About
The Heritage Foundation is a right-wing think tank established in 1973 by Paul Weyrich, cofounder of the Council for National Policy (CNP) and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Its mission is “to formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.”
Heritage has long wielded considerable influence in Washington, but had largely done so behind the scenes until the 2024 presidential campaign. Once news broke about Project 2025, its extremist set of policy recommendations for pushing its Christian conservative agenda during a second Trump administration, the think tank suddenly became the focus of intense media attention.
Written by more than 140 former Trump administration officials and other allies, Project 2025 presents a comprehensive blueprint for radically overhauling the federal government and consolidating power in the executive branch. Among its many controversial proposals are to accelerate fossil fuel extraction and roll back all environmental protections, detain and deport immigrants, eliminate or restructure many cabinet-level departments, further restrict reproductive rights, and win the culture war by defeating all things “woke.” It also aims to eliminate the guardrails of civil service roles—the “deep state”—in favor of more political appointees who have pledged to implement the new policies.
Despite initial reservations about Trump’s run in 2016, Heritage quickly switched course and aligned itself with his administration, eager to help staff federal agencies with “trusted movement conservatives” it had been tracking through its Project to Restore America database. Ultimately, the think tank influenced the hiring of right-wing cabinet members such as Betsy DeVos, Mick Mulvaney, Rick Perry, Scott Pruitt, and Jeff Sessions, among others. Through Project 2025 and its updated database of sanctioned sycophants, Heritage is again ensuring that Trump has a reliable cadre of hardcore MAGA loyalists lined up to help him rule more than govern during a second administration.
Although the think tank’s sway over the Republican Party had begun to weaken as Trump took hold of the GOP, Heritage hired Kevin Roberts from the Texas Public Policy Foundation as its new president in 2021 with the goal of realigning itself with the MAGA movement. Now, Roberts sees his and Heritage’s role as “institutionalizing Trumpism.” He is also a huge fan of JD Vance, whom he considers a good friend and “one of the leaders” of the conservative movement. The two have appeared together at events and co-written op-eds, and once ,Trump chose Vance as his running mate, Roberts said the senator is “someone that privately we were really rooting for.”
The Heritage Foundation is a member of the State Policy Network (SPN), a web of right-wing legal groups and think tanks across the U.S. Both Heritage and ALEC are also pushing hard for an Article V constitutional convention as a means of achieving many of the same ends the think tank mapped out in Project 2025
January 6, 2021
- After the attack on the Capitol, the Heritage Foundation released multiple reports condemning violence on the Left. For example, Mike Gonzales, a senior fellow at the foundation, has written that “BLM and Antifa are not the only sources of political violence in America, although they do represent the majority of it.”
- The Heritage Foundation also denounced the work of the House Select Committee investigating the attack on the Capitol. In a statement, President Kevin Roberts wrote that “this committee is comprised of politicians who are carrying out a partisan fishing expedition intent on destroying the reputations of public servants in the Trump administration.”
The Big Lie
- After the election, the Heritage Foundation released numerous statements and articles bolstering the Big Lie. For example, in a December 2020 post, Hans A. von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow with the think tank, wrote an article in support of the lawsuit Texas filed against four other states after the 2020 election asking the Supreme Court to overturn the results and call for new elections in those states.
- Building on false claims of widespread voter fraud, since 2021 Heritage has been aggressively working to draft and pass model legislation restricting voting access across the country, according to Mother Jones. This has led to the passage of more restrictive laws in battleground states including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Iowa.