Claremont Institute's Alum Run Trump's Washington

Here is more from Politico:

The Claremont Institute was founded nearly a half-century ago by a ragtag group of Southern California-dwelling conservative political theorists who eschewed Washington orthodoxy.

Now, many of its alumni run this town.

At least 70 participants in Claremont’s small suite of fellowships over the last decade hold or have held posts in President Donald Trump’s second administration, according to a POLITICO analysis of fellowship lists, LinkedIn profiles, and other public biographies.

Trump’s budget director Russ Vought, White House legislative director James Braid, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s adviser Michael Needham and CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis are all graduates of Claremont fellowships.

State Department senior advisor Michael Anton is a Claremont senior fellow.  Claremont scholars have advised and collaborated with figures like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).  

The article notes, among other things, that Vice President JD Vance has been involved with Claremont for years, and he was awarded the Claremont Institute's Statesmanship Award in July 2025. 

 

 

12+ Staffers Leave Heritage for Pence's Think Tanks

Here is more from Politico:

More than a dozen staffers at The Heritage Foundation are leaving the conservative think tank to join a nonprofit led by former Vice President Mike Pence as the embattled organization continues to reel from ongoing turmoil.

Advancing American Freedom — founded by Pence in 2021 “to defend liberty and advance policies that build a stronger America” — announced Monday that three senior officials who led the legal, economic and data teams at Heritage would be joining the group next year, along with several members of their teams.

The departures, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, mark the latest sign of upheaval at Heritage, which has seen dozens of staffers flee the organization since it became engulfed in a scandal involving Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and the ongoing debate within the conservative movement over antisemitism.

 

Advancing American Freedom (AAF), after learning that a number of Heritage staffers wanted to leave the think tank, raised $13 million toward a $15 million goal in just two weeks to help fund their salaries over the next three years.  AAF now has more than 30 employees.

Heritage Foundation Bleeding Trustees Over Support for Tucker Carlson

Here is more from The Washington Post:

Two prominent conservatives quit the board of the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday as the storied right-wing think tank fights over how to handle antisemitism on the right.

Abby Spencer Moffat, the CEO of the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation who joined Heritage’s board in 1992, and Shane McCullar, a former executive at McDonald’s and Rubbermaid who joined the board last year, said the institution was straying from its founding principles and losing its credibility and moral authority.

Their departures follow Princeton professor Robert George, who resigned from the board in November. A Heritage spokesman said it was not clear who would replace them on the board, which is left with 10 members in addition to [Heritage President Kevin] Roberts.

Several researchers also left the think tank since the controversy erupted in late October, and an antisemitism task force that the Heritage Foundation convened ended the relationship after Roberts did not accept its recommendations to address the concerns. Roberts demoted his chief of staff who was largely responsible for drafting his first controversial scripted video. 

 

The New York Times noted that  the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation has given the Heritage Foundation more than $12 million since 2019.

 

US Institute of Peace Renamed for Trump

Here is more from CNN:

President Donald Trump’s name has been installed on the building and signage around the US Institute of Peace (USIP) – an independent agency that the administration gutted earlier this year.

The president’s moniker appeared on the Washington, DC, headquarters ahead of a peace agreement signing ceremony between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) due to take place there on Thursday.

The Trump administration has essentially shuttered the institute, which works to resolve conflict and was created by Congress in 1984. The administration’s budget request for the next fiscal year called for the elimination of federal funding for USIP.  

USIP is not a federal agency, and it owns and manages its headquarters. The administration’s takeover of the institute, including its building and assets, has been the subject of extensive litigation.

In March, officials at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) attempted to forcibly obtain access to the building, before returning days later accompanied by police.

The administration fired most of USIP’s board in March. Employees were terminated in July, after initially receiving termination notices in late March.

 

It is now being called the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. 

AI Models Rate "Right" Think Tanks Lower Than Those on "Left"

Here is more from the findings of conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI):

Executive Summary

Large-language models (LLMs) increasingly inform policy research. We asked 5 flagship LLMs from leading AI companies in 2025 (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, xAI, and DeepSeek) to rate 26 prominent U.S. think tanks on 12 criteria spanning research integrity, institutional character, and public engagement. Their explanations and ratings expose a clear ideological tilt.

