Project 2025's ex-leader slams 'violent rhetoric' of Heritage Foundation president

The former director of "Project 2025" is coming out against the "violent rhetoric" he's seeing from the Heritage Foundation's president.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Paul Dans is so concerned by what he's hearing from Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts that he's calling on Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) to retract a foreword that he wrote from Roberts' book.

Dans led Project 2025 until public outcry reportedly resulted in pressure from Donald Trump's campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, to remove him in July this year.

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"If we’re going to ask the left to tone it down, we have to do our part as well. There’s no place for this sort of violent rhetoric and bellicose taunting, especially in light of the fact that President Trump has now been subject to not one but two assassination attempts," Dans told the Post about comments made by Roberts.

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank which published Project 2025.

Speaking on Steve Bannon's podcast, Roberts, who has been director of the Heritage Foundation since 2021, said Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back," and on the horizon is a “second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be."

He was speaking in July, just before a would-be assassin took a shot at Trump in Pennsylvania.

Heritage Foundation spokesman Noah Weinrich told the Post that Roberts wasn't talking about a violent effort from the right, but was denouncing left-wing violence.

“Any attempt to mischaracterize Dr. Roberts’ comments as supportive of violence is grotesque and completely contrary to the observation he was making,” Weinrich said.

The Post pointed out that the same language is in Roberts' book. He calls for “a political revolution” to “overthrow today’s incarnation of the ruling class,” and the nation “must be destroyed and replaced." He also calls for the elimination of long-standing organizations like the Boy Scouts and the removal of institutions like Ivy League schools, agencies like the FBI, and even the Fairfax County Public Schools.

“There’s really no place for this level of rhetoric, let alone from the head of an august think tank,” Dans told the Post. “And by doing that, he’s essentially besmirched the professional reputations of everyone involved in Project 2025.”

Roberts' book was set to be released in September, but was put on hold after an outcry over "Project 2025." Vance wrote the foreword of the book.

When the Trump campaign complained about the publicity Project 2025, considered a blueprint for a Trump administration, was getting, Dans said the instinct was to lay low — but that Roberts disagreed.

“We allowed the radical left to define the brand Project 2025,” he complained during a September conference by the New York Times. “We should have — figuratively speaking — punched back. Lesson learned.”

Project 2025 is a 900-plus page document that outlines a slashing of federal government programs, while also eliminating the Department of Education and regulations on clean air and clean water. Under the plan, experts who work for government agencies would be replaced by conservative loyalists who would be chosen for their personal fealty to Donald Trump.

Read the full report here.