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Project 2025
P R ESI D EN T I A L T R A N S I TI O N P R OJE C T
© 2023 by The Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Ave., NE
Washington, DC 20002
(202) 546-4400 | heritage.org

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN: 978-0-89195-174-2

Foreword by Kevin D. Roberts, PhD

Edited by Paul Dans and Steven Groves

Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
THE PROJECT 2025 ADVISORY BOARD.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
THE 2025 PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION PROJECT:
A NOTE ON “PROJECT 2025”.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
AUTHORS.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
CONTRIBUTORS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv
FOREWORD: A PROMISE TO AMERICA.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Kevin D. Roberts, PhD
SECTION 1: TAKING THE REINS OF GOVERNMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

1. WHITE HOUSE OFFICE.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Rick Dearborn
2. EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
OF THE UNITED STATES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Russ Vought

3. CENTRAL PERSONNEL AGENCIES:
MANAGING THE BUREAUCRACY.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Donald Devine, Dennis Dean Kirk, and Paul Dans
SECTION 2: THE COMMON DEFENSE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

4. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Christopher Miller
5. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Ken Cuccinelli
6. DEPARTMENT OF STATE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Kiron K. Skinner
7. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Dustin J. Carmack
8. MEDIA AGENCIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
U.S. AGENCY FOR GLOBAL MEDIA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Mora Namdar
CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Mike Gonzalez
9. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Max Primorac
SECTION 3: THE GENERAL WELFARE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
10. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Daren Bakst
11. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Lindsey M. Burke
12. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
AND RELATED COMMISSIONS.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Bernard L. McNamee
13. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
Mandy M. Gunasekara
14. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
AND HUMAN SERVICES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Roger Severino
15. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING
AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., MD
16. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
William Perry Pendley
17. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545
Gene Hamilton
18. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

AND RELATED AGENCIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

Jonathan Berry
19. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619
Diana Furchtgott-Roth
20. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641
Brooks D. Tucker
SECTION 4: THE ECONOMY.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657
21. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 663
Thomas F. Gilman
22. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691
William L. Walton, Stephen Moore, and David R. Burton
23. EXPORT–IMPORT BANK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717
THE EXPORT–IMPORT BANK SHOULD BE ABOLISHED.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717
Veronique de Rugy
THE CASE FOR THE EXPORT–IMPORT BANK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724
Jennifer Hazelton
24. FEDERAL RESERVE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731
Paul Winfree
25. SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745
Karen Kerrigan
26. TRADE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765
THE CASE FOR FAIR TRADE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765
Peter Navarro
THE CASE FOR FREE TRADE.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 796
Kent Lassman
SECTION 5: INDEPENDENT REGULATORY AGENCIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 825

27. FINANCIAL REGULATORY AGENCIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 829
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
AND RELATED AGENCIES.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 829
David R. Burton
CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 837
Robert Bowes
28. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 845
Brendan Carr
29. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 861
Hans A. von Spakovsky
30. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 869
Adam Candeub
ONWARD!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 883
Edwin J. Feulner

Acknowledgments
T
his work, Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise, is a col-
lective effort of hundreds of volunteers who have banded together in the
spirit of advancing positive change for America. Our work is by no means
the comprehensive compendium of conservative policies, nor is our group the
exclusive cadre of conservative thinkers. The ideas expressed in this volume are
not necessarily shared by all. What unites us is the drive to make our country better.
First and foremost, we thank the chapter authors and contributors who gave
so freely of their time in service of their country.
We were particularly grateful to have the help of dedicated members of The
Heritage Foundation’s management and policy teams. Executive Vice President
Derrick Morgan, Chief of Staff Wesley Coopersmith, Associate Director of Project
2025 Spencer Chretien, and Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies
Director Paul Ray devoted a significant amount of their valuable time to reviewing
and editing the lengthy manuscript and provided expert advice and insight.
The job of transforming the work of dozens of authors and hundreds of
contributors into a cohesive manuscript fell upon Heritage’s formidable team of

editors led by Director of Research Editors Therese Pennefather, Senior Editor
William T. Poole, Marla Hess, Jessica Lowther, Karina Rollins, and Kathleen
Scaturro, without whose tireless efforts you would not be reading these words.
The talented work of Data Graphics Services Manager John Fleming, Manager of
Web Development and Print Projects Jay Simon, Director of Marketing Elizabeth
Fender, Senior Graphic Designer Grace Desandro, and Senior Designer Melissa
Bluey came together to bring the volume to life. We also thank the dedicated junior
staff who provided immeasurable assistance, especially Jordan Embree, Sarah
Calvis, and Jonathan Moy.
Most important, we are grateful to the leadership, supporters, and donors of
each of the Project 2025 advisory board member organizations and those of The
Heritage Foundation, without whom Project 2025 would not be possible.
Thank you.
Paul Dans & Steven Groves
— ix —

The Project 2025
Advisory Board
Alabama Policy Institute
Alliance Defending Freedom
American Compass
The American Conservative
America First Legal Foundation
American Accountability Foundation
American Center for Law and Justice
American Cornerstone Institute
American Council of Trustees and Alumni
American Legislative Exchange Council
The American Main Street Initiative
American Moment
American Principles Project
Center for Equal Opportunity

Center for Family and Human Rights
Center for Immigration Studies
Center for Renewing America
Claremont Institute
Coalition for a Prosperous America
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Conservative Partnership Institute
Concerned Women for America
Defense of Freedom Institute
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Family Policy Alliance
Family Research Council
First Liberty Institute
Forge Leadership Network
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Foundation for Government Accountability
FreedomWorks
The Heritage Foundation
Hillsdale College
Honest Elections Project
— xi —
Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise
Independent Women’s Forum

Institute for the American Worker
Institute for Energy Research
Institute for Women’s Health
Intercollegiate Studies Institute
James Madison Institute
Keystone Policy
The Leadership Institute
Liberty University
National Association of Scholars
National Center for Public Policy Research
Pacific Research Institute
Patrick Henry College
Personnel Policy Operations
Recovery for America Now Foundation
1792 Exchange
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America
Texas Public Policy Foundation
Teneo Network
Young America’s Foundation

— xii —
The 2025 Presidential
Transition Project
A NOTE ON
“PROJECT 2025”
W
e want you! The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is the conservative
movement’s
‌ unified effort to be ready for the next conservative
Administration
‌ to govern at 12:00 noon, January 20, 2025. Welcome

to the mission. By opening this book, you are now a part of it. Indeed, one set
of eyes reading these passages will be those of the 47th President of the United
States, and we hope every other reader will join in making the incoming Admin-
istration a success.
History teaches that a President’s power to implement an agenda is at its apex during
the Administration’s opening days. To execute requires a well-conceived, coordinated,
unified plan and a trained and committed cadre of personnel to implement it. In recent
election cycles, presidential candidates normally began transition planning in the late
spring of election year or even after the party’s nomination was secured. That is too late.
The federal government’s complexity and growth advance at a seemingly logarithmic
rate every four years. For conservatives to have a fighting chance to take on the Adminis-
trative State and reform our federal government, the work must start now. The entirety
of this effort is to support the next conservative President, whoever he or she may be.
In the winter of 1980, the fledging Heritage Foundation handed to President-elect
Ronald Reagan the inaugural Mandate for Leadership. This collective work by conser-
vative thought leaders and former government hands—most of whom were not part of
Heritage—set out policy prescriptions, agency by agency for the incoming President.
The book literally put the conservative movement and Reagan on the same page, and
the revolution that followed might never have been, save for this band of committed and
volunteer activists. With this volume, we have gone back to the future—and then some.
— xiii —
It’s not 1980. In 2023, the game has changed. The long march of cultural Marxism
through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth,
weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and
liberty under siege as never before. The task at hand to reverse this tide and restore
our Republic to its original moorings is too great for any one conservative policy shop
to spearhead. It requires the collective action of our movement. With the quickening
approach of January 2025, we have two years and one chance to get it right.
Project 2025 is more than 50 (and growing) of the nation’s leading conservative
organizations joining forces to prepare and seize the day. The axiom goes “person-
nel is policy,” and we need a new generation of Americans to answer the call and
come to serve. This book is functionally an invitation for you the reader—Mr. Smith,
Mrs. Smith, and Ms. Smith—to come to Washington or support those who can. Our
goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives
to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State.
The project is built on four pillars.
l Pillar I—this volume—puts in one place a consensus view of how major

federal agencies must be governed and where disagreement exists brackets
out these differences for the next President to choose a path.
Pillar II is a personnel database that allows candidates to build their own

professional profiles and our coalition members to review and voice their
recommendations. These recommendations will then be collated and shared
with the President-elect’s team, greatly streamlining the appointment process.
l Pillar III is the Presidential Administration Academy, an online

educational system taught by experts from our coalition. For the newcomer,
this will explain how the government functions and how to function in
government. For the experienced, we will host in-person seminars with
advanced training and set the bar for what is expected of senior leadership.
l In Pillar IV—the Playbook—we are forming agency teams and drafting tran-
sition plans to move out upon the President’s utterance of “so help me God.”
As Americans living at the approach of our nation’s 250th birthday, we have been
given much. As conservatives, we are as much required to steward this precious
heritage for the next generation. On behalf of our coalition partners, we thank you
and invite you to come join with us at project2025.org.
Paul Dans
Director, Project 2025
— xiv —
Authors
Daren Bakst is Deputy Director, Center for Energy and Environment, and Senior
Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Before joining CEI, Daren
was a Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, where he played a lead-
ing role in the launch of the organization’s new energy and environmental center.
For a decade, he led Heritage’s food and agricultural policy work, and he edited and
co-authored Heritage’s book Farms and Free Enterprise. He has testified numerous
times before Congress, has appeared frequently on media outlets, and has played
leadership roles in such organizations such as the Federalist Society, American
Agricultural Law Association, and Food and Drug Law Institute (serving on the
Food and Drug Law Journal’s editorial advisory board).
Jonathan Berry is managing partner at Boyden Gray & Associates PLLC. He

served as acting Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor,
overseeing all aspects of rulemaking and policy development. At the U.S. Depart-
ment of Justice, he assisted with the development of regulatory policy and with
the nominations of Justice Neil Gorsuch and dozens of other judges. He previ-

ously served as Chief Counsel for the Trump transition and earlier clerked for
Associate Justice Samuel Alito and Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit. He is a graduate of Yale College and Columbia University
School of Law.
Lindsey M. Burke is Director of the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage
Foundation. Burke served on Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s transition
steering committee and landing team for education. She serves on the Board
of Visitors for George Mason University, the board of the Educational Free-
dom Institute, and the advisory board of the Independent Women’s Forum’s
Education Freedom Center. Dr. Burke’s research has been published in such
journals as Social Science Quarterly, Educational Research and Evaluation, and
Research in Educational Administration and Leadership. She holds a BA from
Hollins University, an MA from the University of Virginia, and a PhD from George
Mason University.
David R. Burton is Senior Fellow in Economic Policy in the Thomas A. Roe

Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He focuses
on securities regulation, tax policy, business law, entrepreneurship, administra-
tive law, financial privacy, the U.S. Department of Commerce, corporate welfare,
— xv —
international investment, international information sharing, the U.S. economic

relationship with China, and climate-related financial risk. Previously, Burton was
General Counsel at the National Small Business Association; a partner in the Argus
Group; Vice President, Finance, and General Counsel for New England Machinery;
and manager of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Tax Policy Center. He holds a JD
from the University of Maryland School of Law and a BA in Economics from the
University of Chicago.
Adam Candeub is a professor of law at Michigan State University. His scholarly

research focuses on telecommunication, antitrust, and Internet issues. He served
as acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Deputy Associate Attorney Gen-
eral at the Justice Department during the Trump Administration. He received his
BA magna cum laude from Yale University and his JD magna cum laude from the
University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Dustin J. Carmack is Research Fellow for Cybersecurity, Intelligence, and Emerg-

ing Technologies in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage
Foundation. Previously, he served in the Intelligence Community as Chief of Staff
to the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe. In Congress, he served
as Chief of Staff to Congressman John Ratcliffe (TX-04) and Congressman Ron
DeSantis (FL-06). Mr. Carmack studied at Truman State University in Missouri

and Tel Aviv University in Israel.
Brendan Carr has nearly 20 years of private-sector and public-sector experience

in communications and tech policy. He currently serves as the senior Republican
on the Federal Communications Commission. Prior to this role, Carr served as
the Federal Communication Commission’s General Counsel. Earlier, he worked
as an attorney at Wiley Rein LLP. Previously, he clerked on the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. After graduating from Georgetown University,
he earned his JD magna cum laude from the Catholic University of America’s
Columbus School of Law where he served as an editor of the Catholic Univer-
sity Law Review.
Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., MD, is Founder and Chairman of the American Corner-
stone Institute and previously served as the 17th Secretary of the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development. Born in Detroit to a single mother with a
third-grade education, Dr. Carson was raised to love reading and education. He
attended Yale and earned his MD from the University of Michigan Medical School.
For nearly 30 years, Dr. Carson served as Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at
the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, where he performed the first separation of
twins conjoined at the back of the head.
— xvi —
2025 Presidential Transition Project
Ken Cuccinelli served as Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration

