Think tank behind Project 2025 conservative blueprint signs on as RNC convention sponsor

WASHINGTON – As former President Donald Trump distances himself from a conservative group’s blueprint for a future Republican governing agenda, he will have at least one unavoidable connection to it: the Republican National Convention. 

The Heritage Foundation, the D.C.-based think tank that produced Project 2025 — a series of policy plans to overhaul the federal government — is among the sponsors of the convention in Milwaukee next week. 

The group is touted as a convention partner on the RNC host committee’s website. And Heritage plans to hold a day-long “policy fest” in downtown Milwaukee on Monday, the opening day of a convention in which Trump will officially receive the Republican nomination for president.

Project 2025, which in part calls for an expansion of presidential authority, is separate from the Trump campaign’s “Agenda47” policy priorities and from the RNC's own platform, though a number of former Trump administration officials were involved in crafting Heritage’s plans. 

It is not clear how much Heritage donated to the convention’s host committee. The group did not respond to emailed questions from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation has been a longtime financial backer of Heritage.

Trump last week sought to distance himself from the blueprint just days after Heritage president Kevin Roberts said on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s radio show that the country was “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” 

The comments drew quick criticism from Democrats, who have attempted to link Trump to Project 2025. Days later, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform: “I know nothing about Project 2025.”

“I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” Trump wrote on Friday. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Project 2025 responded to Trump’s comments by saying the project “does not speak for any candidate or campaign.”

“But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement,” a spokesperson for Project 2025 said.

Still, Heritage’s presence at the Republican nominating convention is yet another sign of the think tank’s influence. In addition to the day-long policy discussion Monday, billed as “Fighting for America’s Future,” the group plans to host a social event at a bar near Fiserv Forum Wednesday evening, according to the convention’s event calendar. 

Project 2025, a 922-page plan, seeks in part to give a future Republican president greater control over the executive branch, replace civil service government employees with partisan appointees and eliminate the Department of Education, among scores of other proposals. 

Trump campaign officials, however, have rejected connections to outside efforts to shape presidential transition policy.

“Let us be very specific here,” campaign officials said in December, “unless a message is coming directly from President Trump or an authorized member of his campaign team, no aspect of future presidential staffing or policy announcements should be deemed official.”

Daniel Bice of the Journal Sentinel contributed.