The man who wrote Project 2025 has warned his own side to tone down “violent rhetoric” and attacked his old boss as one of the perpetrators.
Paul Dans, who led Project 2025 until July and was behind some of its most radical policy plans, called out remarks from Kevin Roberts, the organization’s president, that appeared to threaten political violence.
“If we’re going to ask the left to tone it down, we have to do our part as well,” Dans told the the Washington Post in an interview published Wednesday. “There’s no place for this sort of violent rhetoric and bellicose taunting, especially in light of the fact that President Trump has now been subject to not one but two assassination attempts.”
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Roberts, who has led Heritage since 2021, asserted on a podcast in July (before Donald Trump’s near-miss assassination attempt) that America is in the midst of a “second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be.”
A spokesperson for Heritage, Noah Weinrich, told the Post that Roberts’ comment was referencing the possibility of violence from the left. “Any attempt to mischaracterize Dr. Roberts’s comments as supportive of violence is grotesque and completely contrary to the observation he was making,” he added.
The promotional material for his upcoming book supporting Project 2025, the Post reported, however, employs similar rhetoric. An early version of the text called for “a political revolution” to “overthrow today’s incarnation of the ruling class” and said that the U.S. “must be destroyed and replaced.” The language was toned down, though, after the attempt on Trump’s life.
Dans also called for Vance to pull his foreword in Roberts' book. A spokesman for Vance declined to comment.
Dans said that he and Roberts disagreed over direction for Project 2025, alleging that Roberts was responsible for much of the backlash received by the highly controversial initiative, which calls for an overhaul of the structure of the federal government. Critics say it would destroy the U.S. government’s system of checks and balances and consolidate too much power in the executive branch.
A Heritage spokesperson suggested that Dans’ criticism was motivated by a dispute with his former employer, and Dans declined to the Post on the terms of his departure from the foundation.
During his presidential campaign, Trump has repeatedly sought to distance himself from the project, while Democrats—like his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris—have cast it as a vision of what America will look like if Trump returns to office.
Although Trump previously said he hasn’t read it and he doesn’t know who is behind it, CNN reported that over 140 people involved in the project previously worked in the former president’s administration, and many have drawn parallels between Trump’s political policies and those endorsed in the initiative.
