Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts: “The overlap is tremendous” between Trump's campaign platform and Project 2025
Roberts says that any “quibbles and differences of opinion” between Project 2025 and the GOP platform would be figured out once a new Trump “administration declares what their priorities are”
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From the July 10, 2024, edition of The Vince Coglianese Show on WMAL News
VINCE COGLIANESE (HOST): In terms of the things he can't control, the outside stuff, the Biden campaign, as you noted, Kevin Roberts, has seized on Project 2025, distorted it beyond recognition, and is campaigning against it as if it's an extension specifically of Trump's policies. And that has led Trump himself to distance himself to some extent from Project 25 this past week. He claimed on Truth Social that he, quote, knows nothing about Project 2025. He says he has no idea who's behind it, and then he went on to wish the people who are involved in the project well. Can you talk about, first of all, your reaction when you see President Trump say this and what you envision as being behind it tactically?
KEVIN ROBERTS (HERITAGE FOUNDATION): Well, I think it's the sign of a great leader who understands he's in a terrific political news cycle. He's run a really good campaign from start up to this point. And the less miss — mischaracterization of Project 2025 had become a liability. I think we've seen that really turn around in the last few days since that statement.
So no hard feelings from any of us at Project 2025 about the statement because we understand Trump is the standard bearer and he's making a political tactical decision there.
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COGLIANESE: And this week, you saw that the Republican agenda was put out, which will be introduced, of course, officially next week at the Republican National Convention. We see some reporting that President Trump himself had a hand in writing it and edited it, and it's all — it's in all capital letters, which indicates it probably was actually Trump's writing. And, it's out now.
To what extent would you say that it synthesizes in any way with Project 25? Are there elements that you feel like, man, I wish they had included this, I noticed that there wasn't, you know, some sort of passionate defense of life built into it, which I would have liked to see. How do you view the policies that they put out versus what Project 2025 is proposing?
ROBERTS: Well, the overlap is tremendous. In fact, if you compare three documents, Project 2025, the Republican platform, which President Trump had a really strong hand in, which is good in terms of his political senses and positions, as well as the policy agenda that's on his campaign website, Agenda 47. The overlap, as you might imagine, is significant. There are some quibbles and differences of opinion here and there, which not only is okay, but it's actually good. I mean, we're gonna be able to sort those out once the presidential administration declares what their priorities are.
But the key thing is this — that President Trump is elected regardless of what percentage of Project 2025 he adopts, uses, decides not to use, the people he hires, what's going to happen is that the border will be closed, the economy will be revitalized, the Green New Deal will come to an end, we will have tremendous energy, not just consumption, but production. And I think what you're going to see is the beginning of a golden era of conservative reform, not just because of President Trump, although he deserves most of the credit, but because the rest of the conservative movement has realized this is the moment if we have the leader and the plan that we're able to begin to undo all of the wreckage of the radical left of the last several decades.