Services in 2019 and then, from November 2019 through the end of the Trump
Administration, as Acting Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security. During his tenure as Acting Deputy Secretary, Ken also served as the Chief
Regulatory Officer for the Department of Homeland Security. He also has served
the Commonwealth of Virginia, first as a state senator and then as Virginia’s 46th
Attorney General.
Rick Dearborn served as Deputy Chief of Staff for President Donald Trump and
was responsible for the day-to-day operations of five separate departments of the
Executive Office of the President. He also served as Executive Director of the 2016
President-elect Donald Trump transition team. Before that, Rick served in several
roles, including as Chief of Staff, in the office of then-U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions
(R-AL) for nearly two decades. Between his two tours in Senator Sessions’ office,
he was appointed by President George W. Bush as Assistant Secretary of Energy for
Congressional Affairs. Earlier in his career, Rick worked for the National Repub-
lican Senatorial Committee, the Senate Republican Conference, and the Senate
Steering Committee. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a BA in
Public Administration and a minor in economics.
Veronique de Rugy is the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and Senior

Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a nation-
ally syndicated columnist. Her primary research interests include the U.S. economy,
the federal budget, taxation, tax competition, and cronyism. De Rugy is the author
of a weekly opinion column for the Creators Syndicate, writes regular columns
for Reason magazine, and blogs about economics at National Review Online’s The
Corner. She received her MA in economics from the Paris Dauphine University and
her PhD in economics from the Panthéon-Sorbonne University.
Donald Devine is Senior Scholar at The Fund for American Studies in Washington,
DC. He was President Ronald Reagan’s first-term Office of Personnel Management
Director when The Washington Post labeled him “Reagan’s Terrible Swift Sword of
the Civil Service” for cutting bureaucracy and reducing spending by billions of dol-
lars. He was a professor at the University of Maryland and Bellevue University and
is a columnist and author of 10 books, including his recent The Enduring Tension.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an Oxford-educated economist, directs the Center for

Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation and is adjunct
professor of economics at George Washington University. Diana served as Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the U.S. Department of Trans-
portation, where she directed the Department’s $1.2 billion research budget; the
— xvii —
Office of Positioning, Navigation and Timing and Spectrum Management; and the
University Transportation Center program. Diana worked in senior roles in the
White House under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W.
Bush, where she was Chief of Staff of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Thomas F. Gilman served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Administration

and Chief Financial Officer of the U.S. Department of Commerce in the Trump
Administration. Currently, he is a Director of ACLJ Action and Chairman of Torn-
gat Metals. Tom is the former CEO of Chrysler Financial and has had a 40-plus year
career as a senior executive and entrepreneur in the global automotive industry,
including roles at Chrysler Corporation, Cerberus Capital Management, Asbury
Automotive Group, TD Auto Finance, and Automotive Capital Services. He holds
a BS in finance from Villanova University.
Mandy M. Gunasekara of Oxford, Mississippi, is a principal at Section VII Strat-

egies, a Senior Policy Analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum, and Visiting
Fellow in the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foun-
dation. During the Trump Administration, Mandy served as the Chief of Staff at
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as well as Principal Deputy Assistant
Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation. She previously served in numer-
ous roles at the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, including as Majority

Counsel for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under Chair-
man Jim Inhofe. She received her BA from Mississippi College and her JD from
the University of Mississippi School of Law.
Gene Hamilton is Vice-President and General Counsel of America First Legal Foun-
dation. Gene served as Counselor to the Attorney General at the U.S. Department of
Justice; Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security; General Counsel on
the Senate Committee on the Judiciary; Assistant Chief Counsel at U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement; and as an Attorney Advisor in the Secretary’s Honors
Program for Attorneys at the Department of Homeland Security. Gene graduated
from the Washington and Lee University School of Law magna cum laude and Order
of the Coif and has a BA in international affairs from the University of Georgia.
Jennifer Hazelton has worked as a senior strategic consultant for the Depart-
ment of Defense in Industrial Base Policy and has held senior positions at USAID,
the Export–Import Bank of the United States, and the State Department. She was
also a communications director in the U.S. Congress and worked as an award-win-
ning journalist for CNN and Fox News Channel. Hazelton holds an MA in business
administration from Emory University and earned her BA from the Univer-
sity of Georgia.
— xviii —
Karen Kerrigan is President and CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship
Council and has helped to strengthen U.S. entrepreneurship and global business
growth for 28 years. She has provided counsel across the globe via training missions
focused on entrepreneurial development, effective advocacy, policy formation,
and implementation. Karen testifies regularly before Congress and has served on
numerous federal advisory boards representing the interests of entrepreneurs
and small businesses.
Dennis Dean Kirk is Associate Director for Personnel Policy with the 2025 Pres-
idential Transition Project at The Heritage Foundation. Born and raised in Kansas,
he graduated with honors from Northern Arizona University and Washburn Uni-
versity Law School. Dennis has over 45 years of experience in private law and
public federal government counsel services. He served in President George Bush’s
Administration in the U.S. Army’s Office of General Counsel and later as Associate
General Counsel for Strategic Integration and Business Transformation, where
he was recognized with the Exceptional Civilian and Meritorious Civilian Service
Awards and other awards. During the Trump Administration, Dennis served in
senior positions at the Office of Personnel Management and was nominated by
President Trump to be Chairman of the Merit Systems Protection Board.
Kent Lassman is President and CEO of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Educated at the Catholic University of America and North Carolina State Univer-
sity, he has written on telecommunications, privacy, environmental, antitrust, and
consumer protection regulation as well as trade policy and the design of regulatory
systems. Kent’s policy research and advocacy have taken him to 45 state capitals,
more than a dozen countries, and deep into the heart of the federal regulatory state.
Bernard L. McNamee is an energy and regulatory attorney with a major law

firm and was formerly a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
He is also the Street Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the Appalachian
School of Law. In addition to serving as a Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner,
McNamee has served in various senior policy and legal positions throughout his
career, including at the U.S. Department of Energy, for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, and
for Virginia Governor George Allen. McNamee also served four attorneys general
in two states (Virginia and Texas).
Christopher Miller served in several positions during the Trump Administration,

including as Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense, Director of the National Counter-
terrorism Center, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations
and Combating Terrorism, and Senior Director for Counterterrorism and Trans-
national Threats at the National Security Council. Before his civilian service in the
— xix —
Department of Defense, Miller was an Army Green Beret in the 5th Special Forces
Group with multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, achieving the rank of
colonel. Miller earned a BA from George Washington University and an MA from
the Naval War College. He also graduated from the College of Naval Command and
Staff and the Army War College.
Stephen Moore is a conservative economist and author. He is currently a senior

economist at FreedomWorks, a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation,
and a Fox News analyst. From 2005 to 2014, Moore served as the senior economics
writer for The Wall Street Journal editorial page and as a member of the Journal’s
editorial board. He still contributes regularly to the Journal’s editorial page. He is
a frequent lecturer to business investment and university audiences around the
world on the U.S. economic and political outlook in Washington, DC.
Mora Namdar is an attorney and Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy
Council. She speaks fluent Farsi and is an expert on U.S. national security, human
rights, global communications, the Middle East, and international law. Mora served
as senior advisor for critical issues at the U.S. State Department and was appointed
by President Donald Trump to perform the duties of the Assistant Secretary of
State for Consular Affairs. She also served as Vice President of Legal, Compliance,
and Risk at the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

Peter Navarro holds a PhD in economics from Harvard and was one of only three
senior White House officials to serve with Donald Trump from the 2016 campaign
to the end of the President’s first term. He was the West Wing’s chief China hawk
and trade czar and served as Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing
Policy and Defense Production Act Policy Coordinator. His books include The
Coming China Wars (2006); Death by China (2011); Crouching Tiger (2015); and his
White House memoirs In Trump Time (2021) and Taking Back Trump’s America
(2022). His top-rated Taking Back Trump’s America podcast appears on Apple
Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
William Perry Pendley was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He earned a BA and

an MA from George Washington University, was a U.S. Marine Corps captain, and
earned his JD from the University of Wyoming College of Law. He was an attorney
on Capitol Hill, a senior official for President Ronald Reagan, and leader of the
Bureau of Land Management for President Donald Trump. For 30 years, he was
president of Mountain States Legal Foundation where he argued and won cases
before the Supreme Court of the United States. He authored five books, includ-
ing Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan’s Battle with Environmental Extremists and Why It
Matters Today.
— xx —
Max Primorac is Director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign
Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He was acting Chief Operating Officer
and Assistant to the Administrator, Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, at the
U.S. Agency for International Development. Previously he was deputy director of
Iraq’s reconstruction program at the U.S. Department of State and a senior adviser
in the Office of the Secretary. Max was educated at Franklin and Marshall College
and the University of Chicago.
Roger Severino is Vice President of Domestic Policy at The Heritage Founda-

tion. As director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) from 2017 to 2021, he led a team of more than 250 staff
enforcing civil rights, conscience, and health information privacy laws. Roger sub-
sequently founded the HHS Accountability Project at the Ethics & Public Policy
Center. He holds a JD from Harvard Law School, an MA in public policy from
Carnegie Mellon University, and a BA from the University of Southern California.
Kiron K. Skinner is President and CEO of the Foundation for America and the
World, Taube Professor of International Relations and Politics at Pepperdine
University’s School of Public Policy, W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow at the
Hoover Institution, and a Visiting Fellow and Senior Advisor at The Heritage
Foundation. Skinner served as Director of Policy Planning and Senior Advisor at

the U.S. Department of State from 2018 to 2019 and was a member of the Defense
Business Board at the U.S. Department of Defense in 2020. Skinner holds an MA
and a PhD in political science from Harvard University and undergraduate degrees
from Spelman College and Sacramento City College.
Brooks D. Tucker served in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as Assis-

tant Secretary for Congressional and Legislative Affairs from 2017 to 2021 and
as Acting Chief of Staff from 2020 to 2021. He helped to craft the policy frame-
work for President-elect Trump’s transition team and served as the Senior Policy
Adviser for National Security and Veterans Affairs to Senator Richard Burr from
2010 to 2015. A retired Marine lieutenant colonel, Brooks served in Afghanistan,
Iraq, North Africa, the Caucasus, and the Western Pacific. He is a graduate of the
University of Maryland, Marine Corps Infantry Officer Course, and Marine Corps
Command and Staff College and holds a Certificate in Legislative Studies from
Georgetown University.
Hans A. von Spakovsky is Senior Legal Fellow and Manager of the Election Law
Reform Initiative in the Edwin Meese Center III Center for Legal and Judicial
Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He is a former member of President Donald
Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. From 2006 to 2007, von
— xxi —
Spakovsky was a Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission. He served

as career Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S.
Department of Justice from 2002 to 2005.
Russ Vought is Founder and President of the Center for Renewing America. A
longtime conservative leader on Capitol Hill, Russ served in President Trump’s
Cabinet as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, where he oversaw
the implementation of the presidential budget, key policies on deregulation, and
a landmark effort to eliminate critical race theory and other radical ideologies in
executive agencies. Prior to his White House service, Russ spent nearly two decades
in the broader conservative movement on Capitol Hill, including as Policy Direc-
tor for the House Republican Conference, Executive Director of the Republican
Study Committee, and Legislative Assistant to former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm.
Russ graduated with a BA from Wheaton College and received a JD from George
Washington University Law School.
William L. Walton is Chairman of the Resolute Protector Foundation and host

of The Bill Walton Show. In 2016 and 2017, Mr. Walton served in President-elect
Donald Trump’s transition team as Agency Action Leader for all the federal eco-
nomic agencies. He served as Chairman of the Board and CEO of Allied Capital
Corporation, a $6 billion NYSE-traded private investment firm, from 1997 to 2010.

He is the immediate past President of the Council for National Policy. His extensive
board service includes The Heritage Foundation, American Conservative Union,
American Enterprise Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Venture Cap-
ital Association, and Financial Services Roundtable.
Paul Winfree is Distinguished Fellow in Economic Policy and Public Leadership

at The Heritage Foundation. Before rejoining Heritage in 2018, Paul was Deputy
Assistant to the President, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council, and
Director of Budget Policy at the White House. During the 2016 presidential transi-
tion, he led the team responsible for the Office of Management and Budget. He also
has served as a senior staff member for the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget.
Paul served in both the Biden and Trump Administrations for three terms as the
Chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board that oversees the Fulbright pro-
gram and educational exchanges sponsored by the Department of State.
EDITORS
Paul Dans is Director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project at The Heritage
Foundation, organizing policy and personnel recommendations and training for
appointees in the next presidential Administration. Before joining Heritage, he
served in the Trump Administration as Chief of Staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel
— xxii —
Management, as OPM’s White House liaison, and as a senior advisor at the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development. Paul has extensive experience
in high-stakes commercial litigation and worked for several large international law
firms in New York City from 1997 to 2012 before founding his own law firm. He is a
graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and received his graduate and
undergraduate degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Steven Groves is the Margaret Thatcher Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center
for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation. Groves served in the Trump Adminis-
tration, first as Ambassador Nikki Haley’s Chief of Staff at the U.S. Mission to the
United Nations. He later joined the White House as Assistant Special Counsel,
representing the White House in the Mueller investigation. Groves also served as
White House Deputy Press Secretary. His prior positions include Senior Counsel
for the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and associate at
Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. Groves holds an LLM from Georgetown University
Law Center, a JD from Ohio Northern University's College of Law, and a BA from
Florida State University.
— xxiii —

Contributors
T
he contributors listed below generously volunteered their time and effort
to assist the authors in the development and writing of this volume’s 30
chapters. The policy views and reform proposals herein are not an all-inclu-
sive catalogue of conservative ideas for the next President, nor is there unanimity
among the contributors or the organizations with which they are affiliated with
regard to the recommendations.
Mark Albrecht
Chris Anderson, Office of Senator Steve Daines
Jeff Anderson, The American Main Street Initiative
Michael Anton, Hillsdale College
EJ Antoni, The Heritage Foundation
Andrew “Art” Arthur, Center for Immigration Studies
Paul Atkins, Patomak Global Partners
Julie Axelrod, Center for Immigration Studies

