Covering the Heritage Foundation’s “Policy Fest”

The Heritage Foundation, the organizing responsible for Project 2025, is hosting a “Policy Fest” today at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. You can watch here.

The opening video shows Biden stumbling over his words at the recent presidential debate. The video has a lot of stuff about “fighting the radical left.” I’ll keep an eye on this. Come back to this post.

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Vivek Ramaswamy starts thing off to “set the tone” of the day. Compares the Trump assassination to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Says that on Saturday night we were a “hair’s breath” away from a “Civil War.” Calls for the defeat of a “poisonous ideology” on the Left and the liberation of Americans from such an ideology. Ramaswamy is much more subdued today. He is blaming our problems on the “deep state.” So far it seems like the post-assassination-attempt GOP call for “unity” is little more than a moderation of tone.

Andrew Olivastro, an advancement officer from the Heritage Foundation, comes out to talk to Ramaswamy and says, “I am from Project 2025 and I am here to win.”

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Now up is a panel with Utah Senator Mike Lee and Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist and Fox NewsLee says the assassination attempt showed Trump’s “moral clarity” and “moral courage.” Lee keeps saying “they failed” to take Trump’s life. Who is they? As far we know, the shooter acted alone.

Hemingway announces the dismissal of the classified documents case against Trump. The crowd cheers. Lee approves of Judge Cannon’s decision.

Hemingway asks Lee about Biden’s call for national unity.” Lee says that Biden’s speech was just a form of “manipulation,” an attempt for the president to say “everyone unite around me.” Says Biden’s speech last night was a “missed opportunity” because he did not call for Jack Smith and the Georgia attorney general office to stop the investigations into Trump. Hemingway says that Trump is sometimes uncivil, but Biden’s rhetoric is much worse. Hemingway agrees with Lee: Any Biden call for “national unity” must stop what Hemingway and Lee believe to be the politically-motivated criminal charges against Trump.

Hemingway now brings out Paul Dans, the Executive Director of Project 2025. He says that we need to lower the political rhetoric in the country and then blames Biden for such rhetoric. Hemingway agrees. Dans says that progressives don’t understand Project 2025 and have mischaracterized it. Blames the country’s problem on intellectual “elites.” Hollingway starts talking about the “fever dream” of progressivism advanced by Woodrow Wilson and FDR. Hemingway and Dans believe that the left-wing is targeting people associated with Project 2025. Dans calls this an “abuse of power.” No mention of all the cases where people invoked “Trump” in connection with violence, threats, and alleged assaults.”

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The event now turns to foreign policy and the border.

A video tries to connect George Washington to an isolationist foreign policy and the so-called “open borders” policy of the Democrats.

Heritage Foundation VP Derrick Morgan takes the stage. Introduces former Trump official Elbridge Colby. Colby says that Biden’s internationalism takes on a “sacred” quality. He argues that Trump’s approach to foreign policy was more secular. It is based on common sense, not religion. This is basically a defense of an “America First” foreign policy. Colby really believes we are on course for a war with China.

It is worth noting that this Heritage Foundation event is quite different from other conservative events such as CPAC or the Christian Right’s “Road to Victory” conferences. Agree or not, the guests are intelligent. There is a lot of deep policy discussion going on here.

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Eric Prince is next. He is a businessman and brother of former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Says we have a “bloated” and “incompetent” national security operation. Compares the Trump assassination attempt to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. He suggests that World War I began because of a national security problem. Prince criticized a “neo-conservative” view of U.S. foreign. Suggests that the Ukrainian army cannot beat the Russians. Criticizes Biden administration for not doing more to punish Gaza. Wants the defense department to “spend less.”

Prince ends by criticizing the Biden response to the murdered Haiti missionaries. Says Biden showed no courage. But Trump did show courage in rescuing American hostage Phil Walton in 2020.

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Now a panel with former congressman and Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz and Trump immigration officials Tom Homan and Mark Morgan. Homan wants the government to follow immigration law. Morgan praises Trump’s border. Says Biden “intentionally unsecured the border.” Homan said Biden’s “unsecured the border on purpose.” Homan is angry. Says Trump was “one bad ass president” on immigration and he “can’t wait for him to get back.” Says that immigrants crimes are up, sex trafficking is up, and fentanyl is coming across the border. So far nothing said about Trump’s refusal to accept the bipartisan border agreement written by conservative senator Jim Lankford. Again both of these guys are pissed off. Morgan says that Secretary Mayorkas is lying whenever his “lips are moving.”

