FACT CHECK: Harris Campaign Claims Video Shows JD Vance Endorsing Project 2025

Elias Atienza | Senior Reporter

Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign claimed on X that a video shows Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance endorsing Project 2025.

Verdict: False

The clip is from 2021. Project 2025 was not created until April 2022, with the project’s Mandate for Leadership published in 2023.

Fact Check:

The Harris presidential campaign has focused on attacking Vance, with the vice president referring to him as “weird,” according to CNN. This comes as she is contemplating her own vice presidential pick, the outlet reported.

The Kamala HQ, which is an account run by the Harris campaign, claimed to show Vance endorsing Project 2025 in a video.

“JD Vance endorses Project 2025: ‘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,'” reads the post.

This claim is false. The interview took place in May 2021, where Vance, who was considering a Senate bid at the time, was interviewed by the Federalist, a right-wing website. Check Your Fact reviewed the entire video and did not find Vance endorsing Project 2025.

Furthermore, Project 2025, which is led by the Heritage Foundation, was established in April 2022, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Heritage Foundation also announced its launch in an April 2022 press release.

“The Heritage Foundation today announced the launch of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, a new initiative exclusively focused on preparing the next administration with conservative policy recommendations and the properly vetted and trained personnel needed to take back America. The 2025 Presidential Transition Project builds off Heritage’s longstanding ‘Mandate for Leadership’ which has been highly influential for presidential administrations since the Reagan administration,” reads part of the press release.

Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership was published in April 2023, according to a press release from the Heritage Foundation announcing the publication.

Representatives for the Trump campaign and Heritage Foundation disputed the Harris campaign’s claims.

“Nowhere in this clip does Senator Vance endorse Project 2025. Kamala’s campaign is desperately lying because they are already losing,” Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign national press secretary, told Check Your Fact in an email.

Matthew Tragesser, a senior communications manager for the Heritage Foundation, said, “JD Vance was talking about a Senate Bid in this interview.” (RELATED: Did A Fox News Chyron Say’ Kamala Could Be The Oldest Elected Female President?)

“Project 2025 started in 2022. The mandate (the book came out in 2023),” Tragesser said.

Ben Domenech, a co-founder of the Federalist and who conducted the interview with Vance, also disputed the claim in a July 28 X post.

“The official Kamala Harris campaign account posts an interview I did with @JDVance, falsely claiming he’s talking about Project 2025 when it’s almost four years before it existed,” Domenech said.

There are connections between Vance and the Heritage Foundation, which leads Project 2025. For example, Vance wrote the foreword of an upcoming book from Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, according to Axios. Former President Donald Trump has distanced himself from the project, the outlet reported.

Check Your Fact reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.

Elias Atienza

Senior Reporter
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