No, A Former Republican Congressman Now Backing Harris Did Not Author Project 2025

The right-wing Heritage Foundation and former Oklahoma congressman Mickey Edwards agree on one thing: Edwards had nothing to do with Project 2025, Heritage’s transition plan for a Donald Trump win in November that Democrats have turned into a political millstone.

“I have no relationship whatsoever with the Heritage Foundation and have not had for a very long time,” Edwards told HuffPost on Monday.

“All I know about Project 2025 is what I read in the newspapers.”

In response to a HuffPost inquiry, a Heritage Foundation spokesperson also dismissed Edwards having any connection to the think tank, saying, “Former congressman Mickey Edwards is not affiliated with the Heritage Foundation and had no involvement whatsoever with Project 2025.”

Edwards, a conservative who was a Republican when he represented Oklahoma from 1977 to 1993 but has since turned independent, is at the center of a very out-there social media conspiracy theory: that he drew up Project 2025, an initiative of the Heritage Foundation, as a way to sabotage Trump’s candidacy.

The Project 2025-was-a-liberal-op trope has been bouncing around online since Edwards’ endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this month became more widely known back in his home state.

It’s been spread by social media posts saying that Edwards’ authorship would mean Democrats’ criticism of Project 2025 was invalid.

“Mickey Edwards, whose real name is Marvin H. Edwards, was a founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation AUTHORED project 2025. Mickey Edwards just endorsed Kamala Harris. I’ll let that sink in,” one post said.

While individual parts of the conspiracy theory are somewhat true (Edwards was and has in the past been publicly labeled as a founding trustee of the think tank), the overall picture is not.

There is absolutely no love lost between Heritage, a once widely respected if conservative Washington think tank, and Edwards, whose political brand is the kind of contrarian small “c” conservatism that’s been in retreat in the Republican Party since Trump emerged.

In fact, Edwards told HuffPost he once tried in 2008 to book a speaking engagement at Heritage to tout a book he wrote on conservatism, only to be rebuffed.

And Heritage made no bones that, founding trustee of the organization or not, it does not see Edwards as being on its side.

“A trustee who served for one year over half a century ago and supported Barack Obama and the Harris-Biden administration is no conservative and does not represent The Heritage Foundation,” the think tank posted on social media when Edwards announced his support for Harris in an op-ed for The Philadelphia Inquirer. In the op-ed’s tagline, Edwards was described as once a chair of the House Republican Policy Committee and a founding Heritage trustee.

“It is true that I was a founding trustee. But it’s also true that I went to Heronville Elementary School in Oklahoma City, and so anything that that school does, if it still exists, is on me,” Edwards jokingly told HuffPost.

Project 2025, a list of policy to-dos for a hypothetical new Trump administration, has been publicly disavowed by Trump, even as he spoke highly of it in the past, and several sections were written by former Trump administration officials who would be likely to return in a new Trump White House.

That disavowal, though, has not meant Democrats have stopped using the plan as a preview of what they say a Trump reelection would mean. “I coached football for enough years. When somebody draws up a playbook, they plan on using it,” Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz has said on the campaign trail.

Edwards told HuffPost he knew he’d gotten blowback from his endorsement when an Oklahoma City newspaper wrote about it, prominently mentioning his full name and neglecting to mention he was no longer affiliated with Heritage. But he said he had no idea that that report had mutated into a conspiracy theory, as he doesn’t keep up with social media.

“This is what people do. They just want to glom on to something. They just grab something and decide what it means or what they want to say it means and run with it,” he said.

“It really started with a really juvenile kind of newspaper story and this is what comes from that.”

Edwards, a former journalist who also taught law and journalism at Oklahoma City University, said the incident highlights people’s lack of skepticism and eagerness to believe only their political side.

“People on both sides of the aisle just want to believe whatever they want to believe about some conspiracy on the other side, and I don’t know what to do about it,” he said.

“They just swallow what they want to swallow.”