Heritage Foundation President's Project 2025 Extremism & Lies Exposed On MSNBC
Heritage Foundation President's Project 2025 Extremism & Lies Exposed On MSNBC
Kevin Roberts faced tough questions on MSNBC, spotlighting the authoritarian aims of Project 2025. Roberts tried to whitewash ties to Trump, Heritage's partisanship, & planned purge of civil servants.
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Sunlight can be the best disinfectant in a democracy’s efforts to beat back authoritarianism. But it has to be done right. Well, this past weekend, MSNBC did a great job of putting sunlight on Project 2025 and directly challenging its chief architect, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.
Over the past few weeks, Project 2025 has entered center stage in America’s political discourse. For those of us who have been warning about this threat for almost a year, this is welcome news. Between the launch of the “Stop Project 2025 Task Force” by House Democrats and the wildly viral Project 2025 segment on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, Americans are getting a crash course on this authoritarian plot to twist the federal government into a tool of the far-right.
This past weekend that crash course continued with Kevin Roberts’s appearance on MSNBC. Roberts spoke to hosts Symone Sanders-Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez, who pushed back on his lies in real time as he spewed his shameless extremism.
For those who need a refresher, Project 2025 is an authoritarian effort to reshape the federal government into a tool of the far-right. It’s organized by the Heritage Foundation and over 100 right-wing organizations, who have created a 920-page playbook instructing the next Republican president on exactly how to abuse the full force of executive power. The agenda includes replacing civil servants with Trump loyalists, consolidating power in the White House, and executing a far-right agenda that targets our civil liberties.
I’ve written extensively about Project 2025, discussed it on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle multiple times, and did a deep dive on the Meidas Touch Network with PoliticsGirl. Trump is on board with much of Project 2025, and it aligns with his Agenda 47.
“Project 2025 is something that's going to transcend the next 4 years, the next 10 years. It really is, for the first time in the history of the conservative movement, the apparatus for policy and personnel. That's the most important thing to remember,” Kevin Roberts told MSNBC.
Throughout the interview, Kevin Roberts confirmed key components of Project 2025 but also sought to whitewash it. “At Heritage, we believe in telling the truth with a smile on our face,” Kevin Roberts asserted.
Roberts may have been smiling during this interview, but there were plenty of lies compounding his proud extremism. It’s all part of an effort to make right-wing authoritarianism more palatable to the American public. We can’t let that stand.
Let’s take a look at some of the lies and other moments from the interview that caught my attention.
Misrepresentation Of Trump’s Planned Purge
In an exchange with MSNBC Host Michael Steele, who previously chaired the RNC, Kevin Roberts misrepresented the Schedule F purging of civil servants and downplayed the Heritage Foundation’s training of GOP loyalists. Roberts claimed they want to install “everyday Americans."
Roberts framed the planned purging of tens of thousands of civil servants as cleaning out a liberal “deep state” that is carrying out a nefarious agenda, and the goal is to install “everyday Americans.”
When Roberts made this assertion about everyday Americans needing to be put in the driver's seat, Michael Steele immediately interjected, “Yeah, but they aren’t going to be in the driver's seat because they aren’t going to be doing the jobs. The folks you’re identifying who are Trump-aligned are the ones who are going to be coming in.”
Steele is right. The truth is, the Heritage Foundation has explicitly said they plan to install an “army” of Republican loyalists.
Heritage and their 100+ partner organizations in Project 2025 are already training and recruiting tens of thousands of MAGA ideologues, so they’re ready on day one of Trump’s potential second administration. Project 2025 isn’t cleaning out the “deep state.” There is currently no deep state. These are career, non-partisan civil servants.
What they’re planning to do is purge these civil servants so they can install a real, MAGA deep state of their own that will implement their authoritarian far-right agenda with no pushback. They’ve been very explicit about that.
In a recent conversation I had with Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), the lead Democrat of the “Stop Project 2025 Task Force,” we broke down this planned purge and what it would mean in more detail. Here’s a clip of that part of our discussion:
Lies About Heritage Being “Nonpartisan”
In the opening exchange of the interview, Kevin Roberts falsely claimed Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation are “nonpartisan” and outlined for any president. The reality: Project 2025 is explicitly for the next Republican President. In this case, that would be Donald Trump if he’s re-elected.
MSNBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend asked Kevin Roberts, “…And so, you reject the assertion that this is a plan that was cooked up specifically for the second coming of the Trump administration?”
Kevin Roberts replied by lying about the nonpartisan nature of the Heritage Foundation: “Number one, the Heritage Foundation couldn't do that because we are nonpartisan. We can't be tied to one candidate. Secondly, we have offered a briefing of Project 2025 dating back to last year to every candidate for the presidency, including President Biden.”
That’s a blatant lie. The Heritage Foundation has been partisan for decades. Former President Ronald Reagan implemented 60% of the Heritage Foundation’s 2,000 recommendations in their 1981 “Mandate for Leadership.” Since then, the Heritage Foundation has released playbooks exclusively for Republican Presidents to follow.
Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” is literally subtitled “The Conservative Promise,” and its foreword, written by Kevin Roberts himself, states that “This book, this agenda, the entire Project 2025 is a plan to unite the conservative movement and the American people against elite rule and woke culture warriors.”
