PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The think tank behind Project 2025, the conservative blueprint linked to President-elect Donald Trump, is launching an effort to support Trump’s imperiled selection for defense secretary in his latest attempt to influence in the coming years. Republican government.
Kevin Roberts, chairman of the Heritage Foundation, said Thursday that his group will spend $1 million to pressure senators who will not support Pete Hegseth, whose nomination to lead the Pentagon has been questioned because of his views on women who serving in battle and reports on his personal conduct. A number of Republican senators have declined to endorse Hegseth or have asked for more information about his drinking and treatment of women.
“There will now be messages going out to their constituents about how out of step they are with the Trump agenda,” Roberts said in an interview, arguing that the criticism of Hegseth was driven by “the establishment.”
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Roberts’ announcement that he will support Hegseth is the latest sign that Project 2025, which Trump disavowed during his campaign amid Democratic criticism, is on the rise again as Trump returns to the White House. The president-elect has handpicked some of his authors and key contributors.
Roberts spoke to The Associated Press at an event at Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, after saying he saw Trump at another event on Wednesday that was also attended by other new Cabinet members of the newly elected president. Roberts did not say whether he met or would meet privately with Trump.
Project 2025 includes proposals to reclassify thousands of federal employees so they can be laid off and several government agencies to be eliminated or curtailed. Faced with Democratic criticism of the blueprint, Trump tried to distance himself from it and denied knowing who was behind it, even though the proposal was drafted by longtime allies and former officials in his administration.
The event at Mar-a-Lago was to launch an exchange-traded fund, or ETF, called Azoria US Meritocracy, which aims to target companies with diversity, equity and inclusion practices by excluding them from the fund. Its CEO, James Fishback, is close to Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate who, along with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, is in charge of the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Roberts introduced himself Thursday as someone from Project 2025, and the small audience laughed.
He noted that he is close friends with Brooke Rollins, president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, another group that has laid the groundwork for a second Trump administration in advance. Rollins has been nominated to be Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture.
Roberts said groups like the Heritage Foundation and the America First Policy Institute were “close contributors to the Trump agenda.” He called Trump’s second term the “beginning of the golden age of America’s next chapter.”
“I think we are in the middle of a rebirth of this country,” he said.
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