Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, who penned the foreword for the group’s Project 2025, is pushing back his book release until after the election, in an attempt to cool negative chatter around the sweeping far-right policy playbook.
The move comes as Republican Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance, the author of the book’s foreword, attempts to distance himself and his running mate from the proposal, which the Harris campaign has dubbed “Trump’s Project 2025.” Vance’s foreword in “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America” was noted last month when product details appeared on Amazon.
“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,” Roberts wrote in a statement to Real Clear Politics. “That’s why I’ve chosen to move my book’s publication and promotion to after the election.”
Roberts, a key organizer of his organization’s Project 2025 initiative, charges institutions including Ivy League colleges, the FBI, the New York Times, the Department of Education, BlackRock, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and others with pushing “corrupt” ideology in the book’s listing, an idea Vance endorsed in the foreword described by The New Republic as “violent.”
Vance, who previously wrote a foreword for Jack Posobiec — a far-right political figure linked to neo-nazi ideology — and his book, which described leftists as “Unhumans,” is deeply tied to a multitude of Project 2025’s authors and the Heritage Foundation, previously praising parts of the proposal.
The policy manifesto, which presidential candidate Donald Trump previously attempted to distance himself from, has faced significant public scrutiny and internal turmoil since Democratic figures amplified its contents, resulting in Project 2025’s director stepping down last week.