The Heritage Foundation Blows Up. I Welcome the News.

by Rod Williams, Dec. 31, 2025- In another essay on this blog, I wrote about my end-of-year giving and listed some organizations to which I contribute.  I also said that I had stopped giving money to the various branches of the Republican Party and to prominent conservative organizations I had once supported. I listed the American Conservative Union and the Heritage Foundation as organizations I formerly, but no longer support. I wrote that, "several of the Republican and conservative organizations that I used to support have abandoned the principles they long advocated and now advance the cause of authoritarian nationalist populism, so I no longer give to them."

I am pleased that I am not the only conservative who recognizes the abandonment of conservative principles in the Heritage Foundation. The Wall Street Journal recently posted about trouble within Heritage and wrote, "Heritage once supported free trade; now it is protectionist. It once supported a robust American foreign policy; Heritage purged its defense hawks two years ago. Heritage was a supporter of the originalist judicial revolution and the rule of law; now it defends Mr. Trump’s expansion of executive power whether or not it has a constitutional basis."

While this flip-flop on core values, as stated by the WSJ, has caused tension within Heritage for the last few years, it has now escalated, and many of the scholars associated with Heritage are jumping ship. Not only are individual scholars leaving Heritage, but they are taking whole divisions of Heritage with them, and donors are putting away the checkbooks.

The final straw for some was Heritage president Kevin Roberts saying there should be no enemies to the right and defending Tucker Carlson’s softball interview with Nazi adjacent podcaster Nick Fuentes. Before this month's pubic break with Heritage, several scholars associated with Heritage had already quietly slipped away. Many of those who are jumping ship at Heritage are landing at an organization headed by former Vice President Mike Pence called Advancing American Freedom.

I stopped giving to Heritage, I guess about four years ago, maybe longer ago than that. Heritage was founded in 1973 and I have probably been giving since the founding or shortly thereafter. Anyway, I have been supporting Heritage for a long time. I am now adding Advancing American Freedom to my giving list.

The following article provides more information about the Heritage breakup and tells who is leaving:

The Heritage Foundation Blows Up

Its conservative scholars jump to Mike Pence’s policy shop after being stifled at the think tank.

By The Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 22, 2025- ... Some 15 or more Heritage employees, including the leaders of three prominent policy departments, are jumping to the Advancing American Freedom foundation that the former Vice President established in 2021. The defectors include the leaders of Heritage’s most important policy shops: The Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, the Center for Data Analysis, and the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.

The move by John Malcolm and his colleagues at the Meese Center is especially notable. We’re told it is endorsed by Mr. Meese, the Reagan-era Attorney General who is now 94 years old and has been a fixture at Heritage. The Roe Institute is the think tank’s free-market shop—or it was before Heritage embraced Trumpian industrial policy. One data project stifled at Heritage is to map the district-by-district impact of the Trump tariffs.

...Several Heritage board members have resigned, as has Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore. Monday’s departures are the largest so far, and they underscore how far Heritage has wandered under Mr. Roberts. Mr. Pence and his board have set a target of $15 million from donors to finance the defecting analysts for three years, and as of Friday we hear they had raised more than $13 million. 

... A think tank is fundamentally a collection of people and donors who believe in certain ideas and principles. Heritage abandoned its principles, it is losing its people, and soon there might not be much left to donate to.

This is welcome news. I am heartened and have just made my donation to Advancing American Freedom.

Top Stories