These Republicans Have Ties to the Group Behind Project 2025

Republicans don’t want to talk about Project 2025. The nearly 1,000-page right-wing plan to convert the federal government into an authoritarian regime when the next Republican president comes into power is the brainchild of The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank founded in 1973 during the Nixon administration. Over the decades, The Heritage Foundation has evolved to be one of the most influential conservative entities in the GOP, working behind the scenes to shape some of the most controversial Republican policies. 

So it’s a bit hard to believe that most Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, say they aren’t familiar with Project 2025, or who’s behind it. The sprawling document — which proposes extreme changes to the federal government, like abolishing the Department of Education and banning abortion — is the culmination of input from dozens of prominent right-wing organizations and figures. Clearly an effort years in the making. 

But the extreme agenda of Project 2025 — and controversial comments from Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts — are causing Republicans to distance themselves from it as much as possible. Democracy Docket traced The Heritage Foundation’s connections to nine Republican lawmakers and candidates in the 2024 election. The connections range from a close working relationship with Heritage on specific issues, to more loose associations, like speaking at Heritage-organized events. 

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)

Running for U.S. Senate 

In the 117th Congress, Banks served as the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a conservative caucus that puts out its own alternative budget proposals each year. In 2023, Banks helped lead the caucus’ alt budget, which it dubbed the “Blueprint to Save America,” that proposed diverting funds to increasing the military budget, building a border wall and protecting Americans “from the Radical Woke Agenda.” 

None of those proposals made it through to the actual budget, but the proposal was praised by Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation’s president. “The Republican Study Committee, led by my friends Chairman Jim Banks and the RSC Budget and Spending Task Force Chair Kevin Hern, have put forward an important Blueprint to Save America,” Roberts wrote. “This budget addresses America’s most pressing challenges, by getting spending and inflation under control, protecting life, securing our borders, standing up to China, and more. The RSC is going on offense, setting the tone for what conservatives must do when the people take back control.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)

Running for reelection

In the aftermath of the first impeachment of Trump, Cruz spoke at a Heritage Foundation event where he lambasted the effort and falsely claimed Trump was “impeached without an article claiming a criminal violation.” Particularly, Cruz ranted about the first article of impeachment — for abuse of power in the infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “There’s no federal statute that makes abuse-of-power–what they’ve called it–a criminal offense. They’ve just made this up,” he said. 

Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.)

Running for reelection

One of the more alarming proposals buried deep within Project 2025 is to revive nuclear testing and dumping radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada — an operation that former President Barack Obama ended at the beginning of his presidency. It’s a proposal universally derided by Nevada residents.

In 2021, Fischer — who is a ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces where she focuses on issues including the country’s “nuclear triad and associated delivery system” — participated in a virtual Heritage Foundation event on the “future of nuclear modernization.” 

Sen. Josh Hawley (R.-Mo.)

Running for reelection

One of the main critiques of Project 2025 is that it essentially lays out a Christian nationalist vision of the U.S. No one in Congress is more on board with that agenda than Hawley, who recently delivered the keynote address at a conservative conference and said the quiet part out loud. “Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian Nation. So I am,” he said. “And some will say that I am advocating Christian Nationalism. And so I do.”

So it’s no surprise that Hawley has deep ties to the Heritage Foundation. He’s participated in a number of Heritage events over the years, including delivering remarks at Heritage events at least twice last year. 

Former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md.)

Running for U.S. Senate

Back in 2017, when Hogan was the governor of Maryland, he tapped Robert Moffit, a senior fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Health Policy Studies, to lead the state’s health care commission. At the time, Moffit was known as a leading critic of Obamacare and Hogan’s appointment was sharply condemned by state Democrats. “If Marylanders weren’t scared of Governor Hogan’s refusal to oppose Trumpcare before, they should be now,” Bryan Lesswing, a spokesperson for the Maryland Democratic Party, said at the time of the appointment. 

Despite Hogan’s past ties to The Heritage Foundation with Moffit’s appointment, he’s one of the few Republicans to come out against Project 2025. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Hogan — who’s running to represent Maryland in the U.S. Senate — called Project 2025 “absurd” and a “dangerous path” for the Republican party. “In truth, Project 2025 takes many of the principles that have made this nation great and shreds them,” he wrote.

Gov. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.)

Running for U.S. Senate

In April of 2021 Justice signed a bill in West Virginia to create a universal Education Savings Account (ESA) — essentially a way for parents to use their share of a state education fund to pay for alternatives to public school, like home-schooling materials and tuition for private schools. Heritage immediately praised the bill and credited Jonathan Butcher, one of Heritage’s education fellows, for being the first to push for ESAs in the state, talking to state officials about it since 2016. 

Under Project 2025, the Department of Education would be completely eliminated, instead focusing on “parental authority” as the center of education policy — meaning more funds used towards parents deciding how and what to teach their children, rather than paying unionized public educators. 

Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.)

Running for reelection

Buried deep within Project 2025’s chapter on reforms to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is a proposal to repeal a 2016 regulation that offers extra protections for LGBTQ youth within the foster care system. In their report analyzing the impact certain aspects of Project 2025 would have on some of the country’s most vulnerable people, DemocracyForward noted that, in 2022, there were 368,000 children enrolled in foster care who would risk increased discrimination because of this proposal. 

In 2020, Schweikert, who is a member of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, participated in a Heritage virtual event focused on adoption and foster care. 

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) 

Running for reelection

Scott, who’s vying to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as the top Republican in the Senate, partnered with The Heritage Foundation back in 2021 for a five-part video series explaining the inflation and the U.S. economy. The short videos featured Scott in an effort to blame the country’s economic woes and worsening inflation on President Joe Biden and the Democratic party’s agenda. 

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)

Running for reelection

In January, Wicker — who is a ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee — participated in a Heritage Foundation event about the U.S. military, with a focus on how to “reverse a decade of decline and restore America’s military power.” Project 2025 proposes drastic changes to the armed forces: reducing the number of generals while adding 50,000 soldiers, banning trans service members and rescinding a U.S. Department of Defense policy that covers the travel cost for troops traveling out of state to get an abortion and reproductive care. 

“The next conservative President must end the Left’s social experimentation with the military, restore warfighting as its sole mission, and set defeating the threat of the Chinese Communist Party as its highest priority,” Roberts writes in the forward of Project 2025.