J.D. Vance Praised Extremely Dark Report by Project 2025 Architects

J.D. Vance gave heavy praise to a 2017 Heritage Foundation report that suggested restricting reproductive rights and called hunger a “great motivation” for Americans to work.

Vance wrote the report’s introduction, and was even the keynote speaker when it was publicly released just months after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, according to The New York Times. At the time, Vance hadn’t yet entered politics, and was known as the author of the bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy.

The Index of Culture and Opportunity report consists of 29 essays from people from across the conservative movement, including commentators, members of the clergy, policy experts, and local community leaders. In addition to saying there’s an upside to people going hungry, the essays opposed fertility treatments including in vitro fertilization, calling them harmful to women. The writers also praised state-level laws restricting abortion and hoped the procedure would be “unthinkable” one day in America.

The report seems like a preview of the Republican policies that have been pushed in the years since, with essays calling for women to be pregnant at younger ages and extolling heterosexual couples as “ideal” for raising children. When asked, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance campaign said Vance didn’t edit the essays or have “any input on the commentary.”

But in his introduction to the report, Vance tied economic distress with what he viewed as cultural decline, arguing that Americans needed a return to conservative values along with practical solutions like education and policy changes to fix their lives.

“Culture, in other words, must serve as the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one, and proper conversation about culture will never be used as a weapon against those whom Christ described as ‘the least of these,’” he wrote in the Index of Culture and Opportunity report. “It will be a needed antidote to a simplistic political discourse.”

Since Trump named him as his running mate, Vance has taken a lot of heat for his past comments, many of which had to do with his views on family life. He’s faced heavy criticism for attacking people without children, not just from politicians but from celebrities. This latest revelation is a reminder of his ties to the conservative Heritage Foundation, which was behind the infamous Project 2025 manifesto that Vance and Trump have unsuccessfully tried to distance themselves from. At this point, Republicans have to be wondering if Vance’s efforts in the conservative movement, considered an asset to the GOP, will hurt their chances in November.

It seems that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s pro–Donald Trump spoiler campaign isn’t going too well.

The failed independent presidential candidate has begun desperately attempting to scrape his name off the ballot in battleground states where his presence might give Kamala Harris a boost—but to no avail. While Kennedy once struggled to get on the ballot in several states, now he can’t seem to find his way off.

Kennedy is suing North Carolina’s State Board of Elections, after it declined to remove his name from the state’s ballot because 1.7 million ballots had already been printed and 67 of the state’s 100 counties have already received their ballots.

To pause or disrupt ballot printing could interfere with the distribution of absentee ballots, according to the board’s executive director, Karen Brinson Bell. Printing new ballots could cost in the high six-figure range and take nearly two weeks, said Bell.

Last week, the board voted 3–2 along partisan lines to keep Kennedy’s name on the ballot. In response, a lawsuit has been filed on Kennedy’s behalf demanding that he be removed.

“By refusing to acknowledge Kennedy’s statutory rights and entitlements, defendants have irreparably harmed him,” said the lawsuit, which was filed in Wake County Superior Court late last month. “Even worse, by forcing Kennedy to remain on the ballot against his will, defendants are compelling speech in violation of (the Constitution).”

The suit argues that “practicality” is not a valid legal standard by which the board can deny Kennedy’s request.

Kennedy’s inability to slink out of the race in key battleground states has the potential to hurt the Trump campaign. Kennedy even said that his own campaign’s polling showed that it would “likely hand the election over to the Democrats” if he remained on the ballot in certain states. As the race between Harris and Trump narrows, the likelihood of his spoiling Trump’s chances too only increases.

In North Carolina, Trump has retained a one-point lead, but a new report last week found that Harris had shored up support among Democratic and independent voters, gaining 13 points with each group. As a result, the Cook Political Report updated the race from a “leaning Republican” rating to a “toss-up.”

Kennedy’s requests to be removed from the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin have also been denied. Election officials in Michigan said that minor parties were unable to withdraw from the ballot, while officials in Wisconsin said that anyone who filed nomination papers and qualified to appear on the ballot could not decline the nomination.

In the less than two weeks since Kennedy announced he was suspending his campaign to throw his weight behind Trump, the whale-decapitator has made clear that he intends to stay on the ballot in some states but not others. He has successfully removed himself from the ballot in other battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona.

A top volunteer is no longer with Donald Trump’s campaign over fears that the former president is wasting resources in a nonnegotiable state.