Key findings

• Consistent ranking. Center-left tanks top the table (3.9 of 5), left and center-right tie (3.4 and 3.4), and right trails (2.8); this order persists through multiple models, measures, and setting changes.
• Overall: Across twelve evaluation criteria, center-left think tanks outscore right-leaning ones by 1.1 points (3.9 vs. 2.8).
• Core measures. On the three headline criteria of Moral Integrity, Objectivity, and Research Quality, center-left think tanks outscore right-leaning ones by 1.6 points on Objectivity (3.4 vs. 1.8), 1.4 points on Research Quality (4.4 vs. 3), and 1 point on Moral Integrity (3.8 vs. 2.8)
• Language mirrors numbers. Sentiment analysis finds more positive wording in responses for left-of-center think tanks than for right-leaning peers.
• Shared hierarchy. High rating correlations across providers indicate the differences originate in underlying model behavior, not individual companies, user data, or web retrieval.

 

The 26 think tanks rated were: America First Policy Institute (AFPI), AEI, Brookings Institution, Cato Institute,  Center for American Progress (CAP), Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), Claremont Institute, Demos, Economic Policy Institute (EPI), Groundwork Collaborative, Heritage Foundation, Hoover Institution, Hudson Institute, Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), Manhattan Institute, Mercatus Center, Mises Institute, New America, R Street Institute, Reason Foundation, Roosevelt Institute, Tax Foundation, Terner Center for Housing and Innovation, Third Way, and Urban Institute.

Think Tank Quickies (#526)

• American First Policy Institute (AFPI) announces $10 million initiative "to develop AI policies aimed at supporting workers."
• The Heritage Foundation goes from MAGA to MEGA - Make Europe Great Again.
• American First Policy Institute received more than $4.4 million from DonorsTrust in 2024, while America First Legal Foundation received $21.3 million from the dark money nonprofit. 
• Angus Fletcher, Professor of Story Science at Ohio State's Project Narrative, "the world's leading academic think tank for the study of how stories work." 
• Kenneth Weinstein, former President and CEO of Hudson, named as CBS News ombudsman.  He is also a senior adviser at Brunswick Group.
• The Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations was founded as an offshoot of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York. 
• The National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS): An in-house think tank of Japan's Ministry of Defense. 
• Former Finnish PM Sanna Marin has joined the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a think tank led by former British prime minister Tony Blair. 
• The Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute: "A self-described artificial intelligence think tank." (US universities have deep connections to it).
• The Searchlight Institute: "A new Democratic think tank." 

Backlash at AEI for Listing TikTok as a Sponsor

Here is more from Politico:

WHOOPS: The American Enterprise Institute apologized on Tuesday amid backlash for listing TikTok as a sponsor of the think tank’s annual gala on Monday. “While TikTok did purchase two seats at the 1,000+-person dinner, listing them as a sponsor created the impression that they are a part of the AEI community. They are not,” AEI President Robert Doar said in a blog post. He added that the center-right think tank had refunded the $1,500 cost of TikTok’s two seats.

— The controversy shows that even as Trump has repeatedly delayed the implementation of a bill that would ban the Chinese-owned app — on which he now has an account — China hawks on the right aren’t falling in line with the president.

— “Our scholars have been at the forefront of alerting the Congress, the executive branch, and the American public to the dangers of Chinese influence operations and espionage through TikTok,” Doar noted, and AEI “will continue to do so, without fear or favor.”

 

The National Review noted that AEI's listing TikTok as a gala sponsor drew additional scrutiny when Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Sobolik shared a critical post about it on social media.

Other sponsors of the event included News Corp, JPMorganChase, Lockheed Martin, Exxon Mobil, Google, KPMG, Meta, PhRMA, Liberty Mutual Insurance, United Airlines, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and John Templeton Foundation, among others. 

Larry Summers Axed From Think Tank Roles

Here is more from the New York Times:

Larry Summers, Harvard’s former president and a former Treasury secretary, said Monday that he would be stepping back from public commitments following the release of emails between him and Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender. 

The Yale Budget Lab said Mr. Summers has indicated he would be withdrawing from his role in its advisory group. The Hamilton Project, an economics policy arm of the Brookings Institution, said the same. A spokeswoman for the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, said Mr. Summers would be ending his fellowship there immediately. The Center for Global Development, another think tank, said Mr. Summers was stepping down as board chair.  

 

Summers was the one of the leads of the economic policy plank of CAP's so-called Project 2029, a Democratic policy blueprint for the 2028 presidential elections.

