What to know about the Heritage Foundation, main group behind Project 2025 and RNC sponsor
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank and a sponsor of the Republican National Convention.
It was founded in 1973 during Richard Nixon’s administration and since then has exerted a strong influence over Republican policy.
Early on, it staked a claim as an anti-communist, pro-business organization and is also culturally conservative with a Christian bent.
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“Heritage’s mission is to formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense,” a mission statement on its website reads.
Heritage Foundation president Kevin D. Roberts told The New York Times in January that he sees the foundation’s role as “institutionalizing Trumpism.”
It had a strong hand in staffing and policy decision during the transition to the first Trump administration.
More recently, it has advocated strongly for former President Donald Trump and his interests.
The country is “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts said on Steve Bannon’s show “The War Room” earlier this month, after the Supreme Court’s ruling that presidents are immune from prosecution for using their official powers.
The Heritage Foundation, similar to the conservative organization The Federalist Society, recommends and endorses judicial appointments.
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was on a list of recommended nominees for the position compiled by the Heritage Foundation. It also published an article praising Justice Neil Gorsuch when former President Donald Trump nominated him and campaigned for Justice Amy Coney Barrett after her nomination.
According to its website, the foundation has more than 400 meetings with congressional staff and 120 meetings with members of Congress every year.
The Associated Press reported that Roberts said Monday that he and vice-presidential pick JD Vance are “good friends” and that the Heritage Foundation had been hoping for a Vance nomination, though it did not endorse him publicly before the announcement.
How is the Heritage Foundation related to Project 2025?
The Heritage Foundation is one of the conservative advocacy groups behind Project 2025, a plan to remake federal government agencies and purge career civil servants in order to replace them with loyalists to consolidate conservative power, among many other provisions.
The plan lays out a road map for the first six months of a potential second Trump administration.
“Our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State,” the Heritage Foundation says on its website.
Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, but many of his allies and former administration officials were involved in drafting it.
According to the Associated Press, the nearly 1,000-page plan involves compiling and publicly releasing a list of government bureaucrats who may stand in the way of complete control and loyalty to Trump throughout the federal government. The foundation has granted $100,000 toward the project.
It also calls for reorganizing or dismantling federal agencies including the FBI, the Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as banning drugs used in medication abortions, making drastic changes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and deporting millions of undocumented immigrants.
This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: What is the Heritage Foundation? RNC sponsor, Project 2025