On Politics: A Project 2025 leader, back in the fold

At his book party, the Heritage Foundation president said he'll soon speak with the president-elect.

View in browser|nytimes.com November 13, 2024 Good evening. The election may be over, but our coverage isn't. So we're slowing down. Just a little. From here on out, we're going to send On Politics three times a week, instead of daily. We'll catch you up on what's happening in Washington, and we'll also be your guide to the way the political landscape — and the country itself — is changing. This is a moment of great uncertainty, and we're going to make sense of it together. Let's kick things off with my colleague Charles Homans, who last night watched in real time as a Project 2025 leader's brief exile seemed to come to an end. We're also covering the shock in Washington over President-elect Donald Trump's pick for attorney general. — Jess Bidgood "We're very optimistic about working with the administration," Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, said Tuesday. Amir Hamja for The New York Times A Project 2025 leader is back in the fold By Charles Homans The latest news President-elect Donald Trump said he wanted the polarizing Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida to serve as attorney general, a pick that appears likely to stoke opposition from Republicans on Capitol Hill. Republican senators elected John Thune of South Dakota to serve as their majority leader in the next Congress, choosing an institutionalist who may not always see eye to eye with Trump to replace the long-serving Mitch McConnell. Trump chose the former Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence, and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida to be secretary of state. Trump and President Biden spent 29 seconds being nice to each other at the White House. In the 31st-floor penthouse lounge of the Kimberly Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, as waiters refreshed cocktails and jazz piano wafted from the speakers, a hotel employee slid the glass roof closed against the chilly night air. It was official: Kevin Roberts was coming in from the cold. For a period this summer, Roberts and the think tank he leads, the Heritage Foundation, had found themselves unexpectedly thrown out of the orbit of President-elect Donald Trump, whose last administration had been staffed heavily by Heritage. The source of the trouble was Project 2025, a policy agenda that a consortium of conservative organizations, led by Heritage under Roberts's direction, had crafted early in the 2024 campaign cycle. As Democrats laid into the policy agenda, turning it into one of their key lines of attack against Trump, the former president insisted he knew nothing about it, had "no idea" who was behind it and called Roberts's work "ridiculous and abysmal." But last night, as roughly 80 people gathered for a party to celebrate the release of a new book by Roberts, one of the shortest and least convincing exiles in recent memory appeared to be very much over. "I anticipate speaking with him pretty soon," Roberts said of Trump. Roberts's new book, "Dawn's Early Light," has a foreword written by the author's friend Vice President-elect JD Vance. Its release was delayed from September to November after the Heritage Foundation — and Roberts himself — turned into an apparent liability for Republicans over the summer. By Tuesday evening, though, that particular episode seemed all but forgotten. The crowd — mostly a mix of journalists, many from liberal outlets, and young conservative activists and operatives — chatted amicably over fast-refilled platters of crab cakes and baby lamb chops. "We're very optimistic about working with the administration," Roberts said during an interview at the party. A crowd of journalists and conservative activists gathered at a Midtown Manhattan hotel to celebrate the release of a new book by Kevin Roberts. Amir Hamja for The New York Times The release of the book was delayed from earlier this year after a backlash to Project 2025 led President-elect Donald J. Trump to disavow the effort. Amir Hamja for The New York Times Heritage had advertised Project 2025 as a blueprint for an incoming Republican president. In a blitz of campaign messaging this summer, Democrats argued that it was exactly that, foraging through its heap of white papers for the most right-wing policy provisions — excluding abortion from health care, disbanding federal agencies, killing climate change programs — and presenting them as a second Trump presidency's plans for America. Onstage at the Democratic National Convention, the "Saturday Night Live" comedian Kenan Thompson hefted an oversized hardcover copy of "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise," Project 2025's 922-page marquee publication, and remarked: "You ever seen a document that could kill a small animal and democracy at the same time?" If none of this was particularly surprising, Trump's reaction to it was. In July, as the Democrats' attacks began gaining traction, he took to Truth Social to insist that "I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it." (He had, in fact, sat next to Roberts on a 45-minute private flight to a 2022 Heritage conference, where Trump had given a speech praising the organization's work "to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.") The disavowal put Heritage in a bind, and the organization scrambled to batten down the hatches. The think tank quickly fired Paul Dans, Project 2025's director. In addition to delaying the release of the book, Roberts's publisher, Broadside Books, scrapped its original subtitle ("Burning Down Washington to Save America") and cover art (which featured a charred match). Some Trump-skeptical conservatives cast the episode as a morality tale of sorts for Heritage, a pillar of Reagan-era conservatism that eagerly embraced Trump's first presidency and a mission of, as Roberts put it, "institutionalizing Trumpism." The episode seemed to boil down to the internal politics of Trumpworld, where Heritage faced new rivals in the contest for influence in staffing a future administration and complaints