James Bacon
James Baehr
Stewart Baker, Steptoe and Johnson LLP
Erik Baptist, Alliance Defending Freedom
Brent Bennett, Texas Public Policy Foundation
John Berlau, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Russell Berman, Hoover Institution
Sanjai Bhagat, University of Colorado Boulder
Stephen Billy, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America
Brad Bishop, American Cornerstone Institute
Willis Bixby, WWBX, LLC
Josh Blackman, South Texas College of Law
Jim Blew, Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies
Robert Bortins, Classical Conversations
Rachel Bovard, Conservative Partnership Institute
Robert Bowes
Matt Bowman, Alliance Defending Freedom
Steven G. Bradbury, The Heritage Foundation
Preston Brashers, The Heritage Foundation
Jonathan Bronitsky, ATHOS
Kyle Brosnan, The Heritage Foundation
— xxv —
Patrick T. Brown, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Robert Burkett, ACLJ Action
Michael Burley, American Cornerstone Institute
David R. Burton, The Heritage Foundation
Jonathan Butcher, The Heritage Foundation
Mark Buzby, Buzby Maritime Associates, LLC
Margaret Byfield, American Stewards of Liberty
David Byrd, Korn Ferry
Anthony Campau, Center for Renewing America
James Jay Carafano, The Heritage Foundation
Frank Carroll, Professional Forest Management
Oren Cass, American Compass
Brian J. Cavanaugh, American Global Strategies
Spencer Chretien, The Heritage Foundation
Claire Christensen, American Cornerstone Institute
Victoria Coates, The Heritage Foundation
Ellie Cohanim, Independent Women’s Forum
Ezra Cohen
Elbridge Colby, Marathon Initiative
Earl Comstock, White & Case LLP
Lisa Correnti, Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam)
Monica Crowley, The Nixon Seminar

Laura Cunliffe, Independent Women’s Forum

Tom Dans, Amberwave Partners
Sohan Dasgupta, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP
Sergio de la Peña
Chris De Ruyter, National Center for Urban Operations
Corey DeAngelis, American Federation for Children
Caroline DeBerry, Paragon Health Institute
Arielle Del Turco, Family Research Council
Irv Dennis, American Cornerstone Institute
David Deptula, Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
Donald Devine, The Fund for American Studies
Chuck DeVore, Texas Public Policy Foundation
C. Wallace DeWitt, Allen & Overy LLP
James Di Pane, The Heritage Foundation
Matthew Dickerson, The Heritage Foundation
Michael Ding, America First Legal Foundation
David Ditch, The Heritage Foundation
Natalie Dodson, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Dave Dorey, The Fairness Center
Max Eden, American Enterprise Institute
— xxvi —
Troy Edgar, IBM Consulting

Joseph Edlow, The Heritage Foundation
Jen Ehlinger, Booz Allen Hamilton
John Ehrett, Office of Senator Josh Hawley
Kristen Eichamer, The Heritage Foundation
Robert S. Eitel, Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies
Will Estrada, Parents Rights Foundation
Jon Feere, Center for Immigration Studies
Baruch Feigenbaum, Reason Foundation
Travis Fisher, The Heritage Foundation
George Fishman, Center for Immigration Studies
Leslie Ford, The Heritage Foundation
Aharon Friedman, Federal Policy Group
Bruce Frohnen, Ohio Northern University College of Law
Joel Frushone, Ernst & Young
Finch Fulton
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, The Heritage Foundation
Caleigh Gabel, American Cornerstone Institute
Christopher Gacek, Family Research Council
Alexandra Gaiser, River Financial Inc.
Mario Garza

Patty-Jane Geller, The Heritage Foundation
Andrew Gillen, Texas Public Policy Foundation
James S. Gilmore III, Gilmore Global Group LLC
Vance Ginn, Economic Consulting, LLC
Alma Golden, The Institute for Women’s Health
Mike Gonzalez, The Heritage Foundation
Chadwick R. Gore, Defense Forum Foundation
David Gortler, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Brian Gottstein, The Heritage Foundation
Dan Greenberg, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Rob Greenway, Hudson Institute
Rachel Greszler, The Heritage Foundation
DJ Gribbin, Madrus Consulting
Garrison Grisedale, American Cornerstone Institute
Joseph Grogan, USC Schaeffer School for Health Policy and Economics
Andrew Guernsey
Jeffrey Gunter, Republican Jewish Coalition
Joe Guy, Club for Growth
Joseph Guzman
Amalia Halikias, The Heritage Foundation
Gene Hamilton, America First Legal Foundation
— xxvii —
Richard Hanania, Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology

Simon Hankinson, The Heritage Foundation
David Harlow
Derek Harvey, Office of Congressman Devin Nunes
Jason Hayes, Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Jennifer Hazelton
Lou Heinzer
Edie Heipel
Troup Hemenway, Personnel Policy Operations
Nathan Hitchen, Equal Rights Institute
Pete Hoekstra
Gabriella Hoffman, Independent Women’s Forum
Tom Homan, The Heritage Foundation
Chris Horner
Mike Howell, The Heritage Foundation
Valerie Huber, The Institute for Women’s Health
Andrew Hughes, American Cornerstone Institute
Joseph Humire, Center for a Secure Free Society
Christopher Iacovella, American Securities Association
Melanie Israel, The Heritage Foundation
Ken Ivory, Utah House of Representatives
Roman Jankowski, The Heritage Foundation

Abby Jones
Emilie Kao, Alliance Defending Freedom
Jared M. Kelson, Boyden Gray & Associates
Aaron Kheriaty, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Ali Kilmartin, Alliance Defending Freedom
Julie Kirchner, Federation for American Immigration Reform
Dan Kish, Institute for Energy Research
Kenneth A. Klukowski
Adam Korzeniewski, American Principles Project
Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, Sagitta Solutions, LLC
Bethany Kozma, Keystone Policy
Matthew Kozma
Julius Krein, American Affairs
Stanley Kurtz, Ethics and Public Policy Center
David LaCerte, Baker Botts, LLP
Paul J. Larkin, The Heritage Foundation
Kent Lassman, Competitive Enterprise Institute
James R. Lawrence III, Envisage Law
Paul Lawrence, Lawrence Consulting
Nathan Leamer, Targeted Victory
— xxviii —
David Legates, University of Delaware (Ret.)

Marlo Lewis, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Ben Lieberman, Competitive Enterprise Institute
John Ligon
Evelyn Lim, American Cornerstone Institute
Mario Loyola, Competitive Enterprise Institute
John G. Malcolm, The Heritage Foundation
Joseph Masterman, Cooper & Kirk, PLLC
Earl Matthews, The Vandenberg Coalition
Dan Mauler, Heritage Action for America
Drew McCall, American Cornerstone Institute
Trent McCotter, Boyden Gray & Associates
Micah Meadowcroft, The American Conservative
Edwin Meese III, The Heritage Foundation
Jessica Melugin, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Frank Mermoud, Orpheus International
Mark Miller, Office of Governor Kristi Noem
Cleta Mitchell, Conservative Partnership Institute
Kevin E. Moley
Caitlin Moon, American Center for Law & Justice
David Moore, Brigham Young University Law School

Clare Morell, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Mark Morgan, The Heritage Foundation
Hunter Morgen, American Cornerstone Institute
Rachel Morrison, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Jonathan Moy, The Heritage Foundation
Iain Murray, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Ryan Nabil, National Taxpayers Union
Michael Nasi, Jackson Walker LLP
Lucien Niemeyer, The Niemeyer Group, LLC
Nazak Nikakhtar, Wiley Rein LLP
Milan “Mitch” Nikolich
Matt O’Brien, Immigration Reform Law Institute
Caleb Orr, Boyden Gray & Associates
Michael Pack
Leah Pedersen
Michael Pillsbury, The Heritage Foundation
Patrick Pizzella, Leadership Institute
Robert Poole, Reason Foundation
Kevin Preskenis, Allymar Health Solutions
Pam Pryor, National Committee for Religious Freedom
Thomas Pyle, Institute for Energy Research
— xxix —
John Ratcliffe, American Global Strategies

Paul Ray, The Heritage Foundation
Joseph Reddan, Flexilis Forestry, LLC
Jay W. Richards, The Heritage Foundation
Jordan Richardson, Heise Suarez Melville, P.A.
Jason Richwine, Center for Immigration Studies
Shaun Rieley, The American Conservative
Lora Ries, The Heritage Foundation
Leo Rios
Mark Robeck, Energy Evolution Consulting LLC
James Rockas, ACLJ Action
Mark Royce, NOVA-Annandale College
Reed Rubinstein, America First Legal Foundation
William Ruger, American Institute for Economic Research
Austin Ruse, Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam)
Brent D. Sadler, The Heritage Foundation
Alexander William Salter, Texas Tech University
Jon Sanders, John Locke Foundation
Carla Sands, America First Policy Institute
Robby Stephany Saunders, Coalition for a Prosperous America
David Sauve
Brett D. Schaefer, The Heritage Foundation

Nina Owcharenko Schaefer, The Heritage Foundation

Matt Schuck, American Cornerstone Institute
Justin Schwab, CGCN Law
Jon Schweppe, American Principles Project
Marc Scribner, Reason Foundation
Darin Selnick, Selnick Consulting
Josh Sewell, Taxpayers for Common Sense
Kathleen Sgamma, Western Energy Alliance
Matt Sharp, Alliance Defending Freedom
Judy Shelton, Independent Institute
Nathan Simington
Loren Smith, Skyline Policy Risk Group
Zack Smith, The Heritage Foundation
Jack Spencer, The Heritage Foundation
Adrienne Spero, U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security
Thomas W. Spoehr, The Heritage Foundation
Peter St Onge, The Heritage Foundation
Chris Stanley, Functional Government Initiative
Paula M. Stannard
Parker Stathatos, Texas Public Policy Foundation
— xxx —
William Steiger, Independent Consultant

Kenny Stein, Institute for Energy Research
Corey Stewart, Stewart PLLC
Mari Stull
Katharine T. Sullivan, 1792 Exchange
Brett Swearingen, Miller Johnson
Michael Sweeney
Robert Swope
Aaron Szabo, CGCN Group
Katy Talento, AllBetter Health
Tony Tata, Tata Leadership Group, LLC
Farnaz Farkish Thompson
Todd Thurman, American Cornerstone Institute
Brett Tolman, Tolman Group
Kayla M. Tonnessen, Recovery for America Now Foundation
Joe Trotter, American Legislative Exchange Council
Tevi Troy, Mercatus Center
Clayton Tufts
Erin Valdez, Texas Public Policy Foundation
Mark Vandroff
Jessica M. Vaughan, Center for Immigration Studies

John “JV” Venable, The Heritage Foundation
Morgan Lorraine Viña, Jewish Institute for National Security of America
Andrew N. Vollmer, Mercatus Center
Hans A. von Spakovsky, The Heritage Foundation
Greg Walcher, Natural Resources Group, LLC
David M. Walsh, Takota Group
Erin Walsh, The Heritage Foundation
Jacklyn Ward, American Cornerstone Institute
Emma Waters, The Heritage Foundation
Michael Williams, American Cornerstone Institute
Aaron Wolff
Jonathan Wolfson
Alexei Woltornist, ATHOS
Frank Wuco
Cesar Ybarra, FreedomWorks
John Zadrozny, America First Legal Foundation
Laura Zorc, FreedomWorks
— xxxi —

Foreword
A PROMISE
TO AMERICA
Kevin D. Roberts, PhD
F
orty-four years ago, the United States and the conservative movement were
in dire straits. Both had been betrayed by the Washington establishment
and were uncertain whom to trust. Both were internally splintered and stra-

tegically adrift. Worse still, at that moment of acute vulnerability and division, we
found ourselves besieged by existential adversaries, foreign and domestic. The late
1970s were by any measure a historic low point for America and the political coa-
lition dedicated to preserving its unique legacy of human flourishing and freedom.
Today, America and the conservative movement are enduring an era of division
and danger akin to the late 1970s. Now, as then, our political class has been discred-
ited by wholesale dishonesty and corruption. Look at America under the ruling
and cultural elite today: Inflation is ravaging family budgets, drug overdose deaths
continue to escalate, and children suffer the toxic normalization of transgender-
ism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries. Overseas,
a totalitarian Communist dictatorship in Beijing is engaged in a strategic, cultural,
and economic Cold War against America’s interests, values, and people—all while
globalist elites in Washington awaken only slowly to that growing threat. Moreover,
low-income communities are drowning in addiction and government dependence.
Contemporary elites have even repurposed the worst ingredients of 1970s “radical
chic” to build the totalitarian cult known today as “The Great Awokening.” And
now, as then, the Republican Party seems to have little understanding about what
to do. Most alarming of all, the very moral foundations of our society are in peril.
Yet students of history will note that, notwithstanding all those challenges,
the late 1970s proved to be the moment when the political Right unified itself
—1—
and the country and led the United States to historic political, economic, and
global victories.
The Heritage Foundation is proud to have played a small but pivotal role in that
story. It was in early 1979—amid stagflation, gas lines, and the Red Army’s inva-
sion of Afghanistan, the nadir of Jimmy Carter’s days of malaise—that Heritage
launched the Mandate for Leadership project. We brought together hundreds of
conservative scholars and academics across the conservative movement. Together,
this team created a 20-volume, 3,000-page governing handbook containing more
than 2,000 conservative policies to reform the federal government and rescue
the American people from Washington dysfunction. It was a promise from the
conservative movement to the country—confident, specific, and clear.
Mandate for Leadership was published in January 1981—the same month Ronald
Reagan was sworn into his presidency. By the end of that year, more than 60 percent
of its recommendations had become policy—and Reagan was on his way to ending
stagflation, reviving American confidence and prosperity, and winning the Cold War.
The bad news today is that our political establishment and cultural elite have
once again driven America toward decline. The good news is that we know the
way out even though the challenges today are not what they were in the 1970s.
Conservatives should be confident that we can rescue our kids, reclaim our culture,
revive our economy, and defeat the anti-American Left—at home and abroad. We
did it before and will do it again.