Think Tank Quickies (#525)

• The seven think tanks reshaping America. 
• Foreign agents look to influence think tanks in Trump's Washington. 
• Australian think tank Lowy Institute proposes new intelligence-sharing alliance: "Pacific Eyes."
• Book trilogy promotes construction of new think tanks with Chinese characteristics. 
• Will left-leaning think tanks to be investigated by the Trump Administration? 
• The Chronicle of Philanthropy: What we know and don't know about the nonprofit layoff crisis. 
• Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, director of the Hoover Institution, is launching a Substack venture from Hoover, "Freedom Frequency: A New Chapter for Ideas Advancing Freedom."
• The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) hosted its leadership awards dinner at the Conrad Washington, where Howard Buffett and others were honored. 
• Center for Asia Pacific Strategy (CAPS) held Potomac Dialogue 2025 on Oct. 16-17. 
• Witherspoon Institute: "A low-profile conservative think tank with Princeton ties." 

"Open Revolt" Against Heritage Foundation President

Here is more from the Washington Post:

The Heritage Foundation is erupting in open revolt against its president, Kevin Roberts, as the right-wing think tank struggles to deal with internal and external anger over his defense of former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

The furor began after Carlson invited Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who routinely espouses antisemitic views, onto his popular podcast. Roberts then posted a video that castigated a “venomous coalition” and “the globalist class” for attacking Carlson, whom Roberts called “a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.” Numerous Heritage staffers and conservative figures said the comments played on antisemitic tropes.

A staff meeting Wednesday — Roberts’s latest attempt to quell a week of resignations and condemnations over his defense of Carlson — was marked with calls for him to resign and squabbles over whether Christian employees would be forced to participate in Jewish rituals.

At least five members of Heritage’s antisemitism task force have now resigned in protest, and distinguished fellow Chris DeMuth left the organization.

 

The Washington Post notes that there is "little sign" that Roberts's standing has been weakened with the think tank's 14-member board.

The newspaper also reported that an anonymous complaint was sent by three employees to Heritage's board in Feb. 2025, complaining, among other things, about Roberts's handling of Project 2025.  The letter also called the think tank's sidelining by the Trump Administration a "historic failure" by Roberts.

Update: The National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism severed ties with the Heritage Foundation.

Also, longtime Heritage Foundation board member Robert George is now the latest to announce his resignation over the incident. 

The furor begaafter Carlson invited Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who routinely espouses antisemitic views, onto his popular podcast. Roberts then posted a video that castigated a “venomous coalition” and “the globalist class” for attacking Carlson, whom Roberts called “a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.” Numerous Heritage staffers and conservative figures said the comments played on antisemitic 

Trouble Brewing at Truman National Security Project

Here is more from Politico:

The Truman National Security Project is in trouble.

The left-leaning network, formed in the heyday of the GEORGE W. BUSH-era war on terrorism to promote a more muscular Democratic foreign policy, is facing internal discontent and fundraising struggles, six current and former members told NatSec Daily.

For many years, Democrats viewed Truman as a prime organization for young national security professionals, especially because of the job networking opportunities it offered. Now some of its 2,000-odd members are questioning its relevance and wondering how much longer it can stick around.

The network has laid off several of its paid staff over the past year, according to three current members. This month, its CEO, TONY JOHNSON, stepped down after just a little more than a year. Truman’s revenue has not always kept pace with its expenses, publicly available tax forms show. Members say the group’s events and other offerings have slowed in recent years. One former member said he left because being part of the network was no longer worth the fees, which can run $250 or more annually.

Some members say the organization lacks a clear focus and mission.

“It has no reason to exist. What is its ethos? Where does it stand? What is its purpose?” said YOUSI FAZILI, who worked at the Defense Department during the Biden administration and has been a Truman member since 2021.

A Truman board member said the project, and a closely affiliated center, currently has no outstanding debt and are hoping to change their income streams to rely less on external funding.

 

Here is a link to the Truman National Security Project. 

Think Tanker Arrested Over Classified Documents

Here is more from The New York Times:

A prominent foreign affairs analyst and senior State Department adviser was arrested over the weekend and charged with illegally storing sensitive government records after federal agents found more than 1,000 pages of secret documents at his home, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Ashley Tellis, 64, an unpaid adviser who also works as a contractor in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment as an expert on Indian and South Asian affairs, was charged after F.B.I. agents searched his home in Vienna, Va., on Oct. 11, the Justice Department said.

