The conservative Heritage Foundation pushed back on Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Saturday after he sharply criticized the organization during a segment on tech policy.
Carlson blasted the foundation and other groups during his show Friday night, arguing that Beltway conservative organizations have "colluded with big tech to shield left-wing monopolies from any oversight."
In specifically going after Heritage, where Carlson used to work, the host asserted, "As an organization, Heritage no longer represents the interests of conservatives, at least on the question of tech."
In response to Carlson, Heritage issued a statement saying that the Fox News host "made several false, outrageous, and unfounded accusations" against the think tank.
Here is the Washington Examiner's reporting on the incident. Newsweek says that the rebuke of Heritage drew more than three million viewers.
Wikipedia notes that Carlson began his journalism career as a fact-checker for Policy Review, a national conservative journal then published by the Heritage Foundation and eventually acquired by the Hoover Institution. Its final issue date was in 2013.
Update: Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James received criticism from Carlson in early June 2020, saying that she wrote a "long screed denouncing America as an irredeemably racist nation" in her response to George Floyd's death.
Heritage Foundation's VP of Communications, Rob Bluey, defended her, and noted that Carlson took $25,000 from Heritage two years ago and praised the think tank. [This is likely referring to the Salvatori Prize for American Citizenship that he won from Heritage in 2018.]