As Ronald Reagan put it:
Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from
extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and
defended constantly by each generation[.]1
This is the duty history has put before us and the standard by which our gen-
eration of conservatives will be judged. And we should not want it any other way.
The legacy of Mandate for Leadership, and indeed of the entire Reagan Rev-
olution, is that if conservatives want to save the country, we need a bold and
courageous plan. This book is the first step in that plan.
THE CONSERVATIVE PROMISE

This volume—The Conservative Promise—is the opening salvo of the 2025 Pres-
idential Transition Project, launched by The Heritage Foundation and our many
partners in April 2022. Its 30 chapters lay out hundreds of clear and concrete policy
recommendations for White House offices, Cabinet departments, Congress, and
agencies, commissions, and boards.
Just as important as the scope of The Conservative Promise’s recommendations
is the breadth of its authorship. This book is the product of more than 400 scholars
—2—
and policy experts from across the conservative movement and around the country.
Contributors include former elected officials, world-renowned economists, and
veterans from four presidential Administrations. This is an agenda prepared by
and for conservatives who will be ready on Day One of the next Administration to
save our country from the brink of disaster.
The Heritage Foundation is once again facilitating this work. But as our dozens
of partners and hundreds of authors will attest, this book is the work of the entire
conservative movement. As such, the authors express consensus recommendations
already forged, especially along four broad fronts that will decide America’s future:
1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect

our children.
2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the

American people.
3. Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution

calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”

What makes these four pieces of the conservative promise so valuable to the
next President is that they cut through superficial distractions and focus on the
moral and foundational challenges America faces in this moment of history. This
was one of the secrets of conservatives’ success in the Reagan Era, one our gener-
ation should emulate.
As in the late 1970s, Americans today experience the failures of political and cul-
tural elites in countless ways: in the job market and in the grocery store checkout
lines, on the streets and in our schools, in the media and within our institutions. But
in truth, these daily dysfunctions are not innumerable problems, but innumerable
manifestations of a few core crises.
In 1979, the threats we faced were the Soviet Union, the socialism of 1970s lib-
erals, and the predatory deviancy of cultural elites. Reagan defeated these beasts
by ignoring their tentacles and striking instead at their hearts.
His approach to the Cold War? “We win and they lose.”
His economic agenda? The human dignity of work and its many rewards.
His platform in the culture wars? The “community of values embodied in these
words: family, work, neighborhood, peace and freedom.”
This book—and Project 2025 as a whole—will arm the next conservative Pres-
ident with the same kind of strategic clarity, but for a new age.
—3—
PROMISE #1: RESTORE THE FAMILY AS THE CENTERPIECE

OF AMERICAN LIFE AND PROTECT OUR CHILDREN.
The next conservative President must get to work pursuing the true priority of
politics—the well-being of the American family.
In many ways, the entire point of centralizing political power is to subvert the
family. Its purpose is to replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatu-
ral ones. You see this in the popular left-wing aphorism, “Government is simply
the name we give to the things we choose to do together.” But in real life, most of
the things people “do together” have nothing to do with government. These are
the mediating institutions that serve as the building blocks of any healthy society.
Marriage. Family. Work. Church. School. Volunteering. The name real people give
to the things we do together is community, not government. Our lives are full of
interwoven, overlapping communities, and our individual and collective happiness
depends upon them. But the most important community in each of our lives—and
the life of the nation—is the family.
Today, the American family is in crisis. Forty percent of all children are born
to unmarried mothers, including more than 70 percent of black children. There
is no government program that can replace the hole in a child’s soul cut out by
the absence of a father. Fatherlessness is one of the principal sources of Ameri-
can poverty, crime, mental illness, teen suicide, substance abuse, rejection of the
church, and high school dropouts. So many of the problems government programs

are designed to solve—but can’t—are ultimately problems created by the crisis of

marriage and the family. The world has never seen a thriving, healthy, free, and
prosperous society where most children grow up without their married parents.
If current trends continue, we are heading toward social implosion.
Furthermore, the next conservative President must understand that using gov-
ernment alone to respond to symptoms of the family crisis is a dead end. Federal
power must instead be wielded to reverse the crisis and rescue America’s kids from
familial breakdown. The Conservative Promise includes dozens of specific policies
to accomplish this existential task.
Some are obvious and long-standing goals like eliminating marriage penalties
in federal welfare programs and the tax code and installing work requirements for
food stamps. But we must go further. It’s time for policymakers to elevate family
authority, formation, and cohesion as their top priority and even use government
power, including through the tax code, to restore the American family.
Today the Left is threatening the tax-exempt status of churches and charities
that reject woke progressivism. They will soon turn to Christian schools and clubs
with the same totalitarian intent.
The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil
society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms
sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion
—4—
(“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensi-

tive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used
to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule,
agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.
Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender
ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot
inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual
liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its
purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product
is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime.
Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should
be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed
as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that
facilitate its spread should be shuttered.
In our schools, the question of parental authority over their children’s education
is a simple one: Schools serve parents, not the other way around. That is, of course,
the best argument for universal school choice—a goal all conservatives and con-
servative Presidents must pursue. But even before we achieve that long-term goal,
parents’ rights as their children’s primary educators should be non-negotiable in
American schools. States, cities and counties, school boards, union bosses, princi-
pals, and teachers who disagree should be immediately cut off from federal funds.

The noxious tenets of “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” should be
excised from curricula in every public school in the country. These theories poison
our children, who are being taught on the one hand to affirm that the color of their
skin fundamentally determines their identity and even their moral status while
on the other they are taught to deny the very creatureliness that inheres in being
human and consists in accepting the givenness of our nature as men or women.
Allowing parents or physicians to “reassign” the sex of a minor is child abuse and
must end. For public institutions to use taxpayer dollars to declare the superiority
or inferiority of certain races, sexes, and religions is a violation of the Constitu-
tion and civil rights law and cannot be tolerated by any government anywhere in
the country.
But the pro-family promises expressed in this book, and central to the next
conservative President’s agenda, must go much further than the traditional, narrow
definition of “family issues.” Every threat to family stability must be confronted.
This resolve should color each of our policies. Consider our approach to Big
Tech. The worst of these companies prey on children, like drug dealers, to get them
addicted to their mobile apps. Many Silicon Valley executives famously don’t let
their own kids have smart phones.2 They nevertheless make billions of dollars
addicting other people’s children to theirs. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
and other social media platforms are specifically designed to create the digital
—5—
dependencies that fuel mental illness and anxiety, to fray children’s bonds with
their parents and siblings. Federal policy cannot allow this industrial-scale child
abuse to continue.
Finally, conservatives should gratefully celebrate the greatest pro-family win
in a generation: overturning Roe v. Wade, a decision that for five decades made a
mockery of our Constitution and facilitated the deaths of tens of millions of unborn
children. But the Dobbs decision is just the beginning. Conservatives in the states
and in Washington, including in the next conservative Administration, should
push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America. In
particular, the next conservative President should work with Congress to enact the
most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support while deploying
existing federal powers to protect innocent life and vigorously complying with
statutory bans on the federal funding of abortion. Conservatives should ardently
pursue these pro-life and pro-family policies while recognizing the many women
who find themselves in immensely difficult and often tragic situations and the hero-
ism of every choice to become a mother. Alternative options to abortion, especially
adoption, should receive federal and state support.
In summary, the next President has a moral responsibility to lead the nation in
restoring a culture of life in America again.
PROMISE #2: DISMANTLE THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE AND

RETURN SELF-GOVERNANCE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

Of course, the surest way to put the federal government back to work for the
American people is to reduce its size and scope back to something resembling
the original constitutional intent. Conservatives desire a smaller government
not for its own sake, but for the sake of human flourishing. But the Washington
Establishment doesn’t want a constitutionally limited government because it
means they lose power and are held more accountable by the people who put
them in power.
Like restoring popular sovereignty, the task of reattaching the federal gov-
ernment’s constitutional and democratic tethers calls to mind Ronald Reagan’s
observation that “there are no easy answers, but there are simple answers.”
In the case of making the federal government smaller, more effective, and
accountable, the simple answer is the Constitution itself. The surest proof of this
is how strenuously and creatively generations of progressives and many Repub-
lican insiders have worked to cut themselves free from the strictures of the 1789
Constitution and subsequent amendments.
Consider the federal budget. Under current law, Congress is required to pass
a budget—and 12 issue-specific spending bills comporting with it—every single
year. The last time Congress did so was in 1996. Congress no longer meaningfully
budgets, authorizes, or categorizes spending.
—6—
Instead, party leaders negotiate one multitrillion-dollar spending bill—several

thousand pages long—and then vote on it before anyone, literally, has had a chance
to read it. Debate time is restricted. Amendments are prohibited. And all of this
is backed up against a midnight deadline when the previous “omnibus” spending
bill will run out and the federal government “shuts down.”
This process is not designed to empower 330 million American citizens and
their elected representatives, but rather to empower the party elites secretly nego-
tiating without any public scrutiny or oversight.
In the end, congressional leaders’ behavior and incentives here are no differ-
ent from those of global elites insulating policy decisions—over the climate, trade,
public health, you name it—from the sovereignty of national electorates. Public
scrutiny and democratic accountability make life harder for policymakers—so they
skirt it. It’s not dysfunction; it’s corruption.
And despite its gaudy price tag, the federal budget is not even close to the worst
example of this corruption. That distinction belongs to the “Administrative State,”
the dismantling of which must a top priority for the next conservative President.
The term Administrative State refers to the policymaking work done by the
bureaucracies of all the federal government’s departments, agencies, and millions
of employees. Under Article I of the Constitution, “All legislative Powers herein
granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of
a Senate and a House of Representatives.” That is, federal law is enacted only by

elected legislators in both houses of Congress.
This exclusive authority was part of the Framers’ doctrine of “separated powers.”
They not only split the federal government’s legislative, executive, and judicial
powers into different branches. They also gave each branch checks over the others.
Under our Constitution, the legislative branch—Congress—is far and away the most
powerful and, correspondingly, the most accountable to the people.
In recent decades, members of the House and Senate discovered that if they give
away that power to the Article II branch of government, they can also deny responsi-
bility for its actions. So today in Washington, most policy is no longer set by Congress
at all, but by the Administrative State. Given the choice between being powerful but
vulnerable or irrelevant but famous, most Members of Congress have chosen the latter.
Congress passes intentionally vague laws that delegate decision-making over
a given issue to a federal agency. That agency’s bureaucrats—not just unelected
but seemingly un-fireable—then leap at the chance to fill the vacuum created by
Congress’s preening cowardice. The federal government is growing larger and less
constitutionally accountable—even to the President—every year.
l A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental

Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through
difficult-to-understand rulemaking processes;
—7—
l Bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security, following the lead

of a feckless Administration, order border and immigration enforcement
agencies to help migrants criminally enter our country with impunity;
l Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American,

ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms;
l Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice force school districts to

undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists;
l Woke bureaucrats at the Pentagon force troops to attend “training”

seminars about “white privilege”; and
l Bureaucrats at the State Department infuse U.S. foreign aid programs with
woke extremism about “intersectionality” and abortion.3
Unaccountable federal spending is the secret lifeblood of the Great Awokening.