Now Chaffetz is fired-up. He’s attacking Biden and Kamala Harris. Talking about the “nefarious people” who are now in the United States. Says that these undocumented immigrants don’t just want to “clean houses” and “work at Taco Bell.”

Homan calls for a “historic deportation operation” beginning in 2025. Gets applause. He says, “if you are in this country illegally, you better look over your shoulder” after Trump gets back into office. Morgan says the problem at the border is not about “immigration,” but about “security.” Morgan says he is “sick and tired” about “the BS line” that American citizens commit more crimes than “illegal aliens.” Morgan keeps bringing up Laken Riley. Says the immigrant threat to America is “already here.”

Homan says “I’m hated by most people in this country and I don’t give a shit.” Says that as he speaks today women are being raped by cartel members. “Do not tell me that this administration’s policy is humane.” He says “come at me all you want, hate me all you want, I’m doing the right thing for this country. President Trump is the greatest president I’ve ever worked for.”

Morgan goes after the “liberal media” for not reporting about “dead migrants.”

Again, still nothing about the Lankford-Sinema-Murphy immigration bill.

Homan says Trump’s wall “works.” He adds, “walls save lives.” Call the members of the border patrol “national heroes.”

Morgan says that Americans started building a wall on the Mexican border in the Clinton area. Walls are effective. Praises Trump for his “infrastructure” work in expanding this wall because before Trump the wall “sucked.”

Homan says that any GOP congressman who did not vote to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas should “be gone.”

Morgan says that Trump is a man of “strength.” He mentions the picture of Trump lifting his fist after getting shot.

Lunch break.

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A band is playing the Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours.” They are pretty good.

The cover band has now moved on to “Dancing Queen” by ABBA.

OK, now the cover band has moved on to “Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker.

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The focus this afternoon is on the family and the “God-given right to live freely.”

First speaker this afternoon is Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation. He wrote a Ph.D dissertation at the University of Texas on slavery in Louisiana under James Sidbury, but I doubt he will be sharing anything from that work. Roberts asks audience if they are ready to “civilly” and “peacefully” take “our country back.” In reference to the assassination on Trump he says, “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” Roberts believes that the “vast majority of Americans” think it is “time to get their sovereignty back.” Roberts says that the progressives don’t like the conservative movement because conservatives threaten their “power.”

Roberts keeps pushing Project 2025. It’s goal, he says, “is to make Washington less part of our lives.” He stresses community and family as the bedrock of American culture. Says that Corey Comperatore , the man killed at Saturday’s Trump rally, as a model of family, community, virtue, and faith.

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Panel on the family with Liz Wheeler, Roger Severino, Sarah Parshall Perry, and Daniel Cochrane.

Wheeler says Trump was almost assassinated because he upholds Heritage Foundation values. She identifies herself as a culture warrior. References Antonio Gramsci and “cultural hegemony.” She says that the Left is trying to change the culture from the ground up. Wheeler implies that the GOP is NOT using Gramscian tactics. (Isn’t that what Project 2025 is all about?) Wheeler notes that the English translator of Gramsci is Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s father. I think she sees this as some kind of a zinger.

Discussion about how “big tech” is hurting children. They are now going after TikTok, the platform that Donald Trump recently joined. Cochrane how easy it is for kids to watch pornography on social media and adult platforms.

Now the conversation turns to TITLE IX and the teaching of LGBTQ identity in schools. Liberty University graduate Sarah Parshall Perry goes after critical race theory, LGBTQIA curriculum, and drag queen story hour. (Parshall Perry is the daughter of longtime Christian Right activist Janet Parshall). No mention of her alma mater’s Cleary Act violations. Parshall summarizes how The Heritage Foundation is working to define “sex” as “male and female.”

Discussion of a child’s inability to make life-altering decisions related to gender-transition surgery. Parshall Perry is worried that the culture is facilitating a child’s “mythical belief system” about their gender.

Wheeler proposes tax-breaks for people who have a lot of children (as they are trying in Hungary). In other words, if a man and a woman have four kids they don’t have to pay income tax (or something like that). Severino wants a tax system that rewards work, marriage, and children.

Frankly, a lot of the stuff said in this session makes a lot of sense. If someone wants to change their gender after they turn eighteen, they are free to do that. But not before.

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The discussion now moves to the economy and energy. Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma starts things off. He is praising himself for not “doing a mask mandate” in Oklahoma schools. He uses this as an attack on teacher’s unions. “We are pushing back,” he says. He adds: “rich people already have school choice.” Stitt is rambling on about everything under the sun, from energy to the national debt to gender politics to fatherhood to Joe Biden to the founding fathers. I guess all of this is connected by the idea that The Heritage Foundation wants to turn America into Oklahoma writ-large.

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Session on the economy. I am going to pass on this one. I’ll be back when Tucker Carlson takes the stage.

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Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts is back. He is introducing Tucker Carlson. Kevin Roberts says that Donald Trump “personifies” the conservative movement. Praises the VP pick of “our great friend” J.D. Vance. He introduces Carlson as a “doctor of truth.”

Says “political people” just want “power.” He says “it’s crazy to watch people around power.” Describes the VP candidates as “jumping at a flank stake” that Trump holds over their heads. On J.D. Vance: “Every bad person I ever met in Washington was aligned against J.D. Vance.” Says that Vance is “one of the only members of congress in a happy marriage.” Adds that Vance is getting attacked because he doesn’t believe the U.S. government should be involved in killing people.

Says the problems with the country are not merely “political,” but it is a spiritual battle. Says instead of using terms like “leftism” or “communism” to describe The Heritage Foundation’s enemies, these enemies should be called “unhuman.” Politics, Carlson says, essentially boils down to an attack on Christians. Carlson sites the French Revolution, the Mao Revolution, and the Russian Revolution as anti-Christian revolutions.

Carlson praises Trump for standing up after he was shot “in the face” and yelling “fight, fight, fight.” He adds, “a brave leader gives people heart.” Trump is a “brave leader” who Carlson says has now locked up the presidency.

Carlson says that most American politicians don’t care about the economy or immigration. They only care about war: “They want the power to kill.” Trump has stood in the way of their killing. When he wins in November Trump will “roll back this insanity.”

Carlson now sits down with Kevin Roberts to talk.

Roberts ask Carlson how to convince people to join the “movement” that “Trump has built.” Carlson says it will be hard to convince people. Goes on to say that fathers who hear that their kids are getting taught about sex in school should go to the school and beat-up the teachers. This kind of masculinity–displayed by Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania–is missing in the United States. Carlson: “Anyone who watched the video [of Trump getting shot] should come away saying: ‘that guy should be leading the country.'” Roberts follows-up with a reference to C.S. Lewis’s “Men Without Chests.”

Carlson turns to Michigan governor Gretchen Witmer for being weak. Says she has a “facelift.”

Carlson wonders why MSNBC and CNN are still on the air because “no one watches them.”

(As Carlson speaks, J.D. Vance is taking a victory lap on the floor of the RNC Convention.)

Roberts asks Carlson for advice on what to do locally to “expand the ranks of this movement” locally. Carlson appeals to the local people of Butler stopping a guy climbing a letter with a rifle. He adds that the only way to act locally is to be brave. Liberal members of school boards, Carlson says, “should be in prison” and must be met with “moral force.” Now Carlson is referencing Ghandi, calling for peaceful resistance: “It’s a simple as that.” He follows this up with “don’t give up your guns.”

Roberts says that politics, for the Left, “is religion.” (The implication is that The Heritage Foundation does not do politics. Roberts can’t believe this.) He asks Carlson to talk about “the good life.” Carlson says that happiness comes by living in reality, not an artificial word. Says he likes to smell things and hang around animals and trees. Hard to argue with that. Says that “we accept technological progress as progress when its actually tyranny.” Won’t allow a cell phone in his bedroom in the same way he won’t allow a circus elephant in his bedroom. Says we should get married.

Carlson concludes that the country can only hold together around national unity on the question of “what it means to be an American?” Says only Trump can bring such unity. Says that since the assassination attempt, the “social sanction” against supporting Trump is lifting. Cites Elon Musk’s recent endorsement of Trump. Calls this a “prerequisite of national unity.” Biden can’t bring this unity. Carlson says he “hates Joe Biden.”

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Thanks for following along today.