In his maiden speech as the Democratic Party’s vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz attacked his Republican opponent, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
He argued that Vance’s close ties to Project 2025 are clear.
“JD Vance literally, literally wrote the foreword for the architect of the Project 2025 agenda,” Walz said Aug. 6 in Philadelphia, Vice President Kamala Harris standing behind him.
Walz’s description is accurate.
Project 2025, led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, is a 900-page manual published in 2023 that includes detailed policies that the next Republican presidential administration could apply.
The Trump-Vance campaign has sought to distance itself from Project 2025, which included a foreword from Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts titled “A Promise to America.”
Roberts’ forthcoming book, “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America,” includes a foreword by Vance, HarperCollins Publishers’ website and other marketing materials show.
In leading the Heritage Foundation, Roberts has promoted Project 2025 and has been called on its leaders and architects by numerous news outlets, including The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Axios and PolitiFact.
In his opening to Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” Roberts said that “The Heritage Foundation is facilitating this work,” and called it “an agenda prepared by and for conservatives who will be ready on Day One of the next Administration to save our country from the brink of disaster.”
When the Heritage Foundation confirmed that Project 2025 Director Paul Dans had stepped down, Roberts took over as the project’s head. Dans served in Trump’s administration in the Office of Personnel Management.
Before former President Donald Trump in July selected Vance as his 2024 running mate, Vance touted his involvement in “Dawn’s Early Light.”
“I was thrilled to write the foreword for this incredible book, which contains a bold new vision for the future of conservatism in America,” Vance wrote in a June 19 X post.
Broadside Books, a HarperCollins imprint that specializes in conservative literature, is publishing the book. At 304 pages, it “outlines a peaceful ‘Second American Revolution’ for voters looking to shift the power back into the hands of the people,” the publisher’s description says.
“Dawn’s Early Light” was originally scheduled to be released in September, but has been postponed to the post-Election Day date of Nov. 12. Vance’s name is on the book’s cover, according to the publisher’s digital preview. The book’s marketing strategy has changed in recent weeks, however, following an assassination attempt against Trump, heightened pushback against Project 2025 and Vance’s selection for the Republican ticket.
The New York Times reported July 31 that Broadside Books removed a downloadable advanced copy of the book that had been made available to reviewers and booksellers, removed from the front cover art that showed an image of a burned out match and swapped out its original subtitle, “Burning Down Washington to Save America,” for “Taking Back Washington to Save America.”
In an Aug. 11 interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Vance tempered his connection to Project 2025 and called Roberts a friend — a word Roberts has also used to describe Vance.
“Project 2025 is not affiliated with the Trump campaign,” Vance said. “Kevin Roberts is a friend of mine, but I wouldn’t say that he speaks for the president in the same way I wouldn’t say that he speaks for me.”
The Associated Press on July 30 shared an excerpt of an advance copy of Vance’s foreword that read, “Never before has a figure with Roberts’s depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism. 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.”
The New Republic reported July 30 that it also obtained a copy of the foreword, which it reprinted on its website. There is no mention of Project 2025 in the excerpt attributed to Vance. It contains the passage shared by the AP and goes on to liken “modern liberalism” to “a well-meaning gardener” who treats a garden with chemicals, killing both weeds and “many of the good things.” A modern conservative movement, the excerpt said, needs to recultivate the garden:
“The old conservative movement argued if you just got government out of the way, natural forces would resolve problems—we are no longer in this situation and must take a different approach. As Kevin Roberts writes, ‘It’s fine to take a laissez-faire approach when you are in the safety of the sunshine. But when the twilight descends and you hear the wolves, you’ve got to circle the wagons and load the muskets.’”
A Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson pointed us to evidence including Vance’s July 19 X post, as well as book readings and speeches Vance has participated in at the Heritage Foundation.
When we asked Vance’s team about Walz’s claim, the campaign responded with an Aug. 9 statement from spokesperson William Martin reiterating that Vance “has previously said that he has no involvement with (Project 2025) and has plenty of disagreements with what they’re calling for.”
Our ruling
Walz said Vance “literally wrote the foreword for the architect of the Project 2025 agenda.”
Vance wrote the forward for a book authored by Roberts, the Heritage Foundation’s president and a Project 2025 leader.
We rate this claim True.
This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. See the sources for this fact check here.
