Milwaukee, Wisconsin – In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts revealed the nonprofit's ties to former President Donald Trump and its transition project.

Trump first distanced himself from Heritage's Project 2025 (a policy brief and personnel list created to help elect the next Republican president), claiming in a Truth Social post that he knew nothing about the project or who was running it. Speculation Within mediaThis comes after weeks of Democrats attacking President Trump and Project 2025.

In an interview with The Daily Caller on Tuesday, Roberts referred to the former president's comments and said the project is intended to be a “restaurant menu” for the next administration to use to make policy and personnel choices.

“I have a strong personal relationship with President Trump and I think that will continue, and Project 2025 is fundamentally a reflection of the entire conservative movement,” Roberts said. “We are in no way trying to speak for the presidential campaign. We wish President Trump continued great campaigning, and in fact, it's very important for us, who lead nonprofits, to be reminded of the purpose of his campaign and its distance.”

“Great ideas and great people always rise to the top, and President Trump is one of the greatest CEOs in modern history, both as president and in business,” he continued. “And with Project 2025, we at Heritage are doing the same thing we've been doing for over 50 years: bringing together people and putting policy together.”

“We know who makes the decisions. President Trump is the boss. We don't mind it; we celebrate it.”

Trump's denial was stern, saying “some of the things they've said are completely ridiculous and terrible.” This came after Roberts, in an interview with Steve Bannon's War Room, said the United States was in the midst of a second American Revolutionary War and that “it would remain bloodless if the left let it.”

The Biden campaign has featured the video, claiming that Roberts is calling for violence. Said The paper suggests that the former president and his allies “dream of a violent revolution that would destroy the very concept of America.”

Several Guessed Roberts said the comments prompted the former president to distance himself from Project 2025, saying the outcry against Project 2025 overall was “driven by misinterpretations by the left.”

Roberts told Kohler that he wasn't advocating violence, but was instead describing right-wing pacifism as opposed to left-wing violence.

“What I was trying to say is that the right, the political right, especially those of us who work on policy goals, are always peaceful. The whole point of what Project 2025 and Heritage does is that we're only focused on the ballot box and policy implementation, and that's peaceful,” Roberts said. “But if you look at recent history, well, the last 50 years, it's the radical left that's actually instigating violence. And I think at the end of the day, they've been looking for opportunities to reverse that, and it's all a shame,” Roberts told the Caller.

Roberts went on to explain that he referenced the Second American War because it was a phrase used by former President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, and quipped that Americans needed better civics education.

“But just to summarise at this point, I think it's really important that we don't give the left the opportunity to do what they always want to do, which is to appropriate our language. So the point of mentioning the Second American Revolution is to rely on a speech that Ronald Reagan gave in 1985, and he was basically saying the same thing, which is that this is about institutional change,” Roberts continued. “This is about changing our communities. And that's not only bloodless for us on the centre-right, we don't even think about the opposite,” he said.

“That's what the left is planning to do, and that's what the left is always planning to do, so we're being very clear that what we're talking about is restoring America,” he said. (Related article: Conservative groups are building up manpower to take over the government)

The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 previously told The Caller that it made it clear from the beginning that the plan did not represent any particular candidate or campaign. Despite its denials, the Biden campaign has set up a website dedicated to linking the plan to Trump.

Project 2025 will destroy America.
⁰⁰
Let's find out. It's easy: https://t.co/GFccEpzfUs pic.twitter.com/jNW94z0e0Y

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 10, 2024

Roberts told Caller that while he has a close personal relationship with Trump, he hasn't actually spoken to the former president since his comments about Project 2025.

“I assume [we will talk soon] “It's not necessarily because of any particular comment, but just the natural course of things, because part of my role leading the Heritage Foundation is to speak to political leaders.”

As Trump's lead widened, the former president's sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, began vetting candidates for their father's administration. according to Roberts did not say whether he had been in contact with the former president's sons, but told the Caller that such conversations were expected to take place in the coming weeks.

Above all, Roberts emphasized that Project 2025's goal is to be a useful behind-the-scenes tool for any future administration.

“We've been working behind the scenes, basically studying policy diligently, designed to put together this vast menu of options, and that's what this is,” Roberts told the Caller.

“I don't think there's a single conservative in this country who would agree with all of this. It's like the essence of a restaurant menu, and this project is really about that. But I think there are close to 2,000 great people who are participating in this project because of the media attention, in addition to the 12,000 people who are already in the personnel database that we've put together.”