from campaign strategists about the high profile of such efforts. And if any doubts about Heritage's standing had lingered after Election Day, they have been dispelled by Trump's early administration picks. Thomas Homan, whom he named "border czar," and John Ratcliffe, his choice for C.I.A. director, were both Project 2025 contributors. "If you look at these appointments, I mean, 100 percent of them are friends of Heritage," Roberts said during the interview. That wasn't to say he had no regrets. In retrospect, he said, Heritage should've pushed back louder and earlier after Democrats took aim at the project. "We let them get away with that for six weeks," he said. But he was quick to note there were no hard feelings toward Trump. "Project 2025, just as a brand, had become a political liability," he said. "I always understood, and I understand to this day, why they didn't want to be associated with that." Roberts excused himself to pose for pictures with well-wishers and talk to a long line of journalists. One of them, a Guardian writer, later reported that he was told to "go to hell" by Roberts and escorted out of the party by security. By the door were stacks of "Dawn's Early Light," wrapped in a new, match-free dust jacket bearing a toned-down subtitle: "Taking Back Washington to Save America." The contents of the book, however, were unchanged, including its denunciations of the "uniparty" destroying the American way of life and its list of institutions that "need to be burned" to restore America: the F.B.I., "every Ivy League college" and The New York Times. Sometimes, a second act doesn't require changing much at all. One Story You Shouldn't Miss Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times At Mar-a-Lago, 'Uncle' Elon Musk Puts His Imprint on the Trump Transition He's on the patio. He's on the golf course. Everywhere Donald Trump looks, there is the world's richest man. By Theodore Schleifer QUOTE OF THE DAY "I suspect I won't be running again unless you say, 'He's so good we've got to figure something else out.'" — President-elect Donald Trump, speaking to jubilant House Republicans in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday morning. His suggestion that they could pave the way for him to serve a third term drew laughter. Confirming Matt Gaetz as attorney general would put one of President-elect Donald Trump's fiercest defenders in a position to carry out his vow to exact revenge on his political enemies. Jordan Gale for The New York Times Trump's Gaetz pick shocks the Senate President-elect Donald Trump is wasting no time testing Senate Republicans' willingness to allow him to upend official Washington. Case in point: Matt Gaetz. Earlier on Wednesday, Republican senators had largely rejected a bid by Senator Rick Scott of Florida — who had the support of key Trump allies — to lead their conference, and they chose instead the more institutionally minded John Thune of South Dakota. By the end of the day, they found themselves openly stunned about Trump's announcement that he wanted Gaetz, the bombastic and highly loyal Florida congressman, to be attorney general in his second administration. "I have to noodle that one for a while," Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told my colleague Catie Edmondson. Senator Todd Young of Indiana dodged questions about him. And Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she was "shocked." "That shows why the advice-and-consent process is so important," Collins said, adding that "I'm sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing." Gaetz, 42, is one of the most outspoken critics of the Justice Department on Capitol Hill, and his confirmation as attorney general would put one of Trump's fiercest defenders in a position to carry out his vow to exact revenge on his political enemies. Gaetz was the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation that concluded in 2023, with no charges. He has denied wrongdoing. The potential collapse of his nomination may ease the path to confirmation for other polarizing picks by Trump, including former Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii as director of national intelligence. — Jess Bidgood MORE POLITICS NEWS AND ANALYSIS Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times At Mar-a-Lago, 'Uncle' Elon Musk Puts His Imprint on the Trump Transition He's on the patio. He's on the golf course. Everywhere Donald Trump looks, there is the world's richest man. By Theodore Schleifer Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times Nearly Half of California Voters Would Back Harris for Governor, Poll Shows A late-October survey in Vice President Kamala Harris's home state showed strong Democratic backing if she ran in the 2026 race for governor. She has not said what she plans to do next. By Neil Vigdor Todd Heisler/The New York Times Democratic Governors Form a Group to Oppose the Trump Administration The group's leaders, Govs. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Jared Polis of Colorado, are ambitious Democrats likely to try to fill the party's looming leadership void. By Reid J. Epstein Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times Election Officials Say Wisconsin Republican's Claims 'Lack Any Merit' Eric Hovde, who lost his Senate campaign, is the first prominent candidate to suggest his race was rigged. We fact-checked his case. By Nick Corasaniti Kenny Holston/The New York Times R.F.K. Jr. Scorns Trump's Fast Food Habit: 'Really, Like, Bad' and 'Poison' Intent on changing the U.S. food supply under the incoming Trump administration, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. passed judgment on the president-elect's culinary choices during a recent podcast interview. By Sheryl Gay Stolberg Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. Try four weeks of complimentary access to The Tilt Nate Cohn, The Times's chief political analyst, makes sense of the latest political data. Get it in your inbox Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for On Politics from The New York Times. To stop receiving On Politics, unsubscribe. 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