Agents discovered more than 1,000 pages of documents marked “Top Secret” or “Secret” in two locked cabinets, a desk and three large trash bags in an unfinished storage room in the basement, according to an F.B.I. affidavit.

Mr. Tellis is a Senior Fellow  and the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which has not commented on his arrest. A scholar specializing in Indian and South Asian affairs, he previously served on the National Security Council staff as special assistant to President George W. Bush. 

 

Although it was not mentioned by The New York Times, it has been widely reported that Tellis had been covertly meeting with Chinese officials for years, including at a Sept. 2 dinner in Fairfax, VA.

Near the end of that dinner, Chinese officials gave Tellis a "red gift bag," according to court documents.

Think Tank Quickies (#524)

• The Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream opened on Sept. 20. 
• Former First Lady Jill Biden has retired from her $100,000-a-year teaching job at Northern Virginia Community College and started a new unpaid position chairing the new Women's Health Network at the Milken Institute, a think tank created by former financier Michael Milken. 
• Asia Society President & CEO Kyung-Wha Kang has been tapped to serve as South Korea's ambassador to the US. 
• A new report from Capital Research Center (CRC), a think tank tracking foundations, charities, and other nonprofits, has revealed Open Societies Foundation (OSF) has funneled over $80 million into groups linked to terrorism or extremist violence.
• In its new book, the think tank behind Project 2025 takes on the Constitution.
• Dentsu has established the Dentsu Soken Center for Economic Security Research (DCER). 
• Kearney Consumer Institute: "An internal think tank at Kearney." 
• The Organization of American Studies (OAS) is a graduate student-run think tank at The George Washington University (GWU), and the China Development Student Think Tank (CDSTT GWU Chapter) is a non-partisan student think tank. 
• Paladin Capital Group - among the top venture-capital firms in the US - launched the Paladin Global Institute, an AI-focused think tank headed by Kemba Walden. 
• Grace Wright is joining the think tank Snake Island Institute in Kyiv, Ukraine.  She previously worked for Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO). 

CNAS Expert Tangled in High-Tech Conflict of Interest

Here is more from Politico: 

Janet Egan, a tech and national security expert at the Center for a New American Security, last week wrote an op-ed that praised a significant technological shift by artificial intelligence company Anthropic. It was pretty standard fare except for one thing: She didn’t disclose several close connections her think tank has to the company, Daniel L. reports.

— Egan, a senior fellow and deputy director of the technology and national security program at CNAS, wrote an article Sept. 3 in Just Security applauding that Anthropic and Google had moved away from relying exclusively on Nvidia’s chips. Now, Anthropic uses Amazon Web Services’ hardware in addition to Google chips and some Nvidia chips.

— Unmentioned, however, was the fact that in June, CNAS CEO Richard Fontaine was named to Anthropic’s long-term benefit trust, an independent body to help Anthropic achieve its “public benefit mission.” And in August, Fontaine joined the company’s National Security and Public Sector Advisory Council, which helps the company work with governments. Anthropic’s head of global affairs, Michael Sellitto, is also an adjunct senior fellow at the think tank.

— Several major investors in the company have also donated to the think tank. Among other examples, Amazon, which has committed to invest $8 billion in Anthropic, contributed at least half a million dollars to CNAS between October 2023 and September 2024, and AWS gave between $100,000 to $250,000 to the think tank. Google, which has invested more than $3 billion in Anthropic and owns 14 percent of the company, gave between $250,000 and $500,000 to CNAS in that time period.

 

Here is a link to Janet Egan's page at CNAS. 

The Small Think Tank Driving Health Policy Within the GOP

Here is more from Politico:

One small think tank is driving health policy within the GOP. It has also created friction on Capitol Hill and in the White House as Republicans clash over the future of Obamacare.

Paragon Health Institute was established in 2021 and has only 11 full-time staffers, but founder Brian Blase is credited with formulating many of the proposals that became the basis for nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts enacted as part of the GOP megabill. The group’s success is thanks in large part to its vast alumni network spread out across the highest levels of government, from the speaker’s office to the Trump administration.

The conservative activist orbit has responded favorably to Paragon’s work. According to tax records obtained by InfluenceWatch, Stand Together — a right-leaning organization connected to Charles Koch — donated $2 million in 2021; the 85 Fund, which has ties to the conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo, gave $1 million in 2022. 

