Project 2025 chief Kevin Roberts has vowed to back President-elect Donald Trump’s embattled defense pick Pete Hegseth with a cool million bucks.
The Heritage Foundation president said the group will be spending the money to convince GOP senators, some of whom are reportedly not sold on Hegseth, that he is the man for the Pentagon job.
Project 2025 is a 900-page federal policy agenda drafted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative D.C. think tank headed up by far-right lobbyist and alleged dog murderer Roberts.
Project 2025 proposes putting an end to the so-called Deep State by realigning the entirety of the federal bureaucracy under Trump’s direct control and replacing thousands of government employees with political appointees.
Hegseth’s ascendancy to the defense seat hangs in the balance due to various accusations against him and his character, including an alleged sexual assault and claims that he would drink at work while at Fox News. He denies these claims.
It appears that Hegseth now has the backing of Project 2025.
“It’ll be messaging right now with their constituents about how out of step they are with the Trump agenda,” Roberts told AP of Republican senators who haven’t backed the former Fox & Friends Weekend host.
Roberts argued that criticism of Hegseth was being led by “the establishment” and said the second Trump term will be the “beginning of the golden era of America’s next chapter.”
“I think we’re in the middle of a re-founding of this country,” he said.
Trump said during his campaign for re-election that he had “nothing to do with” Project 2025, but has since recruited at least a half dozen architects and supporters of the right-wing manifesto, according to The New York Times.
“President-elect Trump has dropped all pretense and is charging ahead hand in hand with the right-wing industry players shaping an agenda he denied for the whole campaign,” Tony Carrk, the executive director of Accountable.US, a watchdog group, told the Times.
Despite the media maelstrom around Hegseth, Trump is still publicly backing him. He wrote on his Truth Social account Friday morning: “Pete Hegseth is doing very well. His support is strong and deep, much more so than the Fake News would have you believe.”
He added that Hegseth was a “great student” with a “Military state of mind.”
The president-elect went on: “He will be a fantastic, high energy, Secretary of Defense, one who leads with charisma and skill. Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!”
