Former President Donald Trump headlined an event sponsored by the Heritage Foundation in Washington on Friday, magnifying the struggle he faces in credibly distancing himself from Project 2025, a controversial policy plan the conservative think tank shepherded.
Trump spoke on the first night of the Moms for Liberty annual summit, a three-day event hosted by the conservative parental rights organization that counts Heritage among the 10 key sponsors listed on its website. The engagement was expected to focus, at least in part, on the dismantling of the Education Department, Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich told Fox News.
Trump did not address Project 2025 or the proposal to dismantle the Education Department during the event, instead continuing his pattern of insulting Vice President Kamala Harris and launching familiar criticisms about the U.S. southern border and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump also doubled down on his previous accusation that immigrants are “poisoning” the country, rhetoric that has been denounced by immigrant and civil rights groups.
The Heritage Foundation not only sponsored the summit, but also hosted three strategy sessions on Friday – including one led by Lindsey Burke, the author of the Project 2025 chapter on abolishing the Education Department. A second Heritage session included “Boyhood and the Changing Role of the Man in American Life,” another topic highlighted in Project 2025. Moms for Liberty serves on the advisory board for Project 2025.
The call to disband the Education Department is one of the several crossovers between Trump’s campaign proposals and Project 2025 – an aggressive blueprint for a second Trump term that was written by the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank, and a coalition of right-wing groups that it convened for the project.
Trump’s campaign has tried to forcefully distance itself from Project 2025 after Democrats tied him to the plan. Trump said he had “nothing to do” with the project, calling some of its proposals “ridiculous and abysmal.” His campaign sent mailers to voters in swing states over the past week, declaring that Trump did not write Project 2025 and does not support it.
When asked about Trump speaking at the Heritage-sponsored event, Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, reiterated that Project 2025 does not represent them. The Heritage Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Democrats have pointed to former members of Trump’s administration and political allies being involved in Project 2025, while highlighting what they say are dangers associated with some of the more controversial proposals. New Democratic ads in swing states are tying Trump to the policy document, which also proposes giving the White House greater influence over the Justice Department, imposing sharp limits on abortion and reducing efforts to limit climate change.
Harris’s campaign team quickly drew connections between Trump’s comments during the Friday night event and Project 2025. When Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice asked Trump how he would support the group’s efforts regarding transgender students, he responded: “You can do everything. The president has such power. It does, it has such power.”
The Harris campaign posted the clip on social media, saying, “Trump fantasizes about his Project 2025 plan to take total control over Americans’ lives.”
The Heritage Foundation has long been tied to Republican policy, showing significant influence over GOP administrations and the shaping of priorities for decades. The think tank has in recent years shifted from implementing its fiscal and foreign policy views into the mainstream to focusing on culture-war issues, such as those Moms for Liberty endorses, including restoring “parental rights,” banning schools from discussing gender identity, backing universal school choice and adopting nationalized civics education – all of which made it into the Republican Party platform this year.
While some Republican politicians might be able to distance themselves from Heritage, “it is implausible that Trump could,” said E.J. fa*gan, a political science professor at the University of Illinois Chicago. In pulling together the coalition behind Project 2025, Heritage “brought together the (Make America Great Again) faction of the Republican Party,” he said.
“Trump has entangled himself in that faction. There is no third set of Republican policy professionals – between the ‘Never Trump’ and MAGA factions – for him to attach himself to,” fa*gan said, adding, “I find it implausible that Donald Trump could actually distance himself from that because there would be no one to staff his government.”
A former longtime Heritage staffer told The Washington Post that Trump’s disavowing of Project 2025 and Heritage is nothing more than a public front, citing the same reason: He would find it extremely difficult to staff his administration without them.
While attending events affiliated with Heritage could trigger more Democratic efforts linking Trump to Project 2025, GOP strategists and conservative scholars said the Republican presidential candidate also shouldn’t avoid them.
“That was the risk in the rather high-profile response and high-profile condemnation (of Project 2025) was that it signaled a sensitivity,” said Kevin Madden, a strategist who worked for Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, adding, “Anytime a campaign indicates that they are sensitive about something, that puts a bigger target on it.”
Trump has denied having any knowledge of Project 2025 or its authors, but in April 2022, he shared a 45-minute private flight with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts to a conference where the former president delivered a keynote address alluding to Heritage’s forthcoming policy proposals. “They’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do,” Trump said at the time.
Trump also spoke at Moms for Liberty’s 2023 summit – also sponsored by the Heritage Foundation – when the parental rights group endorsed Project 2025.
Experts in conservative politics said Heritage has been undergoing a shift over the past 15 years – shedding centrist policy experts who were out of touch with an increasingly right-wing base for more people whose ideas were rooted in ideology rather than academia – which was amplified when Trump took office.
“I don’t think Trump is directly directing the Heritage Foundation, but as Heritage rebrands itself as a MAGA organization, then they are going to be tied to whatever Trump’s leanings are, because that is how they stay relevant,” a conservative scholar with a long-standing knowledge of Heritage said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the relationship between the organization and the Republican Party.
It will be hard for Trump to publicly shake off Heritage, because it “is going to be tied to him no matter what,” the person added.
