The right-wing Heritage Foundation is cracking up after two more trustees resigned from its governing board. They joined a growing exodus of donors, scholars, and conservative leaders alarmed by the organization’s embrace of antisemitism and white nationalism.
The resignations expose that one of the most powerful institutions on the American right is losing its credibility, its donors, and its influence all at once.
This is just desserts for a vile organization that authored Project 2025, which Trump is using to dismantle democracy.
A Board Revolt — and a Donor Warning Shot
Abby Spencer Moffat, a trustee since 1992 and CEO of the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation — one of Heritage’s largest donors — and Shane McCullar, a former McDonalds and Rubbermaid executive, announced their resignations this week.
The departure of Moffat, whose foundation has $1.4 billion in assets, was like a bomb exploding. Her family foundation has given more than $12 million since 2019, including a five-year, $25 million commitment announced just last year. When major donors walk out the door, they aren’t just making a statement — they’re cutting off oxygen.
“When an institution hesitates to confront harmful ideas and allows lapses in judgment to stand, it forfeits the moral authority on which its influence depends,” Moffat said.
McCullar was even blunter, saying he could not “in good conscience” remain on a board that refuses to confront the damage done to the conservative movement itself.
“No institution that hesitates to condemn antisemitism and hatred — or that gives a platform to those who spread them — can credibly claim to uphold” its founding vision, McCullar said.
The Carlson–Fuentes Flashpoint
The resignations stem from Heritage President Kevin Roberts’s public embrace of Tucker Carlson after Carlson conducted a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes — a self-described white nationalist who routinely traffics in antisemitic rhetoric.
Instead of condemning the interview, Roberts released a video attacking Carlson’s critics as a “venomous coalition” and members of a “globalist class” — language widely understood as antisemitic code only after backlash did Roberts issue apologies — while leaving the video online.
That explanation satisfied almost no one.
Princeton professor Robert P. George, another trustee, resigned last month, rejecting the idea that the conservative movement has “no enemies to the right” and explicitly naming white supremacists and antisemites as beyond the pale.
Staff Departures, Task Force Collapse
The board resignations are only the most visible fractures.
Multiple Heritage researchers have left since the controversy erupted. An antisemitism task force created by the foundation walked away after Roberts declined to accept its recommendations. Even Roberts’s chief of staff was demoted following the fallout.
Internally, the self-destruction in plain view: loyalty to toxic ideologues now outweighs institutional integrity.
From ‘Moral Authority’ to Movement Liability
For decades, Heritage billed itself as the intellectual engine of modern conservatism — shaping Republican policy, staffing GOP administrations, and projecting ideological discipline.
That brand is now in jeopardy.
A recent survey by the Manhattan Institute found that Donald Trump has attracted more voters who openly identify as racist or antisemitic — and who express support for political violence — raising alarms even among conservative researchers.
Heritage’s response has been to equivocate, appease, and reframe criticism as “cancel culture.”
Heritage has helped write Republican budgets, judicial strategies, and policy blueprints for decades. When its leadership embraces antisemitism, it signals how far parts of the right are willing to slide to keep their coalition intact.
And judging by who’s walking away — and how fast — the fire is far from contained.
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