David A. Graham

And we've seen what that looks like, for example, the Justice Department, where he uses it for retribution.

I think that's something that people need to be paying more attention to, and they're not really going to appreciate it until it starts actually happening in their lives.

I think the administration already had a sort of troubled relationship with Heritage.

You mentioned earlier the way that the Trump campaign sort of tried to disavow Project 2025.

And I think there were a couple problems from the Trump administration point of view.

One of them was that Project 2025 was unpopular.

And his agenda is all laid out in Project 2025.

Which I still must say, I cannot believe they put that in writing.

It was becoming a campaign talking point and they didn't want to be tied to something unpopular, even if they did intend to do it.

And the second one is that Trump gets, he gets his back up when anybody suggests that he's not the one in charge, you know, that somebody else is driving the agenda.

And I think that was part of his problem with Heritage there.

And so on the one hand, they had been extremely successful in setting the agenda for the Trump administration.

On the other hand, they're a little bit out on the outside.

Many of their people have not made it in.

They don't have a close relationship with the administration.

So you see them, like a lot of other institutions on the right, I think, trying to understand how to fit in in the age of Trump and the age of MAGA.

As this is happening at Heritage, you see other groups trying to sort of vie for the future of MAGA and to provide the next blueprint or the thing that is the successor to Project 2025.

Mike Pence's group has been poaching a lot of staffers away from Heritage.

There are other big players in the conservative firmament that are trying to drive the train in the next direction and see what the next turn might be.

And Heritage still wants to keep to this plan, which they see is, I think, very long running.