In response to new reporting on JD Vance’s book foreword for Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement: 

“JD Vance lauded the Project 2025 architect’s new book as a ‘bold new vision for the future of conservatism,’ saying that ‘it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets’ and calling his extreme ideas an ‘essential weapon.’ This is the kind of dangerous rhetoric that we’ve been hearing from Vance for years, so it’s no wonder Project 2025 was ‘really rooting’ for Vance to join Trump’s losing ticket.” The truth is the more the American people learn about the Trump-Vance ticket’s extreme Project 2025 agenda, the more ready they are to reject it in November.”

JD Vance was “thrilled” to write the book foreword for Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts, and lauds the book’s “bold new vision for the future of conservatism in America.”

New Republic: “J.D. Vance in Serious Trouble After Damning Project 2025 Book Foreword”

“As Trump desperately tries to separate his campaign from Project 2025, users on X have noted one big problem: J.D. Vance wrote the foreword to a forthcoming book by the plan’s lead author, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.

“On the Amazon product page, the promotional material for the book, titled Dawn’s Early Light, highlights Roberts’s role in composing Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation proposal for a conservative overhaul of the federal government.

“The product page also includes a favorable review from Vance. ‘Never before has a figure with Roberts’s depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism,’ the review says. ‘We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.’

“When the book first became available for pre-order on June 19, Vance promoted it on X, writing, ‘I was thrilled to write the foreword for this incredible book, which contains a bold new vision for the future of conservatism in America.’”

Raw Story: “Trump’s V.P. pick pens foreword to Project 2025 book after ex-president denies involvement”

Vance and Roberts are well-acquainted. Vance has praised Project 2025 as containing “good ideas.”

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

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.”

Roberts recently warned of potential violence and threatened a “revolution.”

New York Times: “Heritage Foundation Head Refers to ‘Second American Revolution’”

Rolling Stone: “Right-Wing Think Tank Leader Promises Revolution, Warns of ‘Bloodshed’”

“Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, is talking up revolution and the prospect of ‘bloodshed’ in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision placing the president outside the reach of criminal law… 

“Later in the broadcast, Roberts predicted that his ‘second revolution’ would be complete by 2050, and that it would coincide with a new ‘great awakening’ that would bring America to God — underscoring the extent to which Heritage and its Project 2025 is entwined with Christian nationalism. Roberts insisted that ‘God’s law can, in fact, be a huge influence on the civil laws.’ And he offered a constrained vision of American liberty: ‘Our definition of ‘freedom’ is not the freedom to do whatever the heck we want, but the freedom to do what we ought.’” 

With Vance joining Trump’s MAGA ticket, it’s even clearer that 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.”

The Week: “Many of Trump’s indicated plans for a second term fall in line with the Project 2025 outline.”

New York Times: “Roberts told me that he views Heritage’s role today as ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’ This includes leading Project 2025, a transition blueprint that outlines a plan to consolidate power in the executive branch, dismantle federal agencies and recruit and vet government employees to free the next Republican president from a system that Roberts views as stacked against conservative power. The lesson of Trump’s first year in office, Roberts told me, is that ‘the Trump administration … simply got a slow start. And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.’”

The more the American people learn about Trump’s Project 2025 agenda, the more they dislike it. 

Navigator Research: “Americans oppose all the key elements in Project 2025, with the greatest concerns around health care, worker’s rights, and dismantling federal programs. Over four in five Americans oppose an array of policies proposed in Project 2025 such as ‘allowing employers to stop paying hourly workers overtime’ … Additionally, four in five oppose ‘allowing the government to monitor people’s pregnancies to potentially prosecute them if they miscarry.’ …

“Americans’ overall opposition to Project 2025 increases after reading about its specific policy goals…

“Three in five Americans say Project 2025 would benefit the wealthiest Americans, CEOs, and corporations.”

Miami Herald: “As Americans learn more about Project 2025, they become more opposed, poll finds”