No, this 2021 video does not show Trump’s VP pick J.D. Vance endorsing Project 2025

Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign attacked Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance in a social media post that it said highlighted the Republican vice presidential nominee’s support for a controversial conservative platform.

"JD Vance endorses Project 2025," the Harris campaign wrote in a July 27 X post that shared a nearly two-minute video of Vance. 

"We really need to be really ruthless when it comes to the exercise of power. ... I don't think there’s a compromise that we’re gonna come with. ... Unless we overthrow them in some way, we’re gonna keep losing," the X post quoted Vance as saying.

JD Vance endorses Project 2025: “We really need to be really ruthless when it comes to the exercise of power... I don't think there's a compromise that we're gonna come with... Unless we overthrow them in some way, we're gonna keep losing” pic.twitter.com/2sVHp4i1ek

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 27, 2024

We also saw a similar post on Meta’s Threads platform, which presented the clip as "a stunning new leak" showing Vance’s alleged endorsement of Project 2025. That post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Project 2025 refers to a 922-page guide for an incoming Republican administration. The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank leading Project 2025, published the document April 21, 2023. 

But the Harris campaign’s claim is inaccurate: This video does not show Vance endorsing Project 2025 — he made these comments in 2021, more than a month before announcing his Senate run and two years before the Project 2025 plan was made public.

The Federalist, a conservative news outlet, first posted this video of Vance May 18, 2021, on its YouTube channel. Vance launched his Senate bid in early July 2021. 

The clip from the Harris’ campaign’s X post appears about 25 minutes into the full interview, when Federalist co-founder Ben Domenech asked Vance how he might help close what he described as a growing divide between military and nonmilitary families. Here was Vance’s full response.

Vance: "I think part of the answer is that the next time that we get power, whether it’s in the Senate or the House or the presidency — we’re talking President (Ron) DeSantis in 2024 or President (Donald) Trump round two in 2024 — I think the thing that we have to take away from the last 10 years is that we really need to be really ruthless when it comes to the exercise of power.

"I was talking about this with someone earlier today, where, you remember there was some threat that congressional or Senate Republicans made, ‘If you get rid of the filibuster, we’re gonna do X, Y and Z.’ And you actually look at it, it’s like, well this is, this is not that interesting. Like — " 

Domenech, laughing: "We’re going to actually deliver on the promises we’ve made for decades." 

Vance: "Right? You know, this is the threat? ‘If you get rid of the filibuster we’re going to do this stuff?’ They’re talking about expanding the Supreme Court; they’re talking about adding two senators from heavily Democratic places."

… 

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Vance: "So, I think, I mean, look. I am a cynic about this and maybe even a little bit of a pessimist. But I think the challenge confronting American conservatives is that we have lost every major powerful institution in the country, except for maybe churches and religious institutions, which of course are weaker now than they’ve ever been. We’ve lost big business, we’ve lost finance, we’ve lost the culture, we’ve lost the economy. And if we’re going to really, actually affect real change in the country it will require us completely replacing the existing ruling class with another ruling class. I say that, knowing and hearing myself — it sounds really hard. It is really hard. But I don’t think there’s, like a detente with these people. I don't think there’s sort of a compromise that we’re going to come with the people who currently actually control the country. Unless we overthrow them in some way, we’re going to keep losing. And that’s the challenge. Now, it’s not easy. It requires us to build institutions. It requires us to support, you know, alternative media institutions and alternative media programs. It requires us to elect different people at all levels of government. And it requires us to be willing to use the power vested in our constitutional republic to go after some of our enemies in big business. Those things are all really hard, but I don’t know how else to do it."

Vance mentioned neither Project 2025 nor The Heritage Foundation in the interview; it would be two more years before the plan would be published.

Asked for evidence of its claim, Harris’ campaign said the video showed Vance voicing support for policies similar to those promoted in Project 2025. The campaign also pointed to Vance’s remarks about Project 2025 and his affiliations with its contributors.

For example, part of Project 2025 calls for extensive executive-branch overhauls, including reclassifying thousands of civil servants as political appointees, therefore increasing the number of federal workers who would advance conservative goals. This aligns with a strategy Vance promoted in 2021. 

But this lacks context, too.

Democrats have linked Project 2025 to former President Donald Trump when attacking its proposals, but the Heritage Foundation-produced guide is neither an official Trump campaign position nor the Republican party platform. Although both Trump and Vance have expressed some views that align with some of the policy proposals laid out in Project 2025, neither have issued a blanket endorsement of the plan.

Trump has rebutted attacks tying him to Project 2025, saying he knows "nothing about it" and has "no idea who is behind it." On July 30, the Heritage Foundation said the project’s director, Paul Dans, would step down.

Vance has expressed support from some — but not all — of the ideas Project 2025 promotes.

"I think most Americans couldn’t care less about Project 2025," Vance said during a July Newsmax interview. "I’ve reviewed a lot of it. There’s some good ideas in there, Rob, there’s some things that I disagree with. But most importantly, it has no affiliation with the Trump campaign."

Vance has some ties to The Heritage Foundation. He wrote the foreword for an upcoming book written by the Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, who is an architect and promoter of Project 2025. Vance spoke at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th Anniversary Leadership Summit in April 2023, when he said that if Republicans won the White House in 2024, "This organization is going to play a major role in helping us figure out how to govern."

We contacted Vance’s office and received no reply. 

Harris’ campaign claimed a video it posted on X showed that "JD Vance endorses Project 2025." 

The video was posted in May 2021, nearly two years before Project 2025’s 922-page conservative policy guide was published in April 2023. 

Vance did not mention nor endorse Project 2025 then.

We rate that claim False.

PolitiFact Staff Writer Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu and PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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