NEW YORK (AP) — The director of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 vision for a complete overhaul of the federal government stepped down Tuesday after blowback from Donald Trump's campaign, which has tried to disavow the program created by many of the former president's allies and former aides.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Paul Dans’ exit comes after the project “completed exactly what it set out to do." Roberts, who has emerged as a chief spokesman for the effort, plans to lead Project 2025 going forward.
"Our collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels — federal, state, and local — will continue,” Roberts said.
What started as an obscure far-right wish list is now a focal point in the 2024 campaign. Democrats for the past several months have made Project 2025 a key election-year cudgel, pointing to the ultraconservative policy blueprint as a glimpse into how extreme another Trump administration could be.
The nearly 1,000-page handbook lays out sweeping changes in the federal government, including altering personnel rules to ensure government workers are more loyal to the president. Heritage is building a database of potential new hires to staff a second Trump White House.
Yet Trump has repeatedly disavowed the document, saying on social media he hasn’t read it and doesn’t know anything about it. At a rally in Michigan earlier this month, he said Project 2025 was written by people on the “severe right” and some of the things in it are “seriously extreme.”
“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” Trump campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement.
They said, “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”
But Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, wrote a foreword to a forthcoming book by Roberts in which he lauds the Heritage Foundation’s work. A copy of the foreword was obtained by The Associated Press.
“The Heritage Foundation isn’t some random outpost on Capitol Hill; it is and has been the most influential engine of ideas for Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump,” wrote Vance.
Quoting Roberts elsewhere in the book, Vance writes: ″We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.”
Trump campaign representatives did not respond to messages inquiring about whether the campaign asked or pushed for Dans to step down from the project. The Heritage Foundation said Dans left voluntarily and it was not under pressure from the Trump campaign. Dans didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
In many ways, Project 2025 served as a potential far-right White House in waiting, a constellation of outside groups that would be ready for action if Trump wins a second term.
The project included not only the detailed policy proposals that Trump could put into place on day one at the White House. Project 2025 was also building a personnel database of resumes for potential hires, drawing Americans to Washington to staff a new Trump administration.
Many Trump allies and former top aides contributed to the project. Dans formerly worked as a personnel official for the Trump administration. And Trump regularly campaigns on many of the same proposals in the Project 2025 book — from mass deportations to upending the Justice Department — though some of its other proposals, including further taxes on tips, conflict with some of what Trump has pledged on the campaign trail.
It was clear that Project 2025 was becoming a liability for Trump and the Republican Party.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign and top Democrats have repeatedly tied Trump to Project 2025 as they argue against a second term for the former president.
The Harris campaign said Project 2025 remains linked to Trump’s agenda, written by his allies for him to “inflict” on the country.
“Hiding the 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real — in fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding,” said Harris for President Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.
For months Trump’s campaign had warned outside groups, and Heritage in particular, that they did not speak for the former president.
In an interview from the Republican convention first published by Politico, LaCivita said Project 2025 was a problem because “the issues that are going to win us this campaign are not the issues that they want to talk about.”
It was almost certain than Trump’s campaign forced the shakeup, said one former Heritage aide.
Trump’s team was well aware it couldn’t risk any missteps from Heritage in this final stretch ahead of the election.
By announcing the departure, Roberts appeared to be sending a signal to the Trump campaign that changes were being made at Heritage to tamp down any concerns over Project 2025, said another conservative familiar with the situation.
If Trump wins the White House, he almost certainly will need to rely on Heritage and other outside entities to help quickly staff a new administration, the person said.
That person and the former aide would only talk on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Project 2025’s website will remain live and the group will continue vetting resumes for its nearly 20,000-person database of potential officials eager to execute its vision for government, the Heritage Foundation said Tuesday.
The group said Dans, who had started the project from scratch more than two years ago, will leave the Heritage Foundation in August. Roberts will now run Project 2025 operations.
Roberts has faced criticism in recent weeks after he said on an episode of former Trump aide Steve Bannon's “War Room” podcast that the country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”
Earlier this month, in an interview before beginning a prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena, Bannon mentioned Roberts as the type of leader who could land a top job in a Trump White House.
Mascaro reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.
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FILE - Paul Dans, director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation, speaks at the National Religious Broadcasters convention, Feb. 22, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. Dans, the director of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 vision for a complete overhaul of the federal government, has stepped down, a spokesperson for the think tank confirmed Tuesday. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
LONDON, Ky. (AP) — Authorities searched a rugged, hilly area of southeastern Kentucky on Sunday for a man suspected in the weekend shooting of nine vehicles and wounding of five people on a busy interstate.
Joseph A. Couch, 32, was named a suspect in Saturday’s shootings on Interstate 75 after authorities recovered his SUV on a service road near the crime scene. They later found a semi-automatic weapon nearby that they believe was used in the shooting, said Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, a spokesperson for the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office.
The search was focused on a remote area north of London, a community of about 8,000 people, roughly 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Lexington.
“Where is he? that’s the big question right now,” Acciardo told reporters as law enforcement raced to find Couch in the heavily wooded area before darkness fell. "We’re still in there. We still feel like that he’s in there or we obviously wouldn’t be searching wholeheartedly like we are.”
Couch — who earlier this year faced a later-dropped misdemeanor charge for terroristic threatening, according to court records — most recently lived in Woodbine, a small community about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of the shooting scene. Acciardo said law enforcement found his abandoned vehicle Saturday and then an AR-15 rifle on Sunday in a wooded area next to a highway “that he could have shot down upon the interstate from.” A phone believed to be Couch's was also found by law enforcement, but battery had been taken out.