Nearly every power center held by the Left is funded or supported, one way or
another, through the bureaucracy by Congress. Colleges and school districts are
funded by tax dollars. The Administrative State holds 100 percent of its power at
the sufferance of Congress, and its insulation from presidential discipline is an

unconstitutional fairy tale spun by the Washington Establishment to protect its

turf. Members of Congress shield themselves from constitutional accountability
often when the White House allows them to get away with it. Cultural institutions
like public libraries and public health agencies are only as “independent” from
public accountability as elected officials and voters permit.
Let’s be clear: The most egregious regulations promulgated by the current
Administration come from one place: the Oval Office. The President cannot hide
behind the agencies; as his many executive orders make clear, his is the respon-
sibility for the regulations that threaten American communities, schools, and
families. A conservative President must move swiftly to do away with these vast
abuses of presidential power and remove the career and political bureaucrats
who fuel it.
Properly considered, restoring fiscal limits and constitutional accountability
to the federal government is a continuation of restoring national sovereignty to
the American people. In foreign affairs, global strategy, federal budgeting and pol-
icymaking, the same pattern emerges again and again. Ruling elites slash and tear
at restrictions and accountability placed on them. They centralize power up and
away from the American people: to supra-national treaties and organizations, to
left-wing “experts,” to sight-unseen all-or-nothing legislating, to the unelected
career bureaucrats of the Administrative State.
—8—
As monolithic as the Left’s institutional power appears to be, it originates with

appropriations from Congress and is made complete by a feckless President. A
conservative President must look to the legislative branch for decisive action. The
Administrative State is not going anywhere until Congress acts to retrieve its own
power from bureaucrats and the White House. But in the meantime, there are
many executive tools a courageous conservative President can use to handcuff the
bureaucracy, push Congress to return to its constitutional responsibility, restore
power over Washington to the American people, bring the Administrative State
to heel, and in the process defang and defund the woke culture warriors who have
infiltrated every last institution in America.
The Conservative Promise lays out how to use many of these tools including:
how to fire supposedly “un-fireable” federal bureaucrats; how to shutter wasteful
and corrupt bureaus and offices; how to muzzle woke propaganda at every level of
government; how to restore the American people’s constitutional authority over
the Administrative State; and how to save untold taxpayer dollars in the process.
Finally, the President can restore public confidence and accountability to our
most important government function of all: national defense. The American people
desire a military full of highly skilled servicemen and women who can protect the
homeland and our interests overseas. The next conservative President must end
the Left’s social experimentation with the military, restore warfighting as its sole
mission, and set defeating the threat of the Chinese Communist Party as its high-

est priority.
The next conservative President must possess the courage to relentlessly put
the interests of the everyday American over the desires of the ruling elite. Their
outrage cannot be prevented; it must simply be ignored. And it can be. The Left
derives its power from the institutions they control. But those institutions are only
powerful to the extent that constitutional officers surrender their own legitimate
authority to them. A President who refuses to do so and uses his or her office to
reimpose constitutional authority over federal policymaking can begin to correct
decades of corruption and remove thousands of bureaucrats from the positions
of public trust they have so long abused.
PROMISE #3: DEFEND OUR NATION’S SOVEREIGNTY,

BORDERS, AND BOUNTY AGAINST GLOBAL THREATS.
The United States belongs to “We the people.” All government authority derives
from the consent of the people, and our nation’s success derives from the character
of its people. The American people’s right to rule ourselves is the obverse of our
duty: We cannot outsource to others our obligation to ensure the conditions that
allow our families, local communities, churches and synagogues, and neighbor-
hoods to thrive. The buck stops with each of us, so each of us must have the freedom
to pursue the good for ourselves and those entrusted to our care.
—9—
To most Americans, this is common sense. But in Washington, D.C. and other
centers of Leftist power like the media and the academy, this statement of basic
civics is branded hate speech. Progressive elites speak in lofty terms of openness,
progress, expertise, cooperation, and globalization. But too often, these terms are
just rhetorical Trojan horses concealing their true intention—stripping “we the
people” of our constitutional authority over our country’s future.
America’s corporate and political elites do not believe in the ideals to which our
nation is dedicated—self-governance, the rule of law, and ordered liberty. They
certainly do not trust the American people, and they disdain the Constitution’s
restrictions on their ambitions.
Instead, they believe in a kind of 21st century Wilsonian order in which the
“enlightened,” highly educated managerial elite runs things rather than the humble,
patriotic working families who make up the majority of what the elites contemp-
tuously call “fly-over country.”
This Wilsonian hubris has spread like a cancer through many of America’s larg-
est corporations, its public institutions, and its popular culture. Those who run our
so-called American corporations have bent to the will of the woke agenda and care
more for their foreign investors and organizations than their American workers
and customers. Today, nearly every top-tier U.S. university president or Wall Street
hedge fund manager has more in common with a socialist, European head of state
than with the parents at a high school football game in Waco, Texas. Many elites’

entire identity, it seems, is wrapped up in their sense of superiority over those

people. But under our Constitution, they are the mere equals of the workers who
shower after work instead of before.
This is as it should and must be. Intellectual sophistication, advanced degrees,
financial success, and all other markers of elite status have no bearing on a per-
son’s knowledge of the one thing most necessary for governance: what it means
to live well. That knowledge is available to each of us, no matter how humble our
backgrounds or how unpretentious our attainments. It is open to us to read in
the book of human nature, to which we are all offered the key just by merit of
our shared humanity. One of the great premises of American political life is that
everyone who can read in that book must have a voice in deciding the course and
fate of our Republic.
Progressive policymakers and pundits in America either fail to understand this
premise or intentionally reject it. They enthusiastically support supranational
organizations like the United Nations and European Union, which are run and
staffed almost entirely by people who share their values and are mostly insulated
from the influence of national elections. That’s why they are eager for America to
sign international treaties on everything from pharmaceutical patents to climate
change to “the rights of the child”—and why those treaties invariably endorse poli-
cies that could never pass through the U.S. Congress. Like the progressive Woodrow
— 10 —
Wilson a century ago, the woke Left today seeks a world, bound by global treaties
they write, in which they exercise dictatorial powers over all nations without being
subject to democratic accountability.
That’s why today’s progressive Left so cavalierly supports open borders despite
the lawless humanitarian crisis their policy created along America’s southern
border. They seek to purge the very concept of the nation-state from the Amer-
ican ethos, no matter how much crime increases or resources drop for schools
and hospitals or wages decrease for the working class. Open-borders activism is a
classic example of what the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap
grace”—publicly promoting one’s own virtue without risking any personal incon-
venience. Indeed, the only direct impact of open borders on pro-open borders
elites is that the constant flow of illegal immigration suppresses the wages of their
housekeepers, landscapers, and busboys.
“Cheap grace” aptly describes the Left’s love affair with environmental extrem-
ism. Those who suffer most from the policies environmentalism would have us
enact are the aged, poor, and vulnerable. It is not a political cause, but a pseu-
do-religion meant to baptize liberals’ ruthless pursuit of absolute power in the
holy water of environmental virtue.
At its very heart, environmental extremism is decidedly anti-human. Stew-
ardship and conservation are supplanted by population control and economic
regression. Environmental ideologues would ban the fuels that run almost all of the

world’s cars, planes, factories, farms, and electricity grids. Abandoning confidence
in human resilience and creativity in responding to the challenges of the future
would raise impediments to the most meaningful human activities. They would
stand human affairs on their head, regarding human activity itself as fundamentally
a threat to be sacrificed to the god of nature.
The same goals are the heart of elite support for economic globalization. For 30
years, America’s political, economic, and cultural leaders embraced and enriched
Communist China and its genocidal Communist Party while hollowing out Ameri-
ca’s industrial base. What may have started out with good intentions has now been
made clear. Unfettered trade with China has been a catastrophe. It has made a
handful of American corporations enormously profitable while twisting their
business incentives away from the American people’s needs. For a generation, pol-
iticians of both parties promised that engagement with Beijing would grow our
economy while injecting American values into China. The opposite has happened.
American factories have closed. Jobs have been outsourced. Our manufacturing
economy has been financialized. And all along, the corporations profiting failed
to export our values of human rights and freedom; rather, they imported China’s
anti-American values into their C-suites.
Even before the rise of Big Tech, Wall Street ignored China’s serial theft of
American intellectual property. It outright cheered the elimination of American
— 11 —
manufacturing jobs. (“Learn to code!” they would gloat.) These were just the price
of progress. Engagement was at every step Beijing’s project, not America’s. The
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dictated terms, only to break them whenever it
suited them. They stole our technology, spied on our people, and threatened our
allies, all with trillions of dollars of wealth and military power financed by their
access to our market.
Then came the rise of Big Tech, which is now less a contributor to the U.S.
economy than it is a tool of China’s government. In exchange for cheap labor and
regulatory special treatment from Beijing, America’s largest technology firms
funnel data about Americans to the CCP. They hand over sensitive intellectual
property with military and intelligence applications to keep the money rolling
in. They let Beijing censor Chinese users on their platforms. They let the CCP
set their corporate policies about mobile apps. And they run interference for our
rival’s political priorities in Washington. One side of Big-Tech companies’ business
model is old-fashioned American competitiveness and world-changing techno-
logical innovation; but increasingly, that side of these businesses is overshadowed
by their role as operatives in the lucrative employ of America’s most dangerous
international enemy.
If you want to understand the danger posed by collaboration between Big Tech
and the CCP, look no further than TikTok. The highly addictive video app, used by
80 million Americans every month and overwhelmingly popular among teenage

girls, is in effect a tool of Chinese espionage. The ties between TikTok and the
Chinese government are not loose, and they are not coincidental.
The same can be observed of many U.S. colleges and universities. Through the
CCP's Confucius Institutes, Beijing has been just as successful at compromising
and coopting our higher education system as they have at compromising and coopt-
ing corporate America.
A casual reader might take the last few pages as surveying a broad array of
challenges facing the American people and the next conservative President: supra-
national policymaking, border security, globalization, engagement with China,
manufacturing, Big Tech, and Beijing-compromised colleges.
But these really are not many issues, but two: (1) that China is a totalitarian
enemy of the United States, not a strategic partner or fair competitor, and (2) that
America’s elites have betrayed the American people. The solution to all of the above
problems is not to tinker with this or that government program, to replace this or
that bureaucrat. These are problems not of technocratic efficiency but of national
sovereignty and constitutional governance. We solve them not by trimming and
reshaping the leaves but by ripping out the trees—root and branch.
International organizations and agreements that erode our Constitution, rule
of law, or popular sovereignty should not be reformed: They should be aban-
doned. Illegal immigration should be ended, not mitigated; the border sealed, not
— 12 —
reprioritized. Economic engagement with China should be ended, not rethought.

Our manufacturing and industrial base should be restored, not allowed to dete-
riorate further. Confucius Institutes, TikTok, and any other arm of Chinese
propaganda and espionage should be outlawed, not merely monitored. Univer-
sities taking money from the CCP should lose their accreditation, charters, and
eligibility for federal funds.
The next conservative President should go beyond merely defending America’s
energy interests but go on offense, asserting them around the world. America’s
vast reserves of oil and natural gas are not an environmental problem; they are the
lifeblood of economic growth. American dominance of the global energy market
would be a good thing: for the world, and, more importantly, for “we the people.”
It’s not just about jobs, even though unleashing domestic energy production would
create millions of them. It’s not just about higher wages for workers who didn’t
go to college, though they would receive the raises they have missed out on for
two generations. Full-spectrum strategic energy dominance would facilitate the
reinvigoration of America’s entire industrial and manufacturing sector as we dis-
entangle our economy from China. Globally, it would rebalance power away from
dangerous regimes in Russia and the Middle East. It would build powerful alliances
with fast-growing nations in Africa and provide us the leverage to counter Chi-
nese ambitions in South America and the Pacific. Locally, it would drive billions
of dollars of private investment to the communities that have been hammered by

globalization since the 1990s. And it would clarify our intentions to Beijing that
the next President can ensure that a large part of America’s reindustrialization is in
the production of the equipment we will need to dissuade future foreign meddling
with U.S. vital interests.
PROMISE #4 SECURE OUR GOD-GIVEN INDIVIDUAL

