Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign falsely claimed GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) endorsed Project 2025, a proposal from the Heritage Foundation that Democrats have been trying to pin on former President Donald Trump, in a 2021 video.
CLAIM: The Kamala HQ account account on X shared a clip of Vance in an interview claiming that he endorsed Project 2025 even though he made no mention of it in the clip shared.
“JD Vance endorses Project 2025,” the account said before going on to cite the following quote: “We really need to be really ruthless when it comes to the exercise of power… I don’t think there’s a compromise that we’re gonna come with… Unless we overthrow them in some way, we’re gonna keep losing.”
VERDICT: False. Harris’s campaign is claiming that Vance is endorsing Project 2025 in this 2021 video, but the Heritage Foundation would not even publicly introduce the proposal until years later according to its website. The Project 2025 website shows the proposal was not even launched until early 2023, well more than a year after this Vance clip was recorded.
“No where in this clip does he endorse Project 2025. This interview is from May 18, 2021, which was years before Project 2025 even existed. Why is the Kamala campaign so desperately lying about JD Vance?,” said Republican strategist Andrew Surabian, a Trump campaign and Vance adviser.
Project 2025 has become a bogeyman of sorts Democrats have been trying to pin on Trump, even though he has never endorsed it. Paul Dans, director of the Heritage Foundation, said it has been subject to a misinformation campaign.
“For the last 100 years, the progressives have built an administrative state,” Dans told attendees at the Heritage Foundation’s “Policy Fest.” “Really, it’s the anti-democracy at work.”