OXON HILL, Md.—The Heritage Foundation released its policy and staffing recommendations for the next conservative president at its leadership summit on Thursday.
In addition to the recommendations for the next president, the project will also create a conservative talent database and build transition teams, according to Dans, who said the objective is to bring a new generation of conservatives to Washington.
“Mandate for Leadership” has been a quadrennial series the foundation produced since January 1981, when Ronald Reagan began his presidency.
“But this one is different, not just because it’s early; it’s because it is not the Heritage position,” said Steven Groves, a co-editor of the book. “It’s a broad consensus within the conservative community and things about what the next conservative president should do.”
Multiple authors—including Rick Dearborn, executive director of transition for former President Donald Trump—stated that the book would make a transition team’s life much easier.
Kiron Skinner, the author of the chapter for the State Department and a former director of policy planning, described the book as an “intellectual foundation for a larger conversation both on policy and personnel.
“It doesn’t get the final answer. But it begins to build a cohesive, 21st century way of looking at policy from a conservative perspective.”
Donald Devine, former director of the office of personnel management under the Reagan administration, said the “creative process” of over a year in writing the book brought conservatives together, and that was “the most important part” of the project for him.
According to him, modern conservatism looks at balancing the tension between a myriad of factors such as traditions, freedom, economics, and social policy. Conservatives agree with the principle but differ on the solutions, and the book-writing process helped lay out the differences in the open and sort out a consolidated approach, he said.
“Reagan still has the correct basic structure for us to put it back together again. And that’s kind of my whole interest in this thing is: getting us back so that we’re still with the same principles, but with different effects on things that have changed,” Devine told The Epoch Times, highlighting a few changes such as the threat from communist China and the increased bureaucracy in Washington.
In his opening remarks, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, told the audience, “Welcome to the fight that will determine the next 15 years in the history of the conservative movement in the United States of America.”
Devine said it might take more than 15 years for the next conservative president to lead the country if President Joe Biden gets reelected. Devine joined the conservative movement in 1959, and Reagan took office in 1980—a 21-year span.
Responding to whether a presidential candidate like Trump would adopt any of the recommendations, Dans said the plan is candidate-agnostic.
“It’s the movement-wide, conservative marker we’re setting down,” he added.
Spencer Chretien, associate director of Project 2025 and a former special assistant to the president, said the plan’s approach is bottom-up.
“We had people of all different levels of experience contributing to it. And the final product is a reflection of that barnyard approach,” he added, referring to participation from the over 50 conservative groups and 400 leaders.
