Kevin Roberts

And I sat back and I thought about that.

And I said, I'm a guy who likes politics.

It's my first passion.

That resonated with me.

And so among the many things, for example, fast forward 20 years that Speaker Mike Johnson and I commiserate on,

is both being legislative leaders.

And I say, commiserate, because while he's grateful for the job that he has, he can't snap his fingers and even have 100% of his Republican conference join him.

I can't snap my fingers as a nonprofit leader anywhere, including at Heritage, and expect all of the board, all of the donors, all of my colleagues to salute and move on.

We have to build coalitions.

And so the second thing that we have honed over the years at Heritage, certainly before I got there,

and we have continued it, is working in coalitions.

And so sometimes that means when you have a political realignment, which we're in the middle of right now because of Trump and because of the rise of populist conservatism, something as a historian I believe is very congruous with our founding, there will be a handful of people who decide they don't want to be part of that.

And the way we manage that at Heritage is to continue to add and multiply, to continue to talk about

what our aspirational vision is for the future as a way of managing that coalition.

What other organizations, former political leaders want to do, and I mean this with the greatest Christian charity that I can summon, is fine.

They can go do that.

But I can tell you at Heritage, as I said on my first day, every day we're on offense.

And if there are people who are nipping at our heels because they have a difference of opinion about politics,

Our tactics or maybe even how we are applying longstanding principle to policy, we respect them, but we're just going to speed up.

And the American people are with us, which is why I can sit here smiling telling you this story.