Conservative Heritage Foundation Blasts Tucker Carlson’s ‘False, Outrageous’ Attack: ‘We Won’t Be Intimidated or Bullied’
Fox News Channel host and Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson viciously attacked the conservative Heritage Foundation on his show on Friday night, saying the organization that helped guide Trump’s court picks “no longer represents the interests of conservatives” because he disagrees with them about Google and Facebook.
On Saturday, the Heritage Foundation responded, characterizing Carlson’s claims about the org as “false, outrageous, and unfounded.”
“The Heritage Foundation will not let these attacks go unanswered,” they say, in a statement addressing the segment from Heritage vice president of communications Rob Bluey. The statement, posted to the Foundation website on Saturday, lays out specific objections in detail, and closes by saying that the organization “won’t be intimidated or bullied.”
Despite a token salve that Heritage is “disappointed this came from someone whom we admire and respect,” the overall statement is a blistering indictment, in turn calling claims made by Carlson “disappointing,” “false,” “unfounded,” “patently false,” and more.
“The conclusions of Heritage’s report were based on the principles that guide all of our policy recommendations—principles Carlson seems curiously less interested in defending,” it says at one point. “It is disappointing that Carlson would deceive his viewers with such patently false information.”
Here’s more.
Carlson’s claims began with an attack on a recent Heritage report about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. He claimed the report’s author repeated lines verbatim from a trade association. This is false. In fact, the 13-page Heritage report contained 22 footnotes, all of which were properly quoted and attributed to sources. The report went through a thorough and lengthy process of vetting and review by Heritage scholars to ensure accuracy and agreement among all Heritage analysts involved in technology and social media policy.
And more:
Carlson also failed to acknowledge Heritage experts’ consistent criticism of technology companies, including Google’s decision to withdraw from the Department of Defense’s Project Maven and its work with communist China on a censored search engine.
He apparently missed Heritage President Kay C. James’ Washington Post op-ed blasting Google for caving to the radical left and disbanding its AI board simply because she, a prominent conservative leader, was asked to join it.
And he made no mention of Google-owned YouTube censoring a video produced by The Daily Signal, Heritage’s multimedia news outlet. On our public platforms and in a private meeting with YouTube’s CEO, we made our position abundantly clear: We will not tolerate this type of censorship and will stand side by side with other conservatives experiencing similar challenges.
The whole statement is here, and well worth the blistering, brutal read.
