Kevin Roberts, chairman of the Heritage Foundation and creator of its controversial Project 2025 manifesto, spoke enthusiastically in May about his ties to Donald Trump.
"I got close to the president on a personal level," Roberts told the Financial Times in his office near the US Capitol building in Washington. “And we talk often.”
Roberts was confident that Trump would accept and adopt many of the recommendations from Project 2025, thereby "opening the most glorious golden era of conservative reform since Ronald Reagan."
Heritage "believed, based on discussions with President Trump and his aides, that a significant portion of these recommendations would be considered for implementation," Roberts said.
A few months later, as one of the most uncertain presidential races in US history enters its final stages, Roberts, Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation itself have been temporarily excluded from Trump's circle.
Project 2025, including large chunks of text written by former Trump administration officials, is a rigorous blueprint for radical conservative action should the Republican return to the White House next year.
Among the proposals under Project 2025 are hiring ideologically loyal civil servants, collecting data on abortions and restricting the use of the abortion pill, strict measures against illegal immigration to facilitate detention and deportation, banning pornography and restricting contraception.
During the campaign, Trump promised to implement some of these measures. However, Project 2025 has become so controversial — and the subject of attacks by Democrats — that the former president and his allies now insist they have nothing to do with it.
"The only official policies for a second term are those coming directly from President Trump and his campaign staff," Carolyn Levitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said last Sunday.
Earlier this year, Trump himself said he had “no idea who is behind Project 2025,” calling some of its plans “ridiculous and horrible.” Chris LaCivita, his campaign manager, described Heritage as a "pain in the neck," while Howard Latnick, Trump's transition team chief of staff, called Project 2025 "radioactive" in a recent interview with the Financial Times.
However, with only a few days until the November 5 election, the Heritage document remains a heavy burden for Trump as he addresses voters in the final stages of the campaign.
Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent, constantly mentions Project 2025 at rallies in key states that will decide the outcome of the vote, and her campaign claims that it is a strong indicator of the extreme policies that the former president would implement if he wins.
Project 2025's proposals include hiring ideologically loyal civil servants, banning pornography and restricting contraception.
"Just Google Project 2025," Harris said at a recent rally in Atlanta, Georgia. “Can you believe they put that in writing? . . . It is a detailed and dangerous plan of what Donald Trump will do if he is elected president."
The 922-page plan is not new to the Republican administration. It was introduced by Heritage in April 2023. However, the document's radical agenda thrust Heritage into the political spotlight in a way that is rare, if not unprecedented, in the world of American organizations.
The backlash has raised the stakes for Heritage considerably in the race for the White House. Trump's victory would be a great boost for this organization and its leaders. However, Heritage will face a major blow if Trump loses again.
"If Trump wins, despite all the criticism of Project 2025, Heritage will be in a good position. I think if Trump loses, he's going to get a lot of blame," said Derek Skyders, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, another right-leaning organization, and a former Heritage analyst who still works with them on US-China relations.
Analysts in the know say Heritage's status as a political lightning rod is the result of an evolution that has made it more populist over the past decade.
According to them, the change began in 2014, when Jim DeMint, a former South Carolina senator who led the Tea Party movement, became chairman of Heritage, and his political wing - called Heritage Action - clashed with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill. .
Over the years, Heritage has become more isolationist when it comes to foreign policy and has focused more on social issues. Then came Roberts, a former head of Wyoming Catholic College who later worked for a conservative political group in Texas. He was named the leader of Heritage in October 2021 and has been aggressively promoting its work ever since.
"We are in the process of another American revolution, which will be bloodless if the left allows it," Roberts said in July on the "War Room" podcast, hosted by former Trump policy adviser Steve Bannon.
And Jay Fegan, a political science professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago who has written a book about the rise of partisan organizations, said of Roberts that he "seems like he wants to be a Fox News anchor as much as he wants to be president of a research organization."
“Roberts has revealed what the conservative activist class really wants, which is deeply unpopular,” Fegan said, referring to Project 2025. But it's also “a pretty good representation of what the people who will eventually be appointed to the (Trump) administration they want," he added.
Critics say that during the campaign, Roberts pushed his views too hard, becoming too pushy for Trump and other Republicans who need to win over more moderate voters.
One conservative leader told the Financial Times that the organization should have done its job quietly and handed it over to Trump's team after the election. "It was a total mistake," said the Conservative leader.
Roberts defiantly countered the criticism. In September, he told Fox News that Heritage would introduce another plan in the next election cycle and "punch (Democrats) back in the nose."
Eli Lehrer, a former Heritage analyst who is now president of the Ar Street Institute, another right-leaning organization, said the characterization of Project 2025 is exaggerated.
"If you're a progressive, you have a lot of reasons to dislike him, and conservatives have reasons to dislike him, too," Lehrer said. "Is it some deeply ominous plan to build a fascist theocracy? No, it's not."
Heritage remains well-funded, supported by donors large and small, which could help the organization survive the pressure regardless of the outcome of the election. In 2022, they received over $95 million in contributions and grants, and their net worth was estimated at $332 million, according to the latest report. However, Heritage also faces growing competition from other organizations in Washington that are associated with Trump and less with Project 2025.
If the former president wins, all eyes will be on whether Heritage and Roberts will be brought back into the fold - and whether their plans will go through. Roberts said the "ultimate decisions" on policies will be made by Trump and that his organization is "truly humble" about its role.
"Neither I as a person, nor Heritage as an organization, nor any of the organizations that are part of Project 2025, are so pretentious as to say we're going to dictate what President Trump or any president-elect will do," Roberts said.
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