Heritage Foundation Bleeding Trustees Over Support for Tucker Carlson

Here is more from The Washington Post:

Two prominent conservatives quit the board of the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday as the storied right-wing think tank fights over how to handle antisemitism on the right.

Abby Spencer Moffat, the CEO of the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation who joined Heritage’s board in 1992, and Shane McCullar, a former executive at McDonald’s and Rubbermaid who joined the board last year, said the institution was straying from its founding principles and losing its credibility and moral authority.

Their departures follow Princeton professor Robert George, who resigned from the board in November. A Heritage spokesman said it was not clear who would replace them on the board, which is left with 10 members in addition to [Heritage President Kevin] Roberts.

Several researchers also left the think tank since the controversy erupted in late October, and an antisemitism task force that the Heritage Foundation convened ended the relationship after Roberts did not accept its recommendations to address the concerns. Roberts demoted his chief of staff who was largely responsible for drafting his first controversial scripted video. 

 

The New York Times noted that  the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation has given the Heritage Foundation more than $12 million since 2019.

 

US Institute of Peace Renamed for Trump

Here is more from CNN:

President Donald Trump’s name has been installed on the building and signage around the US Institute of Peace (USIP) – an independent agency that the administration gutted earlier this year.

The president’s moniker appeared on the Washington, DC, headquarters ahead of a peace agreement signing ceremony between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) due to take place there on Thursday.

The Trump administration has essentially shuttered the institute, which works to resolve conflict and was created by Congress in 1984. The administration’s budget request for the next fiscal year called for the elimination of federal funding for USIP.  

USIP is not a federal agency, and it owns and manages its headquarters. The administration’s takeover of the institute, including its building and assets, has been the subject of extensive litigation.

In March, officials at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) attempted to forcibly obtain access to the building, before returning days later accompanied by police.

The administration fired most of USIP’s board in March. Employees were terminated in July, after initially receiving termination notices in late March.

 

It is now being called the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. 

AI Models Rate "Right" Think Tanks Lower Than Those on "Left"

Here is more from the findings of conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI):

Executive Summary

Large-language models (LLMs) increasingly inform policy research. We asked 5 flagship LLMs from leading AI companies in 2025 (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, xAI, and DeepSeek) to rate 26 prominent U.S. think tanks on 12 criteria spanning research integrity, institutional character, and public engagement. Their explanations and ratings expose a clear ideological tilt.

Key findings

• Consistent ranking. Center-left tanks top the table (3.9 of 5), left and center-right tie (3.4 and 3.4), and right trails (2.8); this order persists through multiple models, measures, and setting changes.
• Overall: Across twelve evaluation criteria, center-left think tanks outscore right-leaning ones by 1.1 points (3.9 vs. 2.8).
• Core measures. On the three headline criteria of Moral Integrity, Objectivity, and Research Quality, center-left think tanks outscore right-leaning ones by 1.6 points on Objectivity (3.4 vs. 1.8), 1.4 points on Research Quality (4.4 vs. 3), and 1 point on Moral Integrity (3.8 vs. 2.8)
• Language mirrors numbers. Sentiment analysis finds more positive wording in responses for left-of-center think tanks than for right-leaning peers.
• Shared hierarchy. High rating correlations across providers indicate the differences originate in underlying model behavior, not individual companies, user data, or web retrieval.

 

The 26 think tanks rated were: America First Policy Institute (AFPI), AEI, Brookings Institution, Cato Institute,  Center for American Progress (CAP), Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), Claremont Institute, Demos, Economic Policy Institute (EPI), Groundwork Collaborative, Heritage Foundation, Hoover Institution, Hudson Institute, Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), Manhattan Institute, Mercatus Center, Mises Institute, New America, R Street Institute, Reason Foundation, Roosevelt Institute, Tax Foundation, Terner Center for Housing and Innovation, Third Way, and Urban Institute.

Think Tank Quickies (#526)

• American First Policy Institute (AFPI) announces $10 million initiative "to develop AI policies aimed at supporting workers."
• The Heritage Foundation goes from MAGA to MEGA - Make Europe Great Again.
• American First Policy Institute received more than $4.4 million from DonorsTrust in 2024, while America First Legal Foundation received $21.3 million from the dark money nonprofit. 
• Angus Fletcher, Professor of Story Science at Ohio State's Project Narrative, "the world's leading academic think tank for the study of how stories work." 
• Kenneth Weinstein, former President and CEO of Hudson, named as CBS News ombudsman.  He is also a senior adviser at Brunswick Group.
• The Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations was founded as an offshoot of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York. 
• The National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS): An in-house think tank of Japan's Ministry of Defense. 
• Former Finnish PM Sanna Marin has joined the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a think tank led by former British prime minister Tony Blair. 
• The Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute: "A self-described artificial intelligence think tank." (US universities have deep connections to it).
• The Searchlight Institute: "A new Democratic think tank."