RIGHT TO ENJOY “THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY.”
The Declaration of Independence famously asserted the belief of America’s
Founders that “all men are created equal” and endowed with God-given rights to
“Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It’s the last—“the pursuit of Happi-
ness”—that is central to America’s heroic experiment in self-government.
When the Founders spoke of “pursuit of Happiness,” what they meant might
be understood today as in essence “pursuit of Blessedness.” That is, an individual
must be free to live as his Creator ordained—to flourish. Our Constitution grants
each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought. This pursuit of the
good life is found primarily in family—marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners,
and the like. Many find happiness through their work. Think of dedicated teach-
ers or health care professionals you know, entrepreneurs or plumbers throwing
themselves into their businesses—anyone who sees a job well done as a personal
reward. Religious devotion and spirituality are the greatest sources of happiness
— 13 —
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— Vous trouvez que j’ai eu tort ? N’était-ce pas la plus simple
solution ?
— Un peu trop simple. Heureusement Agnès est intelligente…
Elle suivait sur son visage l’impression de chaque parole. Il ne
parut que surpris d’un blâme pourtant discret. Sa mère jugeait son
acte en femme du monde ou en dévote ; lui, il négligeait ces vaines
prudences. De leur entretien elle conclut trop vite que l’amour n’avait
pas inspiré son empressement pour Agnès.
En fait, il était d’abord content de lui : devant une nécessité
subite il avait montré sa décision et sa vigueur. Mais comment
l’étreinte de la belle nymphe flexible qu’il avait pressée contre son
cœur n’aurait-elle pas éveillé dans ses fibres un sourd émoi ? Il ne
se disait pas : J’aime. Était-ce déjà de l’amour ? Son inclination
restait latente. Le bourgeon, à la veille d’éclore, ne sait point qu’il
éclora. Il cédait à la volupté d’un attrait dont il ne voulait pas faire un
lien. Le bonheur initial de celui qui aime, c’est d’aimer.
Cependant, par intervalles, il se demandait :
— Que pense-t-elle de moi ? Me suppose-t-elle amoureux ?…
Elle s’est bien peu défendue. Si elle m’aimait, elle serait plus
coquette. N’importe ! Elle se souviendra toujours que moi, le premier,
je l’aurai portée dans mes bras.
Le premier ? Qui peut savoir ?…
Mais, sur-le-champ, il s’indigna contre un tel doute : Agnès était
pure, la promptitude même de sa confiance tenait à son ingénuité. Il
ne pouvait admettre d’elle une image diminuée ou flétrie ; à l’amie
réelle il substituait une idole ; et un déplaisir lui venait d’être incertain
si l’idole serait insensible ou devinerait son adoration.
Il se voyait fruste, impropre aux gentillesses qui éblouissent les
femmes. Qu’induire des façons d’Agnès avec lui, de clins d’œil, de
silences, de brusques rougeurs ? Chez elle, si nerveuse, les signes
apparents trompaient sur la vérité des impressions. Elle traitait
Jérôme, selon le mot d’Antoinette, « en camarade ». A supposer qu’il
lui parlât d’amour, que répondrait-elle ? Un refus, une attitude
évasive rompraient leur amitié ; elle n’aurait plus qu’à s’en aller, il la
perdrait. Donc, il devait attendre et se taire.
Mais ce mot : attendre fit sonner dans sa mémoire le conseil de
Dom Estienne : « Attendez et priez. » Jérôme priait peu et mal ; il
craignait qu’en se tournant vers Dieu il n’entendît l’injonction claire :
« Quitte tout et suis-moi. » Loyal dans ses rapports avec les
hommes, il rusait avec Celui qu’on n’élude pas.
Dans cet amour naissant il fuyait l’autre Amour.
La guérison d’Agnès fut plus lente qu’elle ne le présumait. Si elle
posait à terre son pied enflé, une vive souffrance la rendait boiteuse.
Pour qu’elle prît l’air dans le jardin et n’eût pas à descendre au
moment des repas, Mme Élise lui donna comme chambre provisoire,
au rez-de-chaussée, le petit salon.
Là, juste en face de son lit, s’offraient à sa méditation deux
cadres :
A gauche, une toile italienne, assez fraîche de tonalité,
représentant Andromède liée contre un roc, au-dessus de la mer. Le
monstre, à ses pieds, hurlait, impatient de la déchirer ; les vagues
écumaient autour d’elle ; le vent agitait sur son corps un lambeau de
voile et ses cheveux blonds. Les yeux de l’infortunée s’élançaient
vers le ciel d’où se penchait un cavalier, glaive en main, que portait
un cheval aile : le sauveur imprévu.
Et, à droite, un portrait de Jérôme adolescent. Comme, depuis la
guerre, il suivait la mode et rasait même sa moustache, elle
retrouvait sur sa figure de seize ans les traits familiers. Son œil
d’émerillon n’avait pas changé, ni son menton bien fendu par une
fossette, ni la jolie gouttière qu’il montrait sous ses narines. Mais les
joues étaient moins rondes, l’ossature des tempes et des pommettes
se dégageait plus virile. Les sourcils remontaient d’un trait un peu
rude. Accent de physionomie par où il rappelait ses ascendants
paternels et l’oncle Gaston.
Le regard d’Agnès, dans une fantaisie contemplative, allait de
Jérôme à Andromède :
— Andromède, c’est moi, qu’attend plus tard la solitude ou un
mariage bête. Toutes les tristesses pour me dévorer. A moins qu’un
libérateur…
Et, revenant à Jérôme :
— Il est à moi plus qu’il ne le sera sans doute jamais. Personne
ne peut savoir…
Personne ? Antoinette ne manqua pas d’observer la présence du
portrait. Une fois, en la quittant, elle lui dit avec un sourire de fine
malice :
— Je ne te laisse pas seule ; Jérôme te tient compagnie…
Pour la démentir, Agnès alla dehors s’étendre sur une chaise-
longue, auprès de deux cèdres qui massaient leurs touffes sombres
à gauche de la maison. De cet endroit la terrasse offrait à ses yeux
une ligne écarlate de géraniums, la file des élégants troënes, à tronc
mince, à tête arrondie, disposés dans des caisses rondes comme
les arbustes d’un décor de songe, et, au bas du double escalier, le
parterre entouré de roses, ouvertes maintenant, telles sur leurs tiges
que des joyaux. Çà et là, dans le jardin et à travers la campagne, les
pommiers fleuris faisaient comme des nuées de papillons éparses
au milieu de l’herbe.
Appuyée contre des coussins, Agnès voyait au-dessus d’elle de
clairs nuages, presque immobiles dans l’azur, semblables à des
arbres blancs. Sur ses mains, sur ses paupières l’air coulait doux
comme une eau tiède. Elle jouissait d’un parfait bien-être, et sa
beauté n’avait pas encore brillé d’une transparence aussi calme.
C’était un dimanche matin. Antoinette, avec Mme Élise, venait de
descendre pour la grand’messe. Les cloches en sonnaient le dernier
coup. Agnès se redressa, prit un paroissien qu’elle avait apporté, et
se mit à lire son office. Elle arrivait au dernier Évangile, quand
Jérôme sortit de la maison, rentra, ressortit et s’approcha d’elle. Il
avait une mine insolite, exaltée et soucieuse. Il prononça d’abord
des phrases dont il paraissait être absent :
— N’avez-vous besoin de rien ? On vous abandonne !
— Comment ! se récria-t-elle. Mais on est trop bon pour moi.
Quelle chose exquise, être malade ! On me fait un devoir de vivre en
enfant gâtée. Je dis à ma sœur : « Toinon, va me chercher du fil.
Toinon, apporte-moi de l’encre et du papier. » Elle quitte tout, elle
vole. Et votre mère, elle me comble, elle ne sait qu’inventer… Tenez,
c’est drôle, d’habitude, quand je vais à l’église, je suis très mal ma
messe ; les plus folles distractions, parce que j’ai le prêtre et l’autel
devant moi, m’emportent ailleurs. Ici, parce que l’église est loin, je
l’ai lue, ma messe, avec une attention dont je ne reviens pas. Je me
sens tellement tiède, évaporée !
— Moi aussi, dit Jérôme, et, ce qui est plus désolant, je veux
l’être. L’amour de Dieu m’épouvante comme une fournaise d’où plus
rien de ce qui est moi ne sortirait vivant.
Sans penser au mouvement qu’elle faisait, Agnès étira sur ses
jambes le bas de sa robe, et, avec une nuance de brusque ironie :
— Vous avez peur du feu ?
— Non, je n’ai peur de rien… sauf de moi-même.
Sa voix s’assombrit, il détourna les yeux ; d’autres aveux, peut-
être, allaient lui échapper. Agnès, au lieu de les solliciter, par un
recul de timide orgueil, brisa le dangereux entretien :
— Vous êtes bien tragique aujourd’hui ; allez faire un tour dans
les bois ; promenez Mob ; cela vous changera les idées.
Il s’éloigna, sans répondre, lentement, et disparut derrière la villa.
Agnès n’avait pas manqué à son rôle de femme : elle s’était mise en
défense, elle avait fait sentir sa supériorité.
Mais elle demeura bouleversée de joie, de compassion et
d’angoisse :
— Antoinette a bien vu ; il m’aime ; si je l’avais tant soit peu
poussé, il parlait… J’aurais dû peut-être. L’instant perdu reviendra-t-il
une autre fois ? Oui, si vraiment il m’aime, c’est une conversation
qu’il reprendra… Il ne m’a rien dit ; mais puis-je m’y tromper ? Cette
agitation, ce désarroi. Lui, d’ordinaire, si ferme… Le pauvre garçon !
Je lui ai fait une grande peine. Mais pourquoi cette peur de lui-
même ? quels scrupules ? quel secret ? Il faut savoir. Mon Dieu !
notre bonheur, vous le tenez dans votre main. Restera-t-elle fermée,
et que faire pour qu’elle s’ouvre ?
V
Ainsi Jérôme avait failli brûler ses vaisseaux. Moins fière, moins
rétractile, moins dénuée d’expérience, Agnès le conduisait à révéler
son tourment :
— Je vous aime ; mais, entre vous et moi, il y a cette chose
lourde, l’inquiétude d’une vocation…
Elle eût, de ses doigts légers, écarté l’invisible obstacle ; il
tombait à ses genoux.
C’est qu’en effet la nécessité d’un choix, jusqu’alors esquivée,
commençait à surgir devant lui, telle qu’au milieu d’une route une
statue dont la présence immobile impose à l’homme qui marche une
décision : passer à droite ou à gauche. Il n’hésitait pas, comme
Hercule, entre la Volupté et la Vertu. Il n’avait à se prononcer
qu’entre une vie plus parfaite et une autre qui l’était moins.
Se marier, s’établir en bon terrien, former une lignée vigoureuse
et nourrie de saintes traditions, était-ce un méprisable avenir ?
L’œuvre des survivants d’après-guerre serait assez belle s’ils
refaisaient la France et la chrétienté.
Mais il fallait aussi des prêtres. « Un pays sans prêtres, disait
Montcalm, ressemble à ces landes maudites où même les ajoncs
épineux ne savent plus pousser. » Parmi les morts de la guerre,
combien de prêtres et de futurs prêtres ? Qui les remplacerait ?
Ce dimanche-là, pendant la messe, Jérôme, cherchant l’évangile
du jour, avait rencontré une parole qui le traversa comme une plainte
exhalée hier : « Messis multa ; operarii pauci. Pour la moisson
immense trop peu d’ouvriers. »
Au moment de la communion, un dégoût de sa tiédeur l’avait
secoué : « Jésus veut la Cène préparée dans une grande salle, avec
des lits de repos. Et je le reçois dans le vestibule, dans le coin d’un
taudis maussade, en l’expédiant ! » Une minute il avait pris son âme
entre ses mains : « Seigneur, que faut-il que je fasse ? »
La réponse n’était pas venue, sans doute parce qu’il désirait
qu’elle ne vînt pas. Il avait quitté l’église plus assailli qu’avant
d’objections contre le séminaire. Elles formaient autour de sa
pensée une chaîne dansante, d’abord subtile, molle, mais qui se
resserrait comme un cercle d’airain.
— Si j’étais prêtre, je voudrais l’être absolument, mourir à moi-
même ; donc il vaut mieux ne pas l’être. A mon âge, quand j’ai, trop
longtemps déjà, vécu sous la férule d’autrui, aller m’asseoir sur les
bancs pour quatre ou cinq années d’études ; moi qui ai en horreur
les abstractions, grabeler des arguments scholastiques, éplucher
des cas de conscience, réfuter de vieilles hérésies, est-ce mon
affaire ? Et une vie étiolée entre quatre murs, celle de fusains pâles
dans une charmille sans soleil… Et le pli à prendre de la soumission
en tout… Non, vraiment, Montcalm s’est trompé. Ces héroïsmes ne
sont pas dans la ligne de mon avenir.
Et, surtout, ma mère a besoin de moi. Il faut que je l’aide à gérer
nos terres. Les métayers, là-bas, les braves gens d’alentour
attendent aussi mon aide. Je me dois à ce morceau du pays que je
puis sauver.
Une raison qu’il n’énonçait pas ajoutait, il le sentait bien, son
poids à toutes les autres : Agnès avait pris son cœur ; à présent elle
l’aurait tenu lié « avec un seul de ses cheveux. »
— Eh bien ! quoi ! je l’aime ! Est-ce que je fais mal ? Seulement,
voudra-t-elle ?…
Comme ce débat fléchissait vers une pauvre anxiété d’amoureux
incertain de la bonne réponse, il avait vu Agnès sortir sur la terrasse,
et, marchant avec précaution pour ne point paraître écloppée, aller
s’étendre à l’ombre bleue des cèdres, fermer voluptueusement les
yeux. Il s’était dit :
— Allons ; c’est l’instant.
Il descendit, l’aperçut qui lisait dans son paroissien ; un retour
d’idées pieuses le troubla ; il résolut de lui déclarer ce qu’il éprouvait,
le scrupule qui le séparait du bonheur. L’attente qui se prolongeait
irrita son angoisse ; il fit quelques pas dehors, mais n’osa
s’approcher. Une timidité imprévue, à la minute de l’aveu,
déconcertait son élan ; il rentra, se fit honte de son indécision, et,
ressortant, aborda la jeune fille avec cette figure étrange dont elle fut
saisie. Le mystère, le décousu des confidences ébauchées la mit en
alerte ; sous l’ironie de la rebuffade il ne discerna point l’émotion
terrible. Quand il avait eu le bras droit cassé par une balle, le choc
l’avait surpris comme un coup de fouet qui l’eût pincé jusqu’à l’os ; la
chiquenaude d’Agnès le blessa d’une douleur autrement cuisante. Il
se retira, comme abasourdi, humilié, certain qu’elle le jugeait
absurde, et consterné de la découvrir cruelle, au moment où il
n’aspirait qu’à fondre son âme en la sienne, dans la plus tendre
confiance.
Jérôme souffrait d’une imagination excessive ; ses désirs
bondissaient plus loin que le réel ; si quelque chose d’imprévu lui
résistait, il désespérait des autres et de lui-même.
Il s’en alla par l’avenue des tilleuls, prit au hasard, voyant à peine
où il marchait, sur la droite, un chemin désert. Il se demandait
pourquoi il existait encore ; sa personne lui semblait un point morne,
inutile dans l’immensité du monde. Son chagrin n’était qu’une folle
impatience de joie ; et il croyait la joie manquée à jamais !
Au bout du chemin, il s’arrêta, étonné d’être là plutôt qu’ailleurs. Il
se retourna, comme voulant renouer le nœud de ses sensations.
Derrière lui, clairsemés parmi des chênes, des genêts roux faisaient
des brasiers de fleurs. Aux Clouzeaux, dans son Bocage, il
connaissait un coin pareil. Cette analogie le dépaysa tout d’un coup ;
il se réveilla de son égarement.
— Agnès s’est moquée de moi. Elle a bien fait. Ma contenance,
le ton de ma voix étaient par trop stupides. Elle a vu, de loin, venir le
mot que je n’aurais peut-être pas dit. Elle a paré l’offensive ; elle a
rompu les chiens. Coquetterie ? Ou plutôt, c’est que je ne lui plais
guère. Tant pis pour elle !
Un sursaut d’amour-propre masculin le redressa ; de son
amertume il tira une reprise d’énergie. Il rentra, décidé à ne rien
laisser paraître. Il monta dans sa chambre où son miroir l’avertit que
sa mine portait les traces d’une commotion. Il se doucha d’eau
froide, peignit avec lenteur ses cheveux châtains dont les boucles
animaient la vigueur sanguine d’une oreille finement ourlée. Ses
joues avaient repris leur vive carnation. Détendu, dispos et beau
comme un astre, il redescendit pour le déjeuner.
Il s’attendait à retrouver Agnès ironique et distante. Elle se
montra simplement gentille. Démêlait-elle qu’il affectait de n’avoir
pas souffert ? Ne doutant point qu’elle l’avait peiné, elle s’appliquait à
dissiper leur malentendu. Elle le regardait manger, revenir à tous les
plats par une ostentation d’appétit où elle devinait une bravade. Elle
sentait chez ce garçon une force indomptée. Aurait-elle désiré la
soumettre ou s’y perdre ? Elle ne savait.
Au sortir de la table, on s’assit dehors, près de la maison. Le
Père lui-même, qui avait passé une excellente nuit, oublia sa sieste,
vint prendre l’air en compagnie des siens.
Mme Élise insista pour qu’Agnès s’étendît sur la chaise-longue.
Elle refusa, prétendant que cette position « de statue funéraire »
l’excédait. En se mettant sur une chaise basse à côté de Jérôme,
elle eut une manière imperceptible de se pencher vers lui et un
sourire qui signifiait : « Sommes-nous amis maintenant » ? Il en
pénétra l’intention et, tout d’un coup, redevint pleinement,
éperdument heureux. Par-dessus la tête d’Agnès il dominait les
rosiers de la pelouse ; un grand arbuste — le bouquet de la mariée,
— toutes ses fleurs blanches ouvertes, ressemblait à un buste de
femme sous de mousseuses dentelles. La conque verte du vallon,
couronnée d’azur, n’était plus pour lui qu’une corbeille nuptiale
offerte à la bien-aimée.
Il avait allumé un de ces petits cigares qu’on appelait, alors des
« diabolos ». Le Père, en veine de plaisanterie, aventura un
alexandrin dont il fit l’honneur à François Coppée :
Quelquefois, le dimanche, il fumait un cigare.
Antoinette, là-dessus, l’interrogea :

