The American people “should be taking a victory lap” because of the success of President Donald Trump’s implementation of Project 2025, the head of the Heritage Foundation told National Public Radio April 30.
In an interview with “All Things Considered” host Juana Summers, Kevin Roberts expressed unbridled enthusiasm for the first 100 days of the Trump administration and deflected attention for the conservative playbook he created and Trump’s staff is implementing.
Banner on the side of the Heritage Foundation’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Source: X)
By outside tracking, the Trump administration already has implemented at least 41% of the controversial plan to reshape the federal government. Much of that implementation is being directed behind the scenes by Russ Vought, co-author of Project 2025 and now Trump’s director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Summers began the segment by noting the recent installation of a seven-story tall banner on a Washington, D.C., office building that says, “America’s Back, the first 100 days,” and features the face of Donald Trump and a list of his agenda items. That building is headquarters for the Heritage Foundation.
The NPR host asked Summers if seeing so much of Project 2025 implemented was “validating” for his organization.
“We’re honestly not worried about being validated,” Roberts replied. “We’ve been around 53 years, and by that, I don’t imply any hubris. … What I mean, instead, is that the American people are the ones who should be taking a victory lap because what President Trump and Vice President Vance and what I think is the best cabinet in modern American political history have done is begin the dismantling of the administrative state that gives self-governance and power back to the American people.”
In the interview, Roberts affirms every aspect of the Trump administration — from the chaos of DOGE to the chaos of on-again, off-again tariffs.
He claimed for every federal job there is “a small accrual, if you will, of expense and federal power that comes at the expense of other Americans who have lost their jobs because of that centralized power.”
That’s one reason the “bloated” “administrative state” needs to be dramatically reduced, he said.
Reducing the number of federal employees will reduce “centralized power” and return power to individual Americans, he asserted.
President of the Heritage Foundation Kevin D. Roberts (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Asked if he thinks even more workforce cuts are needed, he replied: “Well, we’re huge supporters of the total elimination of the U.S. Department of Education, not because we want to issue any harm to education — quite the opposite. We believe, looking at our data since the creation of the department since 1979, that after spending $1.6 trillion on that department and, of course, having a nationwide bipartisan effort to have excellent education, all we’ve seen, unfortunately — we lament this — is mediocrity. So the elimination of that department is a good start.”
He claimed DOGE, with the help of artificial intelligence technology, is rooting out “redundancies” in the federal workforce.
Summer then asked: “How do you evaluate the success of DOGE? Are you happy with the work that it’s doing?”
Roberts replied: “DOGE is a wonderful creation of President Trump and Elon Musk. It is an excellent example of how President Trump’s instincts match the — something the conservative movement has long wanted, as you know, which is a reduction in the expense of the federal government but obviously doing so in a way that’s very accelerated. We think that DOGE is ahead of schedule.”
“DOGE is a wonderful creation of President Trump and Elon Musk.”
After a back-and-forth about the actual dollar amounts being cut, Roberts asserted: “It’s remarkable that, as we’ve seen, the federal government gets so large and bloated since the New Deal that, in a span of only 3.5 months, DOGE has identified $160 billion in savings. Time will tell about how much they, in fact, save. Our estimates at Heritage are that they’ll be much closer to a trillion dollars.”
More important than the dollar savings, however, is that they have changed Washington, he continued.
All this is a good start, he said, but “we need years and decades of that to get this country back on track.”
Regarding mass deportations, Roberts again applauded every aspect of Trump’s plan, which is among the most controversial actions of any president in modern history.
Juana Summers
Asked about the Constitutionally guaranteed due process for immigrants and all other people, Roberts said: “A hundred percent. Illegal aliens are owed one process, and that’s an immigration court hearing. They’ve received that.”
He cited the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, without naming him, as “a great example of the absurdity of some of these legal claims.”
Roberts emphasized the word “facilitate” in the U.S. Supreme Court’s order to return Garcia, who even the Trump administration admitted was removed wrongly. Roberts insisted Garcia was not removed wrongly and “has been found twice in an immigration court to be a member and leader of MS-13.”
When Summers interjected that Garcia’s lawyers tell a different story about his past, Roberts replied: “His lawyers are well-paid by the radical left, and they’re lying.”
The Trump administration has full executive power to deport people like Garcia, he said. Such deportations are “not only fair, we celebrate it, and it’s one of the reasons we put the banner on the side of our building. It’s glorious.”
Is it possible the Trump administration will go too far and deport legal American citizens to Salvadoran prisons, he was asked next.
“I don’t think they go too far,” he replied.
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan — a former visiting fellow at Heritage Foundation — “makes the decisions he does on the sake of the everyday American, not for the sake of illegal aliens who should never have come here to begin with.”
Summers pressed Roberts again about Trump’s threat to deport to Salvadoran prisons American citizens. “I’m not worried about it,” he replied.
Rather than worrying about that, Americans should be focused on “the negative effects” of 21 million people who are in the country illegally, he said.
After Roberts twice refused to answer the direct question about Trump’s threat to deport legal citizens, Summers said, “I’m going to move on to another topic here.”
Roberts replied tartly: “I bet you will.”
He and the Heritage Foundation have been vocal critics of NPR and advocate defunding it from the federal budget.
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