Project 2025 Takes the Stage at the RNC

“Project 2025 is ‘undeniably a Trump-driven operation,’ so it’s no wonder it’s squarely in the spotlight for Night 3 of the RNC. Tonight’s speakers include the architect of Trump’s cruel family separation policy Tom Homan, convicted criminal Peter Navarro, dictator apologist Ric Grenell, and Trump’s MAGA running mate JD Vance, who thinks Project 2025 is full of ‘good ideas.’ The Trump-Vance ticket cannot escape their deep ties to Project 2025’s far-right extremists – and the American people will reject their toxic agenda in November.”
Project 2025 author Tom Homan, an architect of Trump’s cruel family separation policy, addressed the RNC convention tonight.

CNN: “Project 2025’s proposals for reforming the country’s immigration laws appear heavily influenced by those who helped execute Trump’s early enforcement measures. Former acting US Customs and Border Protection chief Mark Morgan and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Tom Homan – the faces of Trump’s polarizing policies – contributed to the project, as did Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, one of the policy advisers pushing to end certain immigrant protections behind the scenes.”

NBC News: “Homan was an early proponent of the administration’s controversial ‘zero tolerance’ policy, which resulted in at least 5,500 families being separated at the southern border in 2018.”

Mother Jones: “On the Anniversary of Family Separation, the Heritage Foundation Hosted the Policy’s Intellectual ‘Father’”

“Homan is also helping lay the groundwork for a potential second Trump presidency’s mass deportation plans.”

The Week: “The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 wants to reshape America under Trump”

Los Angeles Times: “Trump appears at a fundraiser for a creator of his ‘family separation’ policy”

Convicted criminal Peter Navarro, another author of Trump’s extreme Project 2025 agenda, also spoke tonight.

E&E News: “[The authors of Project 2025] includes former Trump Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson and former Trump White House aide Peter Navarro, who’s serving in federal prison after he was convicted of contempt of Congress.”

Ric Grenell spoke tonight and worked for a Project 2025 advisory board member.

The Advocate: “Grenell will be special adviser for national security and foreign policy at the [Project 2025 advisory board member] American Center for Law and Justice, based in Washington, D.C.”

Grenell has spent years cozying up to right-wing authoritarian leaders and undermining U.S. foreign policy.

Closing out the night will be Trump’s VP nominee JD Vance – a Project 2025 enthusiast who has praised the extreme blueprint as having “good ideas.”

Vance: “I’ve reviewed a lot of [Project 2025]. There are some good ideas in there.”

The New Republic: “Project 2025 Leader Is Overjoyed by Trump’s Vice Presidential Pick”

Nick Corasaniti, New York Times: “[Kevin Roberts] reacted to the news [of Vance’s VP selection] ‘with a broad smile on my face’ and said that ‘privately, we were really rooting for him.’”

Gram Slattery, Reuters: “Vance is very close to Heritage and even wrote the forward for a book from the think tank’s president. Project 2025 is of course organized by Heritage.”

Vox: “Kevin Roberts, the president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation and the driving force behind Project 2025, told Ward that ‘[Vance] is absolutely going to be one of the leaders — if not the leader — of our movement.’”

Vance: “I want to thank especially Kevin Roberts and all the Heritage Foundation for 50 years of incredible work on conservative policy.”

Vance: “I think that what Trump should do, like if I was giving him one piece of advice, is fire every single civil servant… replace them with our people.”

Politico: “The résumés of Vance’s senior staffers read like a phone book for the New Right ecosystem in Washington: the Claremont Institute, American Compass, the Conservative Partnership Institute, Hillsdale College.”

Politico: Project 2025 author and RNC Platform Committee Policy Director Russ Vought is a “close ally of Vance.”

Make no mistake: Project 2025 is “undeniably a Trump-driven operation.”

Axios: “This is undeniably a Trump-driven operation. The biggest tell: Johnny McEntee — one of Trump’s closest White House aides, and his most fervent internal loyalty enforcer — is a senior adviser to Project 2025. One of the most powerful architects is Stephen Miller, a top West Wing adviser for the Trump administration.”

Politico: “Many of the authors of the blueprint are former Trump officials, and the Heritage Foundation has spent the past year-plus recruiting people to implement the plans within the administration, Scott said.

