Roberts later apologized to Heritage staff for his choice of words, which some had criticized as playing into antisemitic tropes, and for having “let down this institution.” Project 2025 was not a wholesale reinvention but a rebrand…. Many Heritage staff members told me that Project 2025 was compiled with DeSantis, a strategic policy thinker, in mind. Trump vehemently denied any knowledge of Project 2025, which many in the media interpreted as gaslighting. A crop of new organizations were challenging Heritage’s previous dominance, including the America First Policy Institute, founded by officials from the first Trump administration.