Heritage Foundation defector on 'crackup' of Project 2025 think tank

**Brian Lehrer** (0:05)
From WNYC, I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my Daily Politics Podcast.
It's Wednesday, August 19th.
Now we conclude our three-part series this week on debates and divisions within different political groups in this country. We discussed disagreements within the Democratic Socialist of America on Monday, the Democratic Party yesterday. Today we focus on America's conservative movement, especially as represented by the Heritage Foundation, the think tank that produced Project 2025 The New York Times, maybe you saw it, had a detailed article last month about what it called the crack-up of the Heritage Foundation, and what it described as an ideological and generational civil war taking place within this highly influential institution of the right. A watershed moment described in the article was when Heritage President Kevin Roberts posted a video that defended Tucker Carlson, who had been widely criticized as the article says, for inviting 27-year-old white nationalist and anti-Semitic influencer Nick Fuentes on his show. The article says in the wake of the video, dozens of staff members departed the Heritage Foundation. Eighteen of them wound up at former Vice President Mike Pence's new think tank, Advancing American Freedom. Our guest for this segment is one of those people who's quoted in the article and went to the Mike Pence think tank. It's Andrew Hale, now a fellow at Advancing American Freedom, specializing in economics, trade policy, and international relations. He is a dual citizen of the United States and the UK, and has worked in both the British and American governments. Andrew, thanks so much for coming on for this. Welcome to WNYC.

**Andrew Hale** (1:53)
Thank you, Brian. It's a pleasure.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:55)
We'll get to your expertise of trade policy and economics generally in some detail as we go.
But let me start with your quote in the article, which was that you were willing to debate policy at Heritage, but not to quote, sit here and discuss whether the Holocaust happened or not, unquote. Was that actually being discussed at the Heritage Foundation by the time you left?

**Andrew Hale** (2:16)
Yes, I left the Heritage Foundation, you say, not because of any policy matter, and there are good arguments on all sorts of policy angles. I left because of the recent anti-Semitism as well as the Masaji scandals that emanated last year.
I should say that this was actually being discussed at discussions among New Hires frequently accurate arguments promoted by Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens that shed doubt on the historical consensus around the Holocaust or the origins of the State of Israel. Indeed, I witnessed New Hires claim that this was something that was going around social media.
They said that publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, the father of Glenn Maxwell, had paid for the rights to all the history textbooks used in American public schools and that everything in them about the Holocaust was a lie. And I had asked them, I'd say, is this something you've gleaned off Facebook? And they'd say, oh no, Facebook is for old people in their thirties. We're on Instagram and TikTok. And they say, look, it's right on my phone. And sure enough, I looked at their phones and they showed it to me and this is what was going around. And I suggested they perhaps not get their history from TikTok or Instagram or X. And I recommend that they get their history from books and read about, you know, go to libraries, those big building of books. I think we have a real problem with education. We need a public education campaign to educate some of the younger generation who are sadly spending too much time on their phone and having this reinforced with algorithms.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:44)
How do people react when you press back that way?

**Andrew Hale** (3:48)
Well, anyone who sort of challenged this, basically they're all people who challenge this are gone. I'm not aware of anyone who challenges this that would still be there. And quite frankly, I think a lot of this, the leadership at the Heritage Foundation has to take some ownership of this because even when I first started, I delivered a presentation on free markets and free trade to a group of young people under the age of 30
Indeed, the majority of the Heritage Foundation staff are actually now under the age of 30 as older and more experienced and qualified staff have been replaced by younger staff. And after this presentation, two young people came up to me and said, that was a very interesting presentation. We had no idea that you were Jewish.
And I responded to that question. I said, well, I'm not aware of any Jewish ancestry, but I like Jewish people. And I asked them why they would say that. And they responded, well, people believe in free markets and free trade are the globalists, and the globalists are the Jews. And I'm sure all of your listeners might be aware that the term globalist is a dog whistle for Jews. And this was not helped at the Heritage Foundation by the fact that Kevin Roberts, the president was constantly blaming globalists, the globalists for America's problems. It's one of his most overused terms in his very limited lexicon. So, you know, when people raise these concerns to Kevin Roberts or other leaders, they would feign ignorance, say, oh, I didn't know this was happening, nothing would be done. And indeed, one of them, of course, Evan Myers was someone who basically, you know, at an all-stop meeting from Google this, took offense to being invited to a Shabbat dinner and expressed outrage and also expressed views that he didn't believe women should have a right, the right to vote.