“‘So they don’t just have a long, sprawling policy document,’ he said, ‘they also have a growing list of staff who are being tested to see if they are loyal to Trump and if they are willing to administer this in his potential administration.’

“While groups like Heritage have put forward conservative policy proposals in the past, Scott said Project 2025 is distinct in that it’s so comprehensive and far-reaching.

“‘It has so many groups contributing to it. It’s the whole conservative policy movement gathered together,’ he said.”

CNN: “JD Vance said in 2022 he ‘would like abortion to be illegal nationally’”

“‘I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally,’ Vance said in January 2022 on a podcast when running for Senate.

“During a podcast interview in January 2022, then-candidate JD Vance said he ‘certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally’ and was ‘sympathetic’ to the view that a national ban was necessary to stop women from traveling across states to obtain an abortion.”

Vance’s anti-choice record includes celebrating when Donald Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, supporting a national abortion ban, criticizing exceptions for rape and incest, and comparing abortion to slavery.

JD Vance: “I think that what I really think on – so first of all, the Dobbs decision, everybody knows, overruled Roe v. Wade – I think that was the right decision.”

Manu Raju, CNN: “J.D. Vance, the Ohio GOP senator, says Republicans need to shift their approach on abortion and begin to embrace federal legislation … ‘We can’t give into the idea that the federal Congress has no role in this matter,’ he told us.”

Newsweek: “J.D. Vance Backs ‘National Standard’ for Abortions”

Washington Post: “Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance argues against need for rape and incest exceptions in abortion laws”

Daily Beast: “J.D. Vance suggested he would support prohibiting abortion even in cases of rape and incest—and dismissed those catalysts as ‘inconvenient.’”

Associated Press: “Vance said that he would vote for the national abortion ban at 15 weeks introduced by Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham … He did not explicitly say he supports a rape exception … He said the issue is too complex for him to name all the exceptions he might support on a debate stage.”

Vance: “Ohio has a heartbeat bill [banning abortion before many women know they’re pregnant], I think that’s a good bill.”

Vice: “JD Vance Compared Abortion to Slavery”

The Hill: “Vance has a strong anti-abortion record and was given an A+ ranking by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a prominent anti-abortion group.

“He campaigned against Ohio’s 2023 ballot measure that guaranteed the right to abortion, and previously said he’d vote for a nationwide abortion ban at 15 weeks. 

“During his campaign for Senate, Vance applauded the overturning of Roe v. Wade and supported Texas’s ban on abortion, which does not allow exceptions other than cases where the mother’s life is at risk.  

“‘Two wrongs don’t make a right,’ he said in 2021 when asked whether abortion laws should allow for exceptions for rape and incest.” 

ProPublica: “He argued that conservatives needed to take action against corporations that, say, defended abortion rights or punished employees who spoke out against abortion access. ‘If we’re unwilling to make companies that are taking the side of the left in the culture wars feel real economic pain, then we’re not serious about winning the culture war,’ he said.”

NBC News: “Senate Republicans block Democratic bill codifying Roe v. Wade abortion protections”

“Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked legislation led by Democrats to revive the protections of Roe v. Wade in the wake of the Supreme Court eliminating the nationwide right to abortion.”

Republicans who voted against include: JD Vance.

Vance has repeatedly spoken out against and voted to block legislation to protect access to in vitro fertilization.

The Hill: “Senate Republicans block legislation to codify IVF access”

“Thursday’s vote comes a week after Republicans blocked a similar bill from Democrats that would have guaranteed the right to contraception.”

Republicans who voted against include: JD Vance.

Vanity Fair: “On Wednesday, Senate Republicans are expected to object to Tammy Duckworth’s Right to Build Families Act, because, surprise: They don’t actually care about families and aren’t ‘pro-life.’

“‘It’s idiotic for us to take the bait,’ Senator JD Vance told Politico, as though the measure were some kind of political trap. (He also noted that he had not actually read the bill yet.)”

Vance said it himself: When it comes to ripping away reproductive freedoms, he is in lockstep with Trump.

Sean Hannity, Fox News: “So you completely agree, are in full, complete agreement with President Trump?”

JD Vance: “My view is that Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party and his views on abortion are going to be the views that dominate this party and drive this party forward.”