of staff had Roberts believe the script had been approved by colleagues when it apparently wasn’t.
“Our former chief of staff had the pen,” Roberts said in leaked footage of a town hall meeting obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. “When the script was presented to me … I understood from our former colleague that it was approved, it was signed off on by the handful of colleagues who are part of that. Still, my fault, I should have had the wisdom to say, ‘Time out, let’s double check this.'”
Neuhaus was reassigned as a senior adviser to the think tank’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies to work on housing and other issues, according to Roberts.
As for the new hires, DeAngelis will contribute to research on school choice, race, and gender issues in education, as well as to opposition to teacher unions at the organization’s Center for Education Policy. He was listed as a contributor to the think tank’s Project 2025, a pre-2024 policy roadmap for the next Republican president after former President Joe Biden.
McCarthy was placed at the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies as a distinguished fellow, while Kowalski was tapped to lead the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget.
Each new hire is being made with the Heritage Foundation’s 2026 priorities in mind. This year, the organization is focusing on ensuring election integrity ahead of the midterm elections, advancing energy policies in line with the Trump administration’s agenda, promoting messaging to help end illegal immigration, and other areas.
Safeguarding the nuclear family is another policy goal. In January, the Heritage Foundation published a report on how the White House can encourage higher U.S. marriage and childbirth rates. The proposals include “marriage bootcamps” for unmarried couples and tax credits used to incentivize larger families.
The paper marked a strategic shift from the controversy that befell the think tank last fall.
“Our team is strong and unified — already delivering influential research on the issues that matter most to Americans this year,” a spokesperson for the think tank told the Washington Examiner, citing the marriage paper and an artificial intelligence-enabled report simulating a protracted military conflict between the U.S. and China.
Republican lawmakers, such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), were quick to pounce on the Heritage Foundation for initially defending Carlson and urged their peers in Congress to denounce antisemitism regardless of whether it came from the right or left. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were not as critical of Carlson.
This illustrates the growing split between traditional conservatives associated with longstanding Republican institutions and populist, pro-Trump conservatives.
Many staffers who fell in the former category left to join Advancing American Freedom, founded by former Vice President Mike Pence in 2021 after he left the White House. Trump’s eldest son panned the staff exodus from the Heritage Foundation to AAF.
“Personally, I think it’s great news for Heritage that a bunch of Trump-hating [Republicans in name only] are leaving,” Donald Trump Jr. posted on X in December. “Anyone who would want to go work for Mike Pence’s globalist never-Trump organization isn’t MAGA and definitely doesn’t put America First!”
Roberts, who has further aligned the Heritage Foundation with Trump since taking over the think tank in 2021, appears to have no intention of stepping down anytime soon despite facing resignation calls.
In the meantime, Roberts is focusing on leading the organization into the future as the Trump administration continues to execute its multifaceted policy agenda over the next three years.
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The Washington Examiner contacted the Heritage Foundation for comment on how it’s recalibrated since the fallout.
“Under Dr. Kevin Roberts’s leadership and our new Four Cornerstones,” the spokesperson said, “Heritage has become a more resilient, mission‑driven institution that’s focused on making America a better place to live, work, and raise a family, now, and for generations to come.”