Couch was initially considered a person of interest in the case until he was upgraded to a suspect on Sunday, Acciardo said, adding he was considered to be armed and dangerous.
Authorities believe there was only one shooter. Acciardo said the shooting appeared to involve some planning but seemed to be a “random act” of violence in which no particular person was targeted. He wouldn't speculate as to a possible motive.
Acciardo said authorities were notified at about 5:30 p.m. Saturday about gunshots along the route near exit 49. An individual who was “off that exit” fired multiple rounds into the northbound and southbound lanes, striking nine vehicles and wounding five people, he said. The shooter was not in a vehicle at the time.
“When our first two units got to the scene there, they said it was a madhouse: people on the sides of the road, emergency flashers going, bullet holes, windows shot out, nine vehicles shot,” Acciardo said during a news conference.
The wounded — one person from Kentucky and others from out of state — were hospitalized in stable condition early Sunday. Some had “very serious” injuries, including one person shot in the face, Acciardo said.
Residents of Laurel County were on edge as authorities searched with a drone, helicopter and on foot in a remote and sparsely populated wooded area near the highway.
Acciardo said authorities had been “bombarded” with a hundred or more calls from people claiming to have seen Couch. State lawmakers from Laurel County urged residents of the area to stay home during the search.
Rodney Goodlett, pastor of Faith Assembly of God in London, was helping direct traffic as parishioners gathered for a service Sunday morning. He said he expected the search to hold down attendance. Several local churches canceled their services.
“There’s definitely people … that probably won’t be here today — just nervous with the suspect still at large,” he said.
Goodlett said the congregation was going to pray for the community, the wounded and the first responders, some of whom attend Faith Assembly, where around 275 parishioners worship weekly.
“This is tragic, obviously, that somebody would randomly do violent acts,” he said. “You hear media things taking place all around our country, but then when it hits home, it’s a little bit of a wake-up call.”
Cody Shepherd, sipping a bloody mary outdoors while waiting to watch a football game at the Pour Boyz Sports Lounge in London on Sunday, said rumors abounded as the search progressed.
Shepard, who lives in London, was at a party Saturday at a friend’s house about 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of where the shooting occurred.
“We were listening to the police scanners all night,” he said, adding that they heard police sirens and saw a helicopter searching the area.
Authorities released a photo of Couch and warned residents to be on the lookout, but Acciardo cautioned that they “have not determined that this is the individual that fired the weapon.”
“We do have the area contained right now. ... Our special response team is there. We are trying to find a shooter there,” he said.
According to Kentucky state court records, Couch was charged this past February with misdemeanor terroristic threatening. However, the charge was dismissed when a victim failed to appear in court. Back in 2015, the same man was sentenced to six months in jail after being convicted of criminal mischief and unlawful transactions with a minor. Couch also has had a handful of traffic violations and a public intoxication conviction in 2020.
Acciardo said the search is dangerous for first responders and is painstaking because of thick foliage. There are “a lot of woods, a lot of cuts in the rock," he said. “He could be hiding behind a tree and us walk right up on him.” Heavy searching would be temporarily suspended if Couch wasn’t located before night fell, Acciardo said. The manhunt would resume in the morning.
“Whenever it gets dark, we can’t be in the woods,” he said. “It’s too dangerous for our guys.”
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Associated Press journalist John Hanna contributed from Topeka, Kansas.
London, Ky. Mayor Randall Weddle makes comments to the media regarding the shooting that happened near his town along I-75 in London, Ky., Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
London, Ky. Mayor Randall Weddle makes comments to the media regarding the shooting that happened near his town along I-75 in London, Ky., Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
London, Ky. Mayor Randall Weddle makes comments to the media regarding the shooting that happened near his town along I-75 in London, Ky., Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Cody Shepherd talks about all of the rumors that circulated following a shooting on Saturday along Interstate 75 near London, Ky., Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Rodney Goodlett, Pastor of the Faith Assembly Church, gives his reaction to the shooting along I-75 in London, Ky., Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Rodney Goodlett, Pastor of the Faith Assembly Church, reacts to the shooting along I-75 in London, Ky., Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, public information officer with the Laurel County Sheriff's Office, gives details Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, on the progress of the investigation into the shooting along Interstate 75 on Saturday in London, Ky. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, public information officer with the Laurel County Sheriff's Office, gives details Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, on the progress of the investigation into the shooting along Interstate 75 on Saturday in London, Ky. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, public information officer with the Laurel County Sheriff's Office, gives details Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, on the progress of the investigation into the shooting along Interstate 75 on Saturday in London, Ky. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, public information officer with the Laurel County Sheriff's Office, gives details Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, on the progress of the investigation into the shooting along Interstate 75 on Saturday in London, Ky. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, Public information Officer with the Laurel County Sheriff's Office, gives details on the progress of the investigation of the shooting along I-75 in London, Ky., Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, Public information Officer with the Laurel County Sheriff's Office, gives an update on the progress of the search for the suspect linked to the shooting along I-75 in London, Ky., Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
This image released by the Mount Vernon Fire Department shows traffic stopped during an active shooting on Interstate 75 north of London, Ky., Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. (Camden Mink/Mount Vernon Fire Department via AP)
This image released by Kentucky’s London Police Department shows Joseph A. Couch, a person of interest in the Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, shootings on Interstate 75 near London, Ky. (London Police Department via AP)
Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, Public information Officer with the Laurel County Sheriff's Office, gives details on the progress of the investigation of the shooting along I-75 in London, Ky., Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
