MILWAUKEE (AP) 鈥� At the edge of the cordoned-off perimeter around the Republican National Convention on Monday, hundreds of conservatives filed into the ornate home of the Milwaukee Symphony to hear a parade of luminaries talk policy and Project 2025.
Project 2025 is the term for the Heritage Foundation's nearly 1,000-page , which has become a cudgel Democrats are wielding against former President Donald Trump, who on Monday officially became the GOP's presidential nominee. That's because the book proposes sweeping changes in the federal government, including altering personnel rules to ensure government workers to the president.
The Heritage event was called 鈥淧olicy Fest鈥� and was not technically part of Project 2025, but the endeavor constantly came up. Speakers both downplayed it and pumped it up. Heritage's President Kevin Roberts called it 鈥渦nprecedented in the history of the conservative movement,鈥� but also tried to tone down his rhetoric from earlier this month when he promised it would lead to
鈥淗ow many of you are ready to very steadily, calmly and peacefully take our country back?鈥� Roberts asked the crowd Monday.
, who oversaw U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration, told reporters they shouldn't blow the project out of proportion. He said Washington think tanks often prepare plans for new administrations 鈥� and indeed, Heritage's project is modeled on prior ones it has done stretching back decades.
鈥淚 know the president pretty damn good,鈥� said Homan, who contributed to the project's immigration proposals. 鈥淗e's not going to read any plan and say 鈥極K, I鈥檓 going to do this.' ... He's going to do what he's going to do."
from the project, which is run by several top appointees from his previous administration. But he's also spoken warmly about it, and the connection was further cemented by Trump's selection of as his running mate
Roberts said he's 鈥済ood friends鈥� with Vance and that the Heritage Foundation had been privately rooting for him to be the VP pick. The Ohio senator, Roberts said, recognizes that 鈥渨e have a limited time to pursue policy.鈥�
Democrats pounced on Vance's past praise for Project 2025.
鈥淛D Vance embodies MAGA 鈥� with an out-of-touch extreme agenda and plans to help Trump force his Project 2025 agenda on the American people,鈥� Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement referring to Trump's Make America Great Again movement.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur and who has since become a Trump surrogate, said on the stage that conservatives aren't entirely on the same page about what should happen in a second Trump term.
鈥淒o we want to replace the left-wing nanny state with a conservative nanny state?鈥� he asked. 鈥淥r do we want to dismantle the nanny state?鈥�
Some of the project鈥檚 recommendations, including further , conflict with some of what Trump has pledged on the campaign trail. It also proposes , a program Trump has promised to protect. Trump鈥檚 campaign has stressed that he will make decisions on what he does if he returns to office.
Roberts said that doesn't bother him: 鈥淚t is impossible for every individual conservative to agree with everything in the document,鈥� he said.
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This story was first published July 15, 2024. It was updated July 17, 2024, to make clear in the next-to-last paragraph that the document proposes changes to Medicare.
Nicholas Riccardi, The Associated Press