— En Orient, Père, en Chine, vous fumiez sans doute ?
— Non, jamais. Au séminaire, les premiers temps, bien que ce fût
interdit, je fumais dans ma chambre. Je fis vœu, ensuite, de ne plus
toucher une pipe, et j’ai tenu parole.
— Je me demande, insinua Mme Élise, comment on a pu faire de
vous un clerc discipliné.
— Oh ! vous savez par quelle méthode, chez nous, les gens du
Marais domptent les poulains qu’ils ont laissé grandir, jusqu’à trois
ans, libres, en plein herbage, avec le vent de la mer dans les
naseaux. Le jour où on veut les dresser, on lâche au milieu de leur
bande de vieux chevaux plus commodes et tranquilles. Tous
ensemble on les pousse dans une vaste grange. On s’approche de
l’animal effarouché ; on essaie de lui passer au cou un nœud
coulant. Il se défend, recule contre le mur où il s’écorche. A force de
patience, on en vient à bout. On l’attache, pour l’emmener, au cul
d’une charrette. Deux mois plus tard, le poulain sauvage est devenu
un bon cheval de trait.
Avant la fin de cet apologue, Mme Élise éclata de rire ; les deux
jeunes filles et Jérôme l’imitèrent plus discrètement. Les deux mains
allongées sur les bras de son fauteuil, la tête appuyée au dossier,
comme en rêvant, avec son air d’archimandrite oriental, le Père
continua :
— Pourquoi suis-je entré au séminaire ? En apparence, je n’avais
rien de ce qu’il faut. Une secrète impulsion m’y entraînait. J’ai résisté
tant que j’ai pu. Dieu a été le plus fort. Au début, je rongeai mon frein
si amèrement qu’à peine la porte fermée sur mon dos, j’eus envie de
sauter le mur, sans regarder derrière moi. La retraite, les premiers
cours, la soutane, la perspective de ressembler à tel ou tel qui la
portait, bien d’autres points me rebutèrent. Je souffris en silence ; je
ne voulais pas communiquer à d’autres ma nausée. Mon Directeur
était un homme compassé, rigide ; il eût achevé mon
découragement, si je m’étais ouvert à lui. Je me consolais (ô honte !)
avec ma pipe ; ce dont le Supérieur averti me blâma comme d’une
grave incartade. Je restai quand même, pour ne pas me dédire,
plutôt que de reparaître devant mon père (il avait contrarié de toutes
ses forces ma vocation) et d’être acculé à cet aveu : « Vous n’aviez
pas tort. »
Quelque chose de plus profond me retenait. Un jour, Dubourdieu,
cet ami qui rêvait d’être bénédictin (mais sa mère, veuve, avait
besoin de lui, et il ne l’a jamais quittée), Dubourdieu m’apporta au
parloir un livre qui l’avait bouleversé, les Visions et instructions
d’Angèle de Foligno. Je l’ouvris ; ce fut un trait de foudre dans la
sécheresse où je végétais. J’entrevis brusquement l’Amour divin ; il
me transverbéra. Les dégoûts, le quant à soi, la solitude du cœur, le
brisement de la volonté, est-ce que cela comptait ? Du coup, je me
précipitai dans toutes les rigueurs ; on dut modérer mon zèle. Je
passai même pour singulier ; et je l’étais. Ai-je cessé de l’être ?
Mme Élise coupa encore d’un léger rire cet aveu. Jérôme
paraissait préoccupé, presque ennuyé. Les confidences imprévues
de l’oncle dérangeaient son illusion amoureuse. Plus vaguement il
l’écouta poursuivre :
— Je fis pénitence de mes fragilités, des grandes et des petites ;
et, dans une intention naïve, cherchant quelle volupté illicite je
pourrais à jamais sacrifier, je brisai ma bonne pipe, non sans l’avoir
fumée une dernière fois… Peu à peu, je m’intéressai aux études ; je
me fis des amitiés dans mon sévère milieu. Bref, au bout de l’année,
le poulain sauvage était à peu près soumis.
— Ce qui ne vous a pas empêché, remarqua Mme Élise, de partir
ensuite pour les missions, afin, disiez-vous à votre frère, d’échapper
aux disciplines du diocèse, au moule…
— Taisez-vous, femme terrible. J’étais prédestiné à baptiser des
Chinois, voilà le motif. Privilège que j’ai durement payé, et je le paie
encore. Si c’était à recommencer, je me ferais missionnaire… en
France. Je frémis de penser au paganisme de nos campagnes, à la
déchéance des masses, et de ne plus rien pouvoir, sinon prier. Le
chanoine Lordereau me contait, l’autre jour, cette petite aventure qui
lui arriva, en l’an de grâce 1900, aux environs d’Auxerre. Il traversait,
le soir d’un beau jour d’été, un hameau perdu. Les gens étaient
assis devant leurs maisons, quelques enfants jouaient dans la rue. A
l’aspect d’une soutane, il y eut une soudaine panique, comme en
face d’un jeteur de sorts. Les gens couraient à leur porte, en
touchaient la serrure ou les gonds et rentraient, en se bousculant,
dans leur logis. Plus personne ; le prêtre pouvait croire que la peste
passait avec lui. Seule une vieille intrépide resta dehors, et, toute
souriante, osa l’interroger :
— N’êtes-vous point Monsieur Pénard ?
Or, il sut que l’abbé Pénard était venu dans ce hameau, dix-huit
ans auparavant. Depuis dix-huit ans, dans ce coin d’ancienne
France, pas un baptême, pas un mariage béni, pas un mourant
réconcilié. Aujourd’hui, le hameau lui-même est mort. Les vieux sont
en terre, les jeunes sont partis. Des toits ruinés, le vent, la pluie, les
araignées restent les seuls maîtres. Tels seront, avant un demi-
siècle, des milliers de villages. Plus de prêtres ; donc, plus de
famille, plus d’enfants, la mort partout.
— C’est affreux, conclut Jérôme qui se leva pour interrompre le
sinistre prophète. Mais, si l’on veut des prêtres, il faut d’abord des
enfants…
Le Père fut tenté de lui répondre avec bonhomie :
— Alors, marie-toi bien vite et prépare-nous des prêtres.
Une soudaine violence l’emporta ; il se redressa, fronçant les
sourcils, et son regard fulgurant parut s’enfoncer au loin, dans un
avenir de ténèbres :
— Si l’on attend les prêtres qui ne sont pas encore au monde, dit-
il d’un ton obscurément ironique, ce sera trop tard.
Jérôme, sans répliquer, se dirigea vers le vestibule. La
conversation, derrière lui, était tombée. Le Père faisait peser sur
tous comme l’attente d’un perpétuel orage grondant sur l’horizon.
Mais la voix limpide d’Antoinette rompit le silence oppressé :
— Ce matin, j’ai reçu, informait-elle Mme Élise, une lettre de la
vieille Hortense, la gardienne de notre logis. « Elle se languit de
nous espérer. » Il faudra bien, chère Madame, que nous songions,
au départ…
Impétueuse, Mme Élise coupa court à ce préambule :
— Je vous défends, Toinon, d’y songer. Vous quitterez Garches,
après les examens de Jérôme, en même temps que nous.
Elle mit dans sa décision tant de grâce affectueuse qu’Agnès et
Antoinette lui sautèrent au cou, l’étreignirent filialement.
Du grand salon, Jérôme, caché par le store d’une fenêtre,
observait Agnès, tandis que sa sœur prononçait le mot : départ. Un
rapide battement de cils, une moue contrariée marquèrent son
appréhension. Mais la réponse de Mme Élise la saisit d’un tel
transport qu’elle ne chercha point à le voiler.
Donc, elle était heureuse ; et pourquoi, si elle n’avait pas aimé ?
Une certitude ineffable, suave et poignante, emplit Jérôme jusqu’aux
moelles. Il contempla celle qu’il avait élue ; assuré de son cœur, pour
la première fois il osa penser : « Son âme et son corps, tout ce qui
est, en elle, beau et désirable, tout peut être à moi. Elle sera mienne,
comme je serai sien. » Une phrase à dire, et son bonheur se
décidait ! Dans un moment, quand sa mère rentrerait, il lui ferait
confidence de son inclination ; sans nul doute elle l’approuverait.
Il ressortit au milieu du vestibule. Une tenture à larges plis en
assombrissait le fond. Brusquement, il crut voir quelqu’un traverser,
une forme confuse qui, de biais, ressemblait à Montcalm, massif et
grave, la tête penchée sous son casque, tel qu’au dernier soir, où ils
marchaient, l’un devant l’autre, le long du boyau fangeux.
Le fantôme s’effaça, se fondit dans les plis de la tenture. Jérôme
frissonna, puis haussa les épaules : Hallucination ! De quel droit les
morts viendraient-ils inquiéter les vivants ?
Néanmoins, au lieu d’entretenir sa mère, il s’en alla, prenant
comme prétexte un rendez-vous à Paris avec des camarades ;
jusqu’au soir, il s’étourdit d’une gaîté vaine. Mais il ne put oublier
l’apparition.
VI
Vendéen, Jérôme avait été nourri, aux veillées, d’histoires de

