'He is on our side': Org behind Project 2025 boasts repeatedly about close ties to Trump

25 July 2024

Former President Donald Trump is working overtime to distance himself from the far-right Heritage Foundation's controversial Project 2025 initiative, but Heritage is undercutting that message in their own communications.

Progressive advocacy group Media Matters for America recently combed through Heritage's fundraising and promotional materials, and found a slew of evidence from the time Trump was in office in which the group boasted about its tight connections with his administration. This is inconvenient for Trump, who has said repeatedly on his Truth Social account and in his campaign speeches that he has no knowledge of Project 2025, its contents or of those backing it.

"I don't know anything about it. I don't want to know anything about it," Trump said at a recent rally in Michigan.

"Like some on the right, the severe right, came up with this Project 25, and I don't even know," Trump said, as some audience members cheered at the mention of the document. "I mean some of them I know who they are but they're very, very conservative. Just like you have, they're sort of the opposite of the radical left, OK? You have the radical left and you have the radical right. And they come up with this — I don't know what the hell it is, it's Project 25."

Trump went on to call some of Project 2025's proposals "seriously extreme," and suggested that any reports of him considering it were "misinformation and disinformation." But Trump's claims are harder to swallow at face value when considering that roughly 140 of his former administration's advisors and aides have worked with Heritage on Project 2025. And his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), not only wrote the foreword for Heritage President Kevin Roberts' forthcoming book — the proceeds of which will be directed to Heritage — but said Project 2025 has "some good ideas in there."

In his review of Heritage's fundraising materials, Media Matters' Eric Hananoki found that the group often goes into detail about its deep connections to Trump and its influence on his first term. In one document, Heritage bragged that as president, Trump implemented nearly two-thirds of its 344 policy proposals, and that the group "placed over 60 policy experts" in his administration. Another page on its website read that the group had "more than a dozen former Heritage staff in key positions" in Trump's orbit. One Heritage email from 2017 quoted Trump telling the group had been "titans in the fight to defend, promote and preserve our great American heritage."

"President Trump addressed a group of Heritage members. He confirmed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is on our side," the email read.

If Heritage's claims are to be believed, Trump would thoroughly embrace a bulk of Project 2025's agenda, which is centered around rapidly expanding executive power and bypassing Congress by having an army of Trump loyalists staffed in key positions throughout all federal agencies to implement far-right policies. People Magazine referred to Project 2025 as a "far-right, Christian nationalist vision for America" in its comprehensive write-up summarizing the most controversial elements of the plan.

"Project 2025 establishes a framework for guiding the federal government through a biblical lens," People wrote. "Across nearly 1,000 pages, the mandate pushes an unpopular interpretation of the Christian agenda that would target reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ people and people of color by effectively erasing mention of all related terms, protections and troublesome historical accounts."

Click here to read Media Matters' report in full.

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