Project 2025 has provided ample fodder for Democratic attacks on Trump, linking him to its most incendiary policy proposals and ideas to remake the federal government.

Aug. 7, 2024, 2:20 PM PDT / Updated Aug. 7, 2024, 2:39 PM PDT
By Katherine Doyle

The publication date for a book by the president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, which oversees the controversial Project 2025, has been delayed until after the November election.

"Dawn’s Early Light," written by Kevin D. Roberts, had been scheduled to be published Sept. 24. But following a public uproar over Project 2025’s policy proposals for a future Republican administration, Roberts said in a statement that he will postpone the book until after Election Day.

“There’s a time for writing, reading, and book tours — and a time to put down the books and go fight like hell to take back our country,” he said. RealClearPolitics was first to report the news.

The announcement follows a challenging two-week stretch for Donald Trump, which, as the former president sought to distance himself from Project 2025, included increased scrutiny of a foreword of Roberts’ book, written by Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.

Project 2025 has provided ample fodder for Democratic attacks on Trump, linking him to its most incendiary policy proposals and ideas to remake the federal government. The group, which is led by former Trump administration personnel and policy aides, collaborated with more than 100 conservative groups, some with ties to Trump, to put forth its governing agenda.

And on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris' new vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, referred to the link as he made his debut before thousands at a rally in Philadelphia.

"Vance literally, literally wrote the foreword for the architect of the Project 2025 agenda," Walz said.

The Harris campaign is also training volunteers in battleground states “to highlight the most extreme aspects of Project 2025” when they talk to voters, according to a memo issued Wednesday, including those about abortion, Social Security and Medicare.

Trump has denounced Project 2025, saying that he had “nothing to do with” its 900-plus-page mandate and that while “many of the points are fine,” many others “are absolutely ridiculous.

“I have no idea who is behind it,” he said early last month. Later in the month, he said any association between him and the project was “disinformation.”

And at a stop at a manufacturing center in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on Wednesday, Vance distanced the Trump campaign from Project 2025.

“I think what President Trump said is that Project 2025 does not represent the agenda of the Trump campaign, and it doesn’t. Donald Trump represents the agenda of the Trump campaign,” Vance said, cautioning that “no one speaks for Donald Trump.”

After Trump criticized it publicly, the Heritage Foundation official leading the effort stepped aside. Trump’s campaign then issued a statement celebrating the project’s “demise.”
Katherine Doyle