Paul Dans steps down from Project 2025

The Trump campaign is so distanced from Project 2025, his VP literally wrote the foreword to the book. https://t.co/EiAFqYgWTw

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 31, 2024

J.D. Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio and Donald Trump’s running mate, wrote the foreword for a new book by Kevin D. Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation. The book, which is set to be published in September, calls for a “second American Revolution” and features Vance’s endorsement of its ideas.

Kind of tough for JD Vance to claim he knows nothing about Project 2025, when he wrote the forward to Project 2025 author & Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’s new book. https://t.co/ssygz1e1hv

— Randi Weingarten 🇺🇸💪🏿👩‍🎓🟣🌴🥥 (@rweingarten) August 1, 2024

“In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon,” Vance writes in the foreword, which was obtained and published online by The New Republic. Vance’s endorsement of the book has become politically fraught after Trump publicly disavowed Project 2025, a set of sweeping policy proposals for a hoped-for Republican presidency that was led by the Heritage Foundation. The project includes plans to disband multiple federal agencies, exclude abortion from health care, and end an array of climate change programs, making it a popular target for Democrats.

They’ll be back, under some other name.

The creepy billionaires behind this nonsense aren’t going away.https://t.co/W9izHxWpnT

— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) July 30, 2024

Vance’s book endorsement complicates politics

Will Martin, a spokesman for Vance, said in an email that “the foreword has nothing to do with Project 2025” and that “Mr. Vance has plenty of disagreements with what they’re calling for.” He added that “only President Trump will set the policy agenda for the next administration.” Trump has been trying to distance himself from Project 2025, even as his running mate’s contribution to the book complicates his efforts. The project enjoyed exceptional influence during Trump’s time in office, but he has recently lashed out against it, calling some of its ideas “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal” and claiming he had “no idea who is behind it.” The director of Project 2025, Paul Dans, stepped down amid the backlash from Trump. Dans, a former top adviser in Trump’s administration, led the project, which aimed to shape the discourse around conservative goals if Republicans regained the White House. Despite the leadership change, Democrats have indicated that they will continue to share the contents of Project 2025 with voters. Vice President Kamala Harris has made the project a focal point of her early campaign, saying that “Project 2025 is on the ballot because Donald Trump is on the ballot.” The policy priorities of Project 2025 include cracking down on immigration, making it easier to dismiss civil servants, banning pornography, and reversing federal approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. Trump’s attempts to distance himself from the project are complicated by his close ties to those involved, including at least 140 people who worked in his administration and contributed to it.