chèvres fantastiques, de sorciers changés en chats ou en loups-
garous ; il avait cru aux revenants. Il avait éprouvé l’angoisse et
l’attrait de frôler le monde des Esprits. Une certaine nuit de Noël, il
accompagnait dans les bois le garde du domaine ; la lune était
haute ; les bouleaux craquaient sous le gel ; au centre d’une clairière
une nappe de givre couvrait des touffes serrées d’ajoncs ; là, il avait
vu, autour d’une longue table, des hommes blancs assis.
Mais, le fantôme de Montcalm, il ne voulait pas y croire. Il
essayait une explication : au moment où la présence d’Agnès visait
à l’absorber tout entier, l’image du mort, chassée des profondeurs de
son être, s’était animée en une silhouette fictive, dans la pénombre
du vestibule. Seulement il comprenait bien qu’il se payait de mots,
qu’un mystère ne peut s’élucider par un autre mystère. Illusoire ou
non, la vision signifiait la persistance intime du duel qui l’avait déjà
déchiré : la promesse donnée à Montcalm l’emporterait-elle sur
l’amour qui la niait ? Avant peu il prendrait parti. Il l’eût fait aussitôt,
et contre Montcalm, si Montcalm n’avait semblé intervenir. Il resta en
suspens, jusqu’à ce que son trouble fût apaisé. Mais, toutes les fois
qu’il traversait le vestibule, la forme de l’homme en marche hantait
son souvenir, plus flottante et disparue avant d’atteindre les plis
sombres de la tenture. C’était assez pour figer sur ses lèvres les
paroles qui auraient asservi sa destinée.
Cependant ses cours avaient repris ; le travail, le flot des
impressions quotidiennes, et surtout le contact enivrant d’Agnès
dissipèrent l’hallucination.
Comment n’eût-il pas écouté l’appel de la joie ? D’Agnès à lui,
chaque jour, il découvrait des consonances nouvelles. Il faisait le
tour de ses perfections ; de peur d’en être idolâtre, il y ajoutait les
nuances de quelques légers défauts. Son nonchaloir même devenait
un charme, le charme d’une vie latente qu’elle ne livrait qu’à demi.
Sa pensée, pour arriver jusqu’à l’air où elle vibrait, paraissait franchir
des limbes incertains.
« Je ne puis jamais exprimer ce que je sens ; et à quoi bon ? Qui
me comprendrait ? »
Il lui parlait d’elle-même ; il excusait ses mollesses de rêverie,
son goût un peu maladif du crépuscule, de l’automne, « des choses
qui finissent et qu’on laisse doucement mourir. »
Cette révélation d’un cœur féminin le ravissait ; il aurait voulu y
répondre en ouvrant tout à fait le sien. S’il la quittait, il croyait n’avoir
rien su lui dire. Mais, toujours, un je ne sais quoi l’arrêtait devant les
confidences décisives.
Au reste, avaient-ils besoin de parler ? « L’amour dit peu de
chose », observe un grand mystique [2] . La contempler lui suffisait.
Elle avait entrepris, pour l’offrir à Mme Élise, de broder un napperon.
Quand elle se penchait sur son ouvrage, il n’apercevait plus que son
front resserré sous ses bandeaux, avec une petite veine bleuâtre au
milieu, les deux creux d’ombre au-dessous des sourcils, la ligne
mince et nacrée du nez, les fronçures menues des lèvres, et les
doigts en mouvement qui tiraient ou poussaient l’aiguille brillante.
Elle s’appliquait. Elle prenait alors, sans la chercher, une pose de
graveleuse victime ; Antoinette prétendait reconnaître en elle « la fille
de Jephté ». Puis, tout d’un coup, elle redressait la tête ; si elle
souriait, il eût volontiers songé comme Dante en face de Béatrice :
« Son visage, quand elle sourit, ne se peut définir ni fixer dans la
mémoire. » Et la tendresse voilée de son regard l’ensorcelait.
[2] Saint Paul et la Croix.
Un fichu de soie noire, négligemment jeté autour de son cou,
relevait la finesse diaphane de sa peau. Quelquefois Jérôme
s’oubliait à rêver sur ces blancheurs entrevues. L’appétit d’un baiser
ne l’agitait pas encore. Toucher la main d’Agnès, en la revoyant, en
se séparant d’elle, cette volupté discrète comblait ses désirs.
Guérie de son entorse, elle s’était réinstallée dans sa chambre.
Celle de Jérôme se trouvait juste au-dessous. Malgré l’épaisseur du
tapis il l’entendait circuler, ouvrir son armoire, s’approcher de la
fenêtre. Il communiquait avec sa solitude. La nuit, dans le silence
attentif, il croyait, par instants, percevoir sa respiration.
En elle il aimait tout avec une ferveur éblouie. L’aurore lui
semblait plus vermeille ; les vibrations des cloches s’épandaient plus
célestes. Les arbres l’accueillaient d’un air fraternel. Les œillets du
jardin avaient changé d’odeur. Il trouvait Antoinette plus adorable,
parce qu’elle était la sœur d’Agnès. Il embrassait plus amicalement
sa mère. Il priait mieux. L’attente prestigieuse colorait même la
préparation de l’aride examen.
Chaque soir, il se disait : « A mon réveil, elle sera là. Demain, si
je veux, elle voudra. » Malgré tout, il ne se pressait pas de risquer
les trois mots fatidiques. D’autre part, elle se délectait si doucement
d’être aimée qu’elle ne brusquait point la conclusion. Elle demeurait
inquiète de pénétrer pourquoi il avait eu peur de lui-même. Mais,
lorsqu’elle rôdait autour de ce point obscur, il prenait une mine
grave ; elle sentait qu’en insistant elle l’eût froissé.
Ce fut Mme Élise qui décida un premier éclaircissement. Sur les
dispositions d’Agnès elle n’avait plus d’incertitude. Celles de Jérôme
restaient moins nettes. Elle le surprenait, vis-à-vis d’Agnès, perdu
d’extase ; bien des signes le dénonçaient amoureux. Il parlait
néanmoins de la jeune fille sur un ton désinvolte, comme d’une amie
de passage. Pourquoi cette affectation ?
Vers la fin d’une journée chaude, au milieu de mai, elle rentrait de
Paris ; Jérôme, à son insu, avait voyagé dans le même train ; ils
remontèrent ensemble ; sur la route où ils cheminaient seuls, elle lui
dit de la façon la plus simple :
— Agnès est très gentille. C’est dommage qu’on en ait fait une
princesse lointaine. Antoinette la dispense de tout effort. Elle ne sait
rien du ménage ; elle ne saurait pas commander. Si Antoinette
disparaissait, elle serait en ce monde comme une naufragée sur une
barque sans gouvernail et sans rames.
Elle se marierait, protesta Jérôme, visiblement contrarié. Son
mari la formerait ; elle est assez fine…
— Quel mari ? En serait-il capable ? A qui penses-tu pour elle ?
— A moi-même. Vous l’avez, j’en suis sûr, deviné. Et vous l’avez
bien voulu.
Tendrement, il insinua sa main sous le bras de sa mère. Il allait
justifier son choix ; Mme Élise, sans lui laisser le temps de poursuivre,
s’enquit d’une voix impatiente :
— Connaît-elle déjà tes sentiments ?
— Elle s’en doute. Ma bouche s’est tue ; mes yeux ont parlé.
— Eh bien ! je te demande une semaine encore ou deux de
silence. Après, nous verrons… Mais pourquoi ne m’as-tu pas dit
spontanément qu’elle te plaisait ? Il est donc trop vrai qu’une mère
n’a plus le cœur de son fils, dès qu’une autre le prend ?
Mme Élise se tenait au-dessus de la jalousie mesquine qui arme
de griffes certaines mères contre leur bru possible. Même, pour
sonder Jérôme, obtenir de lui une déclaration, elle avait exagéré ses
critiques. Un mois avant, les eût-elle énoncées ? Avec son besoin de
voir tout en beau, elle avait d’abord subi l’attrait d’Agnès ; depuis
qu’elle présumait l’avenir de Jérôme mêlé au sien, elle la considérait
d’un œil plus dégagé. Une sorte de brouillard lui avait caché ce que
pensait Jérôme ; de ce malaise Agnès portait le reproche. Dans
l’amertume de ses dernières paroles Jérôme discerna une curiosité
non satisfaite ; mais il ne voulait pas exposer tout son secret.
— Oh ! ma pauvre maman, dit-il en se pressant contre elle et lui
frôlant d’un baiser la joue, que vous êtes injuste ! Je ne vous ai
jamais tant aimée !
Agnès les vit rentrer tous deux, d’un pas beaucoup plus lent que
d’ordinaire ; elle soupçonna qu’en chemin s’étaient échangées des
choses importantes. Mme Élise s’efforça de reprendre sa figure
habituelle ; une réserve, une préoccupation perçaient au travers de
son amabilité ; Jérôme s’observait davantage, maintenant que sa
mère savait.
Agnès ressentit dans son amour une soudaine insécurité ; ses
espérances lui parurent fragiles comme ces châteaux de sable
qu’Antoinette enfant bâtissait avec elle sur la petite plage du
Veillons ; et un coup de vent les renversait. Quel gage d’attachement
tenait-elle de Jérôme ? Pourquoi l’obstination de ses réticences ?
Elle défaillit devant l’hypothèse qu’elle se leurrait peut-être, comme
une âme croyante qui se demanderait brusquement : « Le Dieu que
j’invoque m’entend-il ? »
Cette angoisse la brisa si fort qu’elle ne put, de tout le dîner,
articuler une parole. Aussitôt après elle se retira, mettant sa tristesse
sur le compte d’une migraine abominable. Antoinette, un moment
plus tard, monta dans sa chambre.
La lune presque pleine en éclairait à demi l’obscurité. Agnès,
étendue sur son lit, dans sa chemise flottante, les mains croisées
sous sa nuque, avait l’air d’une statue pâle couvrant le marbre d’un
tombeau. Elle regardait le globe ardent de la lune s’élever juste en
face de sa fenêtre ouverte, s’approcher comme s’il voulait entrer.
Elle ne tourna point la tête vers sa sœur ; Antoinette se pencha sur
elle, et la baisant au front, murmura :
— Tu souffres bien, ma chérie ?
— Oui, laisse-moi. J’ai besoin d’être seule, de dormir…
— Va, reprit Antoinette, je te comprends trop. Tu te ronges
d’idées funestes. Tu as peur d’être heureuse, quand le bonheur vient
à ta porte…
Agnès s’était redressée ; accoudée sur son traversin, elle
dévisagea sa sœur anxieusement :
— Que sais-tu ? On t’a dit quelque chose ?
— Non, rien du tout. Mais…
— Alors, tais-toi, et oublie-moi dans mon néant. Si tu as vu le
bonheur à ma porte, avertis-le qu’il se presse d’entrer. Je suis lasse
de l’attendre.
— Oh ! reprit Antoinette, malgré ton silence, je sais depuis
longtemps que tu aimes Jérôme, et je suis sûre aussi qu’il t’aime.
Sois donc patiente. Il n’y a qu’un amour où le Bien-Aimé ne tarde
jamais, et encore ?…
Agnès chiffonnait la dentelle de son oreiller ; comme agacée de
cette clairvoyance, elle interrompit :
— Tu vois avec la candeur de tes illusions ses sentiments. S’il
m’aimait en vérité, il me le dirait ; ce serait plus fort que lui. Ou bien,
c’est qu’un obstacle, un grave obstacle l’enchaîne. S’est-il engagé
ailleurs ? Sa mère s’oppose-t-elle ?
— Je ne le crois pas. Elle a pour toi une vraie tendresse.
— Dis qu’elle l’a eue. J’ai été avec elle trop insouciante, trop
franche. Je me suis trop montrée telle que je suis. T’en souviens-tu ?
Vers la fin du carême, comme on parlait de confession, je lui ai fait
étourdiment cet aveu : « Se confesser, quelle pénitence ! Se mettre à
genoux sur du bois dur, sous le rideau, dans un coin noir où l’on
étouffe, devant un prêtre qu’on ne voit pas, répéter, entendre des
ritournelles qui ne varient guère, et sortir absoute avec la certitude
qu’on refera les mêmes péchés, est-ce la peine ? » J’ai senti, au
sérieux de sa réponse, que mon état d’esprit l’inquiétait. Je l’amuse,
elle m’aime un peu. Mais elle ne met en moi qu’une moitié de
confiance. Elle a raison peut-être ; je ne suis propre à rien qu’à
réunir en un seul cœur les misères de beaucoup…
Elle s’abandonna, dans un sanglot, entre les bras d’Antoinette.
Celle-ci, de son mieux, la réconforta ; elle tenterait d’amener Jérôme
à définir ses intentions.
— Jusque-là, jette-toi en Dieu ; sois humble. Et ne te laisse plus
tomber, comme ce soir, à la façon d’une mouche morte. Jérôme
aime la force ; sa mère est une femme forte. Sois comme elle.

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Mandate for Leadership The

Conservative Promise Paul Dans

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Promise Canyon Robyn Carr

All rights reserved.

Foreword by Kevin D. Roberts, PhD

SECTION 1: TAKING THE REINS OF GOVERNMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

SECTION 2: THE COMMON DEFENSE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

AND RELATED AGENCIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

SECTION 5: INDEPENDENT REGULATORY AGENCIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 825

Paul Dans & Steven Groves

Independent Women’s Forum

l Pillar I—this volume—puts in one place a consensus view of how major

Pillar II is a personnel database that allows candidates to build their own

l Pillar III is the Presidential Administration Academy, an online

Jonathan Berry is managing partner at Boyden Gray & Associates PLLC. He

David R. Burton is Senior Fellow in Economic Policy in the Thomas A. Roe

international investment, international information sharing, the U.S. economic

Adam Candeub is a professor of law at Michigan State University. His scholarly

Dustin J. Carmack is Research Fellow for Cybersecurity, Intelligence, and Emerg-

and Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Brendan Carr has nearly 20 years of private-sector and public-sector experience

Ken Cuccinelli served as Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an Oxford-educated economist, directs the Center for

Thomas F. Gilman served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Administration

Mandy M. Gunasekara of Oxford, Mississippi, is a principal at Section VII Strat-

Kent Lassman is President and CEO of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Bernard L. McNamee is an energy and regulatory attorney with a major law

Christopher Miller served in several positions during the Trump Administration,

Stephen Moore is a conservative economist and author. He is currently a senior

William Perry Pendley was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He earned a BA and

Roger Severino is Vice President of Domestic Policy at The Heritage Founda-

Brooks D. Tucker served in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as Assis-

Spakovsky was a Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission. He served

William L. Walton is Chairman of the Resolute Protector Foundation and host

Paul Winfree is Distinguished Fellow in Economic Policy and Public Leadership

Patrick T. Brown, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Laura Cunliffe, Independent Women’s Forum

Troy Edgar, IBM Consulting

Richard Hanania, Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology

David Legates, University of Delaware (Ret.)

John Ratcliffe, American Global Strategies

Nina Owcharenko Schaefer, The Heritage Foundation

William Steiger, Independent Consultant

As Ronald Reagan put it:

THE CONSERVATIVE PROMISE

1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect

2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the

4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution

PROMISE #1: RESTORE THE FAMILY AS THE CENTERPIECE

are designed to solve—but can’t—are ultimately problems created by the crisis of

(“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensi-