At Least Five Contributors to Project 2025 Have History of ‘Racist’ Commentary or ‘White Supremacist Activity’: Report

AP Photo/Jeff Dean.

An analysis of the controversial Project 2025 agenda by USA Today found “at least five” contributors who had a documented history of racist commentary or other white supremacist activity, adding fuel to the fire from critics who have strongly denounced its proposals.

Project 2025 was created by a conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, to lay out an ambitious agenda for a hypothetical second term for former President Donald Trump. The more than 900 page document includes wide-sweeping changes to the executive branch like eliminating the Departments of Education and Commerce, and changing the classification for more than 50,000 federal employees to allow them to be fired for political reasons — and then replaced with MAGA loyalists. Other proposed changes that have drawn criticism include substantial funding cuts or even complete elimination of programs ranging from Head Start to NOAA weather alerts.

Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025 amid all the furor, but resurfaced video clips show Trump praising Heritage and the agenda, at least 140 contributors who worked for Trump were involved in drafting it, and his embattled running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), wrote the foreword to an upcoming book by Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation head who spearheaded the creation of Project 2025.

USA Today national correspondent Will Carless wrote about the analysis in an article published Monday morning, noting that Project 2025’s critics have denounced it as “a deeply racist endeavor that actually is aimed at dismantling many protections and aid programs for Americans of color.” Michael Harriot, a contributor at The Grio, went so far as to call Project 2025 “a kind of white supremacist manifesto.”

The list of named Project 2025 contributors “adds to the concern,” wrote Carless, with the paper’s analysis finding “at least five of them have a history of racist writing or statements, or white supremacist activity.”

Among those five contributors are those who openly associate with white supremacists, who have advocated for the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, and who have made racist commentary themselves:

Richard Hanania, a right wing academic whose work has been touted by Vance and Elon Musk. Hanania was unmasked by a HuffPo exposé last year for writing for multiple white supremacist and alt-right websites under a pen name, voicing racist and misogynistic views, including support for eugenics and forced sterilization of “low IQ” people, whom he claimed were more likely to be Black.

Corey Stewart, who won the 2018 GOP primary for Virginia’s Senate seat but lost in the general election amid outrage over a long association with white supremacists and vocal praise for the Confederacy. According to USA Today, Stewart gave a speech in 2017 in which he said he was proud to stand next to the Confederate flag and spoke glowingly about defending “our heritage.” Multiple Stewart staffers and advisers had documented ties to “outspoken racists” like Jason Kessler, who was a key organizer for the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Michael Anton, another one who wrote pseudonymously to decry “[t]he ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty,” which he claimed would make the U.S. electorate become “more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle.” He also has repeatedly argued to end birthright citizenship in essays that have been “widely criticized as factually incorrect and misleading” and even “very racist,” reported USA Today.

Stephen Moore, who withdrew his name from consideration for a Federal Reserve Board appointment during the Trump administration “amid scrutiny for his misogynistic and racist jokes and commentary.”

Jason Richwine, who wrote in his 2009 PhD thesis on “IQ and Immigration Policy” that “[n]o one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.” The thesis was uncovered in 2013 amid outrage over other writing he had published claiming Hispanic immigrants were parasites and repeating the claim they had inferior intelligence, and led to Richwine’s resignation from the Heritage Foundation.

USA Today reached out to these contributors for comment but did not receive a reply.