Sure sounds pretty partisan to me.
And even if Project 2025 didn’t explicitly and consistently say that this was for conservatives, the plans speak for themselves.
The goal is, ultimately, to “institutionalize Trumpism,” as Kevin Roberts has explicitly said.
Downplayed Ties To Trump
In this interview, Kevin Roberts downplayed the project’s ties to Trump, despite its policy positions aligning directly with Trump’s agenda.
Symone Sanders-Townsend challenged Roberts on his previous statement: “You have said that this plan is about ‘institutionalizing Trumpism’…. So, is it tied to Trump or not?”
Kevin Roberts replied by trying to spin this as being bigger than Trump and about “Trumpism as a new version of conservativism. A conservativism that recognizes that by every objective measure, the United States is weaker in 2024 than it was in 1984.” That’s false, of course. America is currently the strongest economy in the world and seeing record declines in crime.
Now, while Project 2025 is certainly bigger than Trump and is planning to institutionalize right-wing extremism for decades to come, it is deeply tied to Trump personally. Multiple former Trump officials, like his former OMB Director Russell Vought, are personally involved in architecting their plans. Also, Trump’s own official agenda directly aligns with Project 2025, as I’ve written about extensively.
They both directly outline the same key agenda items. For example, Trump also explicitly outlines a plan to re-implement his previously attempted Schedule F executive order, which will purge tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with trained GOP loyalists. The plan to consolidate power in the executive branch by dismantling multiple departments and bringing independent agencies like the FCC and FTC under direct White House control is also on both agendas.
Both Project 2025 and Trump’s official agenda also list plans to roll back environmental regulations, execute mass deportations, build detention camps for migrants, use the military against civilians, end federal protections for LGBTQ+ people, push “Christian Nationalist” ideals, and undo all progress made in diversity, equity, and inclusion within the federal government under the guise of religious freedom.
To claim there is any separation between Trump and Project 2025 is to claim there is a separation between Hydrogen and Oxygen in water. They’re symbiotic and need each other to exist. Without Trump in office, Project 2025 won’t happen. If Trump loses, it’ll become Project 2029, and another extremist will take his place. But for now, this is about Trump and his second term.
Election Denialism
MSNBC Host Alicia Menendez asked Kevin Roberts, “Is your organization going to accept the results of the 2024 presidential election?”
Kevin Roberts falsely replied: “Yes, if there isn’t massive fraud like there was in 2020.”
Symone Sanders-Townsend jumped in: “What does that mean?”
Kevin Roberts: “If there isn’t massive fraud.”
Symone Sanders-Townsend replied: “There was not massive fraud.” She then cited the Heritage Foundation’s own count of voter fraud incidents, which found only 1,513 proven incidents of voter fraud since 1982. Kevin Roberts then falsely claimed that this is only a fraction of what is likely out there.
Of course, the 2020 election was not stolen, and voter fraud is not a significant problem.
Immigration Disinformation
MSNBC Host Alicia Menendez then asked about Project 2025’s immigration plans. Kevin Roberts replied with fear-mongering, claiming that “First of all, we need to close the border, and secondly, we need to have the biggest mass deportation system ever in the history of America.” He called it “unjust” and “evil” that these migrants are able to get into the country.
Kevin Roberts claimed these migrants are committing crimes, but Symone Sanders-Townsend cited stats that prove undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.
It was the classic dehumanizing and fear-mongering we hear from Republicans and Donald Trump. Nothing new rhetorically here, but the immigration plan they plan to pursue will be nothing short of unprecedented and inhumane.
Abortion Lies
Kevin Roberts confirmed that Project 2025 calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to change its name to the Department of Life.
“Abortion is not healthcare… we believe eminently in women’s rights, particularly women’s rights in the womb,” Kevin Roberts falsely said.
Kevin Roberts continued, “Why aren’t we talking about the people who are supporting legislation that an abortion can happen until three days after the person is born? This is an absurd framing by this network.”
“That is an absurd assertion,” Symone Sanders-Townsend interjected. “As a person with an actual womb, I’m telling you that does not happen.” She is right, of course. That does not happen. It’s an insane talking point that Donald Trump and his allies constantly repeat.
The Interview’s Impact
Immediately after this segment aired, it went viral on Twitter/X. There were multiple posts with millions of views. The shameless extremism of Kevin Roberts shocked people. This, of course, is nothing new. Kevin Roberts has been speaking openly about Project 2025 for almost a year, including a New York Times interview that I wrote about in this newsletter.
MSNBC did a good job in this interview. They didn’t let his lies slide while also giving him the opportunity to confirm the absolute authoritarian extremism outlined in Project 2025. There was a lot more they could’ve covered, but that would’ve required a longer format. I have no constructive criticism for how they handled this. It was well done.
I’m glad the segment was aired. Now, I hope CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash ask Donald Trump directly about Project 2025 and his authoritarian agenda at the debate on Thursday.
Our efforts to spotlight Project 2025 have been paying off in big ways. We’ve been part of a growing chorus of people warning about the threat of authoritarianism. By the day, more Americans are being informed about this dangerous agenda. Thank you for all your support and efforts to amplify this work. It matters!