Project 2025 remains nonpartisan, true to 1980s good governance despite loud outcry, key figures say

While the Heritage Foundation’s latest Mandate for Leadership and its overarching Project 2025 have become the subject of right-wing Democratic “scaremongering” and fodder for Trump critics, its founders and current leaders say the past and present results of its work speak for themselves.

President Donald Trump also criticized the latest version and denied any involvement in its creation: “I disagree with some of the things they say, and some of it is absolutely ridiculous and pathetic,” Trump said last month.

From the Reagan administration to the present, the Heritage Foundation has published the Mandate for Leadership series almost every election cycle.

But the project’s leaders, including former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who is now considered the conservative movement’s preeminent elder statesman, say there is nothing radical about the endeavor.

In an interview Wednesday, Meese said the main difference between 1980 and 2024 is a change in design mechanics.

“In the first case, in 1981, it was much more organizational, with information about organizational structure and norms, whereas later, in 1989, it was much more based on individual policy issues,” he said.

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After then-President-elect Reagan named Meese to head his transition team, Meese recalled being invited to dinner with members of the Heritage Foundation and other conservatives and being offered early evidence of the 1981 Leadership Mandate itself.

Charles Heatherly, who worked on the first draft in the 1980 cycle, said Thursday that Carter’s team had been asked to discuss the initiative — appearing to refute current claims that the drafts were one-sided, partisan affairs.

“Both the Reagan campaign and the Carter campaign were invited to send a representative to that dinner. The Carter campaign never responded,” he said.

Meese, meanwhile, said the 1981 draft was “particularly helpful” during the Reagan era because nothing like it had been done in a long time.

“There was a coalition many years ago, I think, during the Johnson administration. That was quite a long time before 1980. And it was really time (for this project) . . . “

“It was a really great effort by (Heritage). They recruited writers who were familiar with the (policy) topics because they had actually worked in those departments or in other (areas), which gave them the opportunity to learn about how the rest of government works.”

“And each department or agency had a chapter in the book. I remember it was about 500 pages. And I was very impressed with what happened.”

Meese recalled telling Reagan about the new project and added that the California Republican immediately wanted to see the final product.

“Reagan was so impressed that he held a meeting of his Cabinet before the inauguration. And he put a copy of the book on each person’s desk.”

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The meeting was held at the State Department conference center, and each secretary was told to “find his chapter,” Meese said.

From that point on, the meeting of conservative pundits began to have a positive impact on the effectiveness and policymaking in the new conservative White House.

One passage published by UPI recommended opposing positive discrimination, saying that the new government of 1981 should “base its civil rights policy on the premise that every person has an inalienable right to receive all the economic and other advantages that he has earned by virtue of his merits, and that it is inherently unjust to penalize those who have earned their rewards by giving preferential treatment and benefits to those who have not.”

Regarding how the Reagan administration used the results of the first draft, Heatherly said the then-president’s political appointees were “a hodgepodge of different people,” leading to divergences in how they approached the issue.

“Some agencies took it more seriously than others,” he said.

Heatherly also referenced his recent Wall Street Journal column, in which he defended the project then and now:

He added that he had recruited 20 teams of experts from previous White Houses, academic institutions, and the then-nascent Heritage organization itself.

He added that a draft of the 1980 book series spent three weeks on the Washington Post bestseller list.

Steve Groves served as a special assistant counsel in the Trump administration when the president was under investigation by former FBI Director Bob Mueller.

He is also co-editor of this year’s Mandate for Leadership, the policy-based part of Project 2025.

Groves rejected the notion that The 2025 Project or his book were intentionally geared toward Trump.

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“It’s just a lot of sloppy journalism,” he said. “Most (journalists) don’t chase the facts to correct them.”

Groves said that after Biden’s political meltdown in the June debate, media mentions of the 2025 Project “skyrocketed.”

He said it was proof that the media-liberal-political coalition needed a new narrative to make the Leadership Mandate “a crazy document.” Groves said many of the allegations, such as demands that the next president ban abortion and end birthright citizenship, were completely false.

