The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal published a ridiculous hit piece on Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts this week, claiming Heritage has been led astray by Roberts, who has supposedly “steered the venerable think tank away from some of its longtime conservative principles to court Donald Trump, only to be spurned by the temperamental former President he and his institution courted.”
The editors are referring to the Trump campaign’s recent move to distance itself from Heritage’s Project 2025, a hefty document outlining conservative policy recommendations for a potential incoming Republican administration (Heritage has published something like it every four years since 1981). Democrats and the media have been attacking — and brazenly lying about — Project 2025 lately in a desperate attempt to distract from the Biden-Harris administration’s massive policy failures. Unfortunately, the Trump campaign responded to these attacks not by calling out the lies but by disavowing Project 2025.
In fairness, Project 2025 was never formally connected to the Trump campaign. Roberts himself has said it’s meant to be “a stockpile of conservative policy recommendations from which our leaders can pick and choose,” and that of course there will be disagreement and debate, which is a healthy and normal part of the democratic process.
For the WSJ editorial board, all of this is a cautionary tale about what happens to conservatives who abandon their principles to “court the political flavor of the day.” What an outrageous and lazy smear. Roberts hasn’t abandoned his conservative principles. On the contrary, he’s stuck
