When Donald Trump is caught in bed with someone he shouldn't be in bed with, he lies about it.
He did it with Stormy Daniels.
Now he's doing the same thing with Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation, and the baby they made together: Project 2025.
In April 2022, Trump shared a private flight with Heritage President Roberts to the Heritage Foundation event at which the notoriously lazy Trump spoke glowingly about the fact that the (weirdo-filled) think tank was doing all the work of planning his second-term agenda for him.
Roberts welcomed Trump to the stage at the event, where Trump acknowledged and joked about multiple Heritage people he now claims he's never heard of.
One remark that has gone largely unnoticed is Trump's comments about the (Fed-hating) economist Stephen Moore, a kook Trump tried to nominate to the Federal Reserve board in 2019. Moore was forced to withdraw from that opportunity because of his absolutely bonkers theories about why women should be forever compelled to earn less than men.
In his 2022 speech, Trump promised Moore, currently a Senior Visiting Fellow at Heritage, that he would be back at the Fed next time, saying: "We'll do it again except at a higher level. Okay? I promise you that, and I mean it too."
Moore, a man as dedicated to killing Social Security as he is to giving more tax breaks to billionaires, is (naturally) the co-author of the Project 2025 plan to "radically reform the US treasury."
Heritage was deeply involved in Trump's first-term agenda
As Trump acknowledged in his 2022 speech, he had leaned heavily on the think-tanking of the Heritage Foundation during his four failed years as President, saying:
“Already we have shown the power of our winning formula, working closely with many of the great people at Heritage over the four incredible years that we’ve worked with you a lot, and we were just discussing it with Kevin... They’re going to work on some other things that are going to be very exciting, I think, Kevin, I think maybe the most exciting of all.”
Why was Trump forced to rely so heavily on Heritage's bad and unpopular ideas in areas such as healthcare, education, tax reform, deregulation, and foreign policy (especially on Iran)? Because when other conservative groups backed away from whole-heartedly supporting President Pussygrabber in 2017, Heritage was more than happy to pick up the slack.
Meanwhile, starting in 2017, former Heritage president Jim DeMint got busy, using tens of millions in dark money to set up the Conservative Policy Institute.
The CPI has quickly established itself as a back-slapping, self-dealing, Heritage- and Mark-Meadows-friendly gathering place that actively trains the most extreme MAGA members of Congress in how to inflict maximum damage on women, workers, minorities, the LGBTQ+ community, and the planet.
A 2022 lovefest is haunting Trump in 2024
In April 2022, fresh off his jet flight with Kevin Roberts, Trump spoke enthusiastically about his future partnership with the Heritage team:
“They’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do, when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America, and that’s coming.”
The colossal 920-page document they produced is, of course, titled "Mandate for Leadership."
Much like JD Vance, Project 2025 was a previously unknown quantity that has come to national attention in recent weeks.
And as with JD Vance, the more people get to know Project 2025, the less they like it.
John Oliver dedicated an entire show to it. Taraji P. Henson told BET Awards viewers to "look it up!" Soon, so many people were talking about it, that Donald Trump was forced to claim that he was not the father.
The DNA tests are back. Trump is the father....
After flying to the April 2022 event and sharing the stage with Roberts, Trump literally trumpeted his approval of the plan to create Project 2025. He lauded Heritage's weirdo vision for America’s future and endorsed the project’s goals of enforcing a robust conservative agenda.
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Even in 2022, Trump's words indicated an awareness of the project and support of its mission.
... and if DNA's not enough, Trump's tiny fingerprints are all over Project 2025
As has been widely reported (look it up!) Trump’s involvement with Project 2025 doesn’t stop at his public endorsements.
The project’s creation involved many advisers and former staffers who were integral to Trump’s administration.
Ben Carson and Peter Navarro are among Stephen Moore's co-authors.
Stephen Miller famously posed for a Heritage video alongside a stack of "Mandate for Leadership" books.
Propublica just reported that former Trump administration staffers have been making Project 2025 training videos to ensure future Trump appointees are "ready on Day One."
In reviewing 14 hours of Project 2025's secret "Presidential Administration Academy" videos, Propublica notes that:
"29 of the 36 speakers have worked for Trump in some capacity — on his 2016-17 transition team, in the administration or on his 2024 reelection campaign."
A CNN review of the overall Project 2025 project found that "at least 140 people who worked for Trump are involved."
Dozens upon dozens of individuals who worked closely with Trump during his presidency have been deeply involvement in crafting Project 2025.
Even if Pinocchio Trump were someone with a reputation for truth-telling, when it comes to Project 2025, the connections are too numerous, the relationships too intertwined, for Trump to claim ignorance.
JD Vance is more intimate with Project 2025 than he ever was with his couch
Trump's weird VP pick is already known to be aligned with "the most extreme elements of the American right."
And Project 2025 is no exception.
Vance literally wrote the foreword for Heritage President Kevin Robert's upcoming book.
The book itself is now viewed as so toxic to Trump's re-election campaign that its planned September publication date has been delayed until November 12—one week after the election.
But the Vance-penned foreword has already leaked.
In it, Vance urges far-right extremists to seize control of American life, no matter what the majority may want. It's time for right-wing extremists "to circle the wagons and load the muskets," he writes.
Trump can't run and he can't hide from Project 2025
The truth about Project 2025 is simple. And Trump's involvement, whether direct or through his closest advisers, is undeniable.
The project reflects principles that have defined Trump’s political career—and the bargain he has made with the Christo-Fascists and billionaire donors who are willing to forgive all his sins and all his crimes if he delivers to them the power (and tax breaks) they crave.
Trump's attempts to distance himself now from the How-to-Be-a-Dictator-on-Day-One plans spelled out in Project 2025 are nothing more than a transparent ploy to avoid discussing a massive, detailed—and horrifying—agenda.
Like the Constitution itself, Project 2025's "Mandate for Leadership" is likely a document Trump hasn't read.
But he has embraced it harder than a flag at CPAC.
And he can't duck and dive his way out of it.
His tiny fingerprints are all over Project 2025.
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