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WASHINGTON (AP) — As Project 2025 hits turmoil, the head of the influential, far-right Heritage Foundation is postponing the release of his potentially fiery new book until after the November presidential election.
Kevin Roberts, who took over Project 2025 as part of a leadership shake-up amid blowback over its recommendations for a potential Donald Trump White House, said Wednesday he is focused on defeating presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Trump's running mate JD Vancepenned the forward to Roberts' book.
“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," said Roberts, the president of Heritage Action who has been mentioned as a potential chief of staff in a Trump White House, in a statement.
“That’s why I’ve chosen to move my book’s publication and promotion to after the election,” he said. The Real Clear Politics news site first reported the decision.
Orchestrated by Heritage, Project 2025 is an ultra-conservative blueprint for the next Republican White House, with startling proposals that include firing large swaths of the federal government workforce and disassembling longstanding agencies, including the Justice Department.
Trump has said the outside group doesn't speak for his campaign, but many of his most trusted former White House officials are architects of the plan and are preparing for a second Trump administration. Even before Harris emerged to replace President Joe Biden atop the party ticket, Democrats campaigned vigorously against Project 2025, portraying it as a buzzword for GOP extremism.
Roberts' book “Dawn’s Early Light,” was due out in September. It outlines a vision for what its publisher calls “ a peaceful ‘Second American Revolution’.”
The publisher’s description says the book identifies institutions that conservatives need to build or to take back, adding that some are “too corrupt to save.” Among those it lists are Ivy League colleges, the FBI, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Department of Education and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Vance, in the forward, quotes Roberts as saying that when twilight descends and a person hears wolves, “You’ve got to circle the wagons and load the muskets.”
“We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets,” Vance adds. “In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.”
A Vance spokesperson has said the forward has nothing to do with Project 2025 and that the senator has no involvement and "plenty of disagreements with what they’re calling for.”
The postponement of the book comes the day after Harris tapped Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, as her running mate, invigorating a campaign that has roused Democrats in the short few weeks since Biden stepped aside.
Walz has transformed the political conversation by simply declaring Republicans “weird.”
Harris for President spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said, “Trump, Vance and their Project 2025 allies can try and hide the ball from the American people, but voters know where they stand — and that they’re trying desperately to drag us backward."
At the same time, House Democrats who launched a Project 2025 task force are asking Roberts to meet with members of Congress as they more deeply probe the proposal.
Rep. Jared Huffman of California and Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts said in a letter this week that it's “time to stop hiding the ball on what we are concerned could very well be the most radical, extreme, and dangerous parts of Project 2025.”
While the Democrats, as the minority in the House have no authority to compel Roberts to come forward, they are using their perch to raise awareness of the project, and particularly its so-called fourth pillar — a 180-day action plan for the next administration that Project 2025 has drafted but not yet released.
“Allow the American people to see it and scrutinize it,” the lawmakers wrote.
Heritage has not said whether Roberts will respond to the House lawmakers' request.
Roberts, in his statement Wednesday, said the Democrats are “more radical than ever” with Harris' agenda. He said conservatives are “fully committed to focusing our efforts on helping defeat the left at the ballot box."
Project 2025 recently underwent its own shakeup as its director, Paul Dans abruptly exited last week amid the Trump campaign's efforts to distance itself from the group and its proposals.
Roberts said he was taking over Project 2025 and assured its work would continue.