Tom Mountain, a former vice chair of Trump’s effort in Massachusetts, will reportedly “no longer have any involvement” in helping the Republican presidential nominee, according to The Boston Globe. At issue was an alarm-raising email that Mountain sent out on Sunday, notifying fellow Trump volunteers that “the campaign has determined that New Hampshire is no longer a battleground state” and that staff should redirect campaign efforts in Pennsylvania.

According to Mountain, Trump was “sure to lose by an even higher margin” in New Hampshire than in the previous two election cycles, citing “campaign data/research.” Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire by a hair in 2016, clinching a minuscule margin of 0.37 percent with 2,736 votes.

The messaging was a near complete reversal for the Trump campaign, which had high ambitions of claiming the Granite State when President Joe Biden was still the Democratic presidential nominee.

Officials with the Trump campaign didn’t give the warning much merit and were quick to attack Mountain’s position in the campaign. In an interview with the Globe, Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said that to describe Mountain as a “leading volunteer” would be a “massive overstatement of his involvement.”

“This isn’t true,” Hughes said in reference to Mountain’s email. “President Trump’s campaign maintains an on-the-ground presence in New Hampshire, including staff and offices, while Kamala Harris is parachuting in because she knows that the Granite State is in play. We look forward to building on the momentum that we have grown since the primary and sending New Hampshire’s four electoral votes to President Trump’s column on November 5.”

Donald Trump is claiming he had “every right” to interfere in the 2020 election.

During an interview Sunday on Fox News’s Life, Liberty & Levin, Trump seemingly defended his right to illegally interfere with the 2020 election—while also claiming he did not do it, when asked about the Justice Department’s plans to “keep smearing” him.

“It’s so crazy that my poll numbers go up. Who ever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election—where you have every right to do it—you get indicted, and your poll numbers go up?” Trump said. “When people get indicted, your poll numbers go down!”

Trump is facing charges in Washington, D.C., for alleged election interference, as well as a separate slate of charges in Georgia for election interference.

Last week, special counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment against Trump in his federal election interference case. While the indictment did not drop any of the four original charges against Trump, it did remove some of the specific allegations and emphasize how Trump’s actions fell outside of the bounds of “official conduct,” in an effort to adhere to the Supreme Court’s new definition of presidential immunity.

Trump responded by going on a disturbing social media rant about how he plans to jail and even kill his enemies.

Kamala Harris made her Middle East policy abundantly clear during her first big media interview on Thursday: America will continue to arm Israel, unconditionally.

In the much-hyped interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, and Tim Walz by her side, Harris was asked how she’d differentiate her stance on Israel from President Joe Biden’s.

“Would you do anything differently, for example, would you withhold some U.S. weapons shipments to Israel? That’s what a lot of people on the progressive left want you to do,” asked Bash.

“Let me be very clear. I’m unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself, and that’s not going to change,” replied Harris. “As I said then [on October 7], I say today Israel has a right to defend itself … and how it does so matters.”

Harris went on to clarify that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed” by Israel, but still refused to commit to changing U.S. policy on Israel.

Harris emphasized the need for a cease-fire agreement saying “we have to get it a deal done,” mentioning the Biden administration’s presence this week at negotiations in Qatar. At talks in Doha, the potential deal included a limited six-week cease-fire, prisoner release, and aid into Gaza in exchange for 33 living hostages returned to Israel. However, Hamas has not participated directly in the talks because they say the negotiations “provide cover for Israel to continue its war”—and Israel left the talks on Thursday with no final agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu said he believes Israel must keep military pressure to force a deal.

Harris has previously told Netanyahu, “It is time for this war to end,” but the Israeli prime minister has refused to accept anything but a “partial” cease-fire deal, like the one that was being negotiated in Doha.

As Bash pointed out, many Americans are looking at Harris and Biden to cease arms sales to Israel. A June CBS poll found that 61 percent of Americans oppose weapons aid to Israel, including 77 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents. Moreover, 77 percent of those under 30 oppose arming Israel in its continued assault on Gaza. Another YouGov/IMEU Policy Project poll this month found that voters in swing states are more likely to vote for a nominee who vows to withhold weapons.

CNN’s Bash continued by zeroing in on this issue, pressing the vice president in terms of how this deal would get done. “But no change in policy, in terms of arms and so forth?”

“No, we have to get a deal done,” Harris replied, shooting down the possibility of an arms embargo. “I remain committed, since I’ve been on October 8, to what we must do to work toward a two-state solution—where Israel is secure and in equal measure, the Palestinians have security and self determination and dignity.”