Vice President Kamala Harris’ rapid response team shared a clip from a 3-year-old episode of The Federalist Radio Hour as a “stunning new leak” to claim J.D. Vance supports a conservative think tank’s project to staff the next administration.
On Saturday, the Harris campaign published an interview between Vance with then-Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech and then-Editor Chris Bedford to allege the Republican senator from Ohio “completely endorses Project 2025.” The podcast, however, was taped and published before Vance had even launched his Senate candidacy and almost a year before the Heritage Foundation unveiled its project.
“In a stunning new leak,” a Harris campaign account wrote on X of the public clip, “JD Vance completely endorses Project 2025. Donald Trump can’t turn run from this now.”
The Harris campaign is falsely representing this interview, which took place before Vance even announced a run for the Senate and years before Project 2025 existed. I know this because I’m the interviewer. https://t.co/aoiUN1zfhS
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) July 27, 2024
The clip promoted by the Harris team features Vance, then a venture capitalist, speaking in 2021 about the need for conservatives to escalate their tactics to exercise power. The businessman-turned-turned lawmaker referenced efforts to expand the Supreme Court and the number of members in the Senate as examples where incumbent Democrats are ruthlessly eager to maintain their grip on the country.
“I think the challenge confronting American conservatives is that we have lost every major powerful institution in the country,” Vance said, “except