“They just wanted to change the subject,” he said.

“(The idea) that this is a Trump project is a lie,” Groves added, pointing out that the anthology was released in 2023 and was created in 2022, when the presidential election was at stake.

Groves and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts shared their views on the matter. Groves noted that many of the chapters in this year’s work do not represent a single, specific ideological view.

When it comes to trade policy, Conservatives have divergent views that fall into the proverbial “big tent” on the right.

As Groves noted, Trump ally Peter Navarro — who could be considered a “fair trade” advocate — and CEO Kent Lassman of the pro-“free trade” Competitive Enterprise Institute co-authored the chapter.

Groves said Lassman’s scope of duties is more in line with Heritage’s long-standing agenda, but Navarro’s inclusion further dispels allegations that the project is part of a pro-Trump, far-right propaganda effort.

Roberts, in turn, suggested that situations like the one described above distinguish Heritage and Project 2025 from actual partisan political efforts.

For the 2024 cycle, he said, Heritage has offered Project 2025 materials to every candidate or potential candidate in the 2022-2023 term, including Biden, Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“President Biden has not responded, but if he had, I would have personally gone to the White House, very willingly, without sarcasm, and offered him a briefing,” Roberts said.

“When it came to the beginning of the mandate, it was always the case that we offered it to any presidential candidate who was interested in a briefing. I mean, we offer congressional briefings to Democrats. Of course, here in Washington, fewer and fewer people have used our services over the years. But maybe one day we’ll see that happen again.”

Roberts said another misconception is that Heritage releases the same type of “project” every election cycle. For two reasons, he said, that claim is wrong.

First, in an election like 2004, there was no reason to completely rewrite the conservative playbook for George W. Bush or then-Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, because Bush’s reelection would have meant policy continuity.

Spencer Chretien, deputy director of Project 2025, said at the outset of the project that conservatism has also changed since the 1980 election. Conservatives opposed things like the 1975 “Church Committee,” a congressional panel led by then-Senator Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat, that investigated the inner workings and “abuses” of the intelligence community.

Church’s committee may now be welcomed by conservatives who have grown tired of the left’s embrace of “massive government power.” Many conservatives no longer see Church’s committee as a “crazy leftist attack” on courageous public servants because they now demand accountability for the actions of unelected bureaucrats, he said.

Roberts argued that Project 2025 is in other respects more like the original 1980–81 version, in that it represents a collection of sometimes conflicting viewpoints that all fall within the conservative sphere, rather than a single policy document based on heritage views.

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Roberts also addressed concerns on the right about the project, including Trump’s vocal condemnation — because many of the authors of the 2025 Project, such as Navarro, were former administration officials, while others, such as Lassman, were not.

“That speaks to the essence of the project,” Roberts said. “The project is truly candidate-agnostic — so it was interesting to see comments ranging from, ‘This is Trump-specific’ to, ‘This is not Trump-specific enough.’”

“It really underscores how seriously we take being candidate agnostic. That’s obviously important given our IRS designation, but more importantly our own ethics on this issue, in terms of the Trump campaign distancing itself from this. That’s completely understandable.”

Roberts noted how the media has turned Project 2025 into a “bogeyman.” When Americans of all stripes are told exactly what’s in the project, they are more receptive to it than any critic would have you believe they should be.

The Heritage leader also dispelled rumors that co-editor Paul Dans’ departure in July had anything to do with Trump’s comments or his condemnation of the media. Dans’s job is over, and he has moved on to other projects, Roberts said.

He also added that, just as when Heritage presented the first draft to Meese and Reagan, there is no assumption that the candidate — conservative or not — will implement it.

“This is the kind of work Heritage does all the time. Our honest response to Trump’s response to this: We’re glad it looks like a lot of this has calmed down,” he said.

“We want to wake up in a normal country. We want to wake up in a country where the American dream is alive. That’s what this project is about.”