Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley distanced his party from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — an administration-in-waiting crafted by the right-wing think tank — telling Spectrum News in Milwaukee on Monday that “we have absolutely nothing to do with Project 2025.”

What You Need To Know

  • In an interview with Spectrum News in Milwaukee on Monday, Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley distanced his party from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025

  • Whatley's comments come as Trump, in a separate interview taped last week and released Monday, named one of the report’s authors, Tom Homan, as someone he would appoint in a second term to help oversee his immigration policies

  • According to a CNN analysis, at least 140 veterans of the Trump administration, including six former Cabinet secretaries, helped craft Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” report

  • Whatley also discussed the impact the assassination attempt on Trump over the weekend will have on the convention

“That project is a complete standalone entity. It has nothing to do with the RNC. It has nothing to do with the Trump campaign,” Whatley said. “There may or may not be some good ideas in there, but right now, we're focused on our platform, which we adopted at the RNC and is going to be taken up by the convention.”

The RNC’s platform committee approved a 16-page policy document last week, far shorter than previous iterations of the party’s platform and a fraction of the size of Project 2025’s 922-page planning document — which was authored by dozens of Trump allies and former administration and campaign officials. Trump has also distanced himself from the project and some of the hard-right policies it proposes that have become a focal point of the Biden campaign.

But in an interview taped last week and that aired on Monday morning, Trump named one of the report’s authors, Tom Homan, as someone he would appoint in a second term to help oversee his immigration policies. Homan is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first Trump administration, when he was a key figure behind the policy of separating migrant children from their parents.

“I have Tom Homan lined up, we have the greatest people,” Trump told Fox News host Harris Faulkner when discussing Vice President Kamala Harris and border policy. Trump also said “we’re bringing back Tom Homan” at a Florida rally last week.

According to a CNN analysis, at least 140 veterans of the Trump administration, including six former Cabinet secretaries, helped craft Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” report.

In his interview with Spectrum News, Whatley also discussed the impact the assassination attempt on Trump over the weekend will have on the convention.

“I think obviously the president has said that he intends to write a new speech and have a different conversation with the voters, but our conversation with all American families really doesn’t change, because this entire convention is about speaking directly to the American people about the issues that they're worried about, right?” Whatley said. “This is about jobs and the economy. It's about safety. It's about security. And certainly safety takes on a whole other connotation in light of an event like this.”

When asked if Americans would hear from Trump each of the four nights of the convention, which runs through Thursday, Whatley said “stay tuned.”

Whatley, who was handpicked by Trump to run the party after the former president successfully beat back his primary rivals, spoke of the importance of his home state North Carolina, whose state Republican Party he ran. 

“We're very proud of the role that North Carolina is playing in this convention. Both [RNC vice chair] Lara Trump and I, coming from North Carolina, obviously, have a very soft spot in our heart for it,” Whatley said. “North Carolina is a very, very critical, important battleground state and the state party down there, led by Jason Simmons, is doing a fantastic job of making sure that we're in a position to be able to carry it for the third time in a row for Donald Trump.”