Paragon’s influence is also reflected in its alumni network, with think tank veterans now serving in prominent places throughout the Trump administration — from Theo Merkel at the Domestic Policy Council to Abe Sutton, who leads the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, and Marty Makary, the head of the Food and Drug Administration.

Joel Zinberg, a former director for a public health initiative at Paragon, was tapped by Trump in January to serve on the National Economic Council with a focus on health care and deregulation.

Paragon itself also counts several health policy heavyweights among its advisers, including the Economic Policy Innovation Center’s Paul Winfree, American Enterprise Institute’s Yuval Levin and the Ronald Reagan Institute’s Tevi Troy.

 

Here is a link to the Paragon Health Institute. 

New Dem Think Tank Hopes to Curb Left's Sway

Here is more from the Washington Post:

As Democrats search for their way out of the political wilderness, a new think tank, introduced on Wednesday, has some ideas about where the party went wrong.

Among them: too much emphasis on issues like climate change and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, and far too much deference to the powerful liberal organizations championing those causes at the expense, some argue, of appealing to voters in battleground states.

The think tank, the Searchlight Institute, was started by Adam Jentleson, a veteran Democratic operative.

Searchlight, Mr. Jentleson said, is starting with an annual budget of $10 million and a staff of seven in its Capitol Hill office. The organization is subsidized by a roster of billionaire donors highlighted by Stephen Mandel, a hedge fund manager, and Eric Laufer, a real estate investor. Its name is a homage to the dusty Nevada hometown of Senator Harry Reid, for whom Mr. Jentleson, 44, served as a senior aide. 

 

Here is a link to the new think tank. 

Think Tank Quickies (#523)

• China detains senior diplomat who had recently embraced US think tanks, such as the Asia Society. 
• Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken joined the board of the Center for American Progress (CAP), and gets blasted by Dem-aligned think tank.
• Conservative think tank executive Stewart Whitson, of Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), loses in VA-11 special election. 
• Eric Denece, director of the French think tank CF2R, found dead.
• Are some of the worst allegations about Qatari influence on campuses the result of a coordinated campaign of distortion led primarily by third-party advocacy groups such as the think tank Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy?
• The Heritage Foundation is set to propose sweeping revisions to US economic policy meant to encourage married heterosexual couples to have more children.
• The Edmund Burke Foundation: "A DC-based conservative think tank." 
• How Trump's think tank allies are exporting illiberalism. 
• Hoover Institution senior fellows playing big role fighting Trump's tariffs. 
• New Diplomacy Initiative (ND), "a think tank that collects and distributes information and advocates policy options in the US and Japan as well as throughout East Asia in order to promote a New Diplomacy between politicians, independent experts, businesses, and civil society." 

Trump Nominates Heritage Economist to Lead BLS

Here is more from Reuters: 

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he was nominating economist E.J. Antoni as the new Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, 10 days after firing the agency's previous leader following a weak scorecard of the job market, accusing her without evidence of manipulating the figures. 

Antoni is currently the chief economist at the influential conservative think tank Heritage Foundation. He has been critical of the BLS, the Labor Department's statistical agency, whose monthly figures about the state of the job market and inflation are consumed by a global audience of economists, investors, business leaders, public policymakers and consumers.

The nomination of Antoni, who contributed to "Project 2025," the controversial conservative plan to overhaul the government, was met with reservations from economists. 

 

Antoni is the second Heritage economist picked by Trump to run BLS. 

Think Tank Quickies (#522)

• Ed Feulner, founder, trustee, and longest serving president of the Heritage Foundation, has died.
• China urges think tanks to halt stablecoin promotion amid fraud concerns. 
• The roles of Chinese think tanks in AI governance.
• Dialog - a secretive, invite-only network founded two decades ago by Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffam - is preparing a major expansion, including a real estate purchase to build a campus in the DC suburbs. 
• DAWN: "A Washington-based think tank that focuses on American policy in the Middle East."
• Why this early Google investor is funding think tanks in the US and India. 
• Heritage Foundation is creating a "Defense Advisory Panel" of 13 retired General and Flag Officers to counsel its Allison Center for National Security.
• Mark Meadown, from his perch at the Conservative Partnership Institute, helped craft the OBBBA.
• Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, is joining Heritage Action. 
• The Institute for Global Affairs at the Eurasia Group (IGA) named Kerry and Obama campaign veteran Mark Hannah as new CEO. 

Project 2025 Architect Mounting Primary Challenge to Sen. Graham

Here is more from the New York Times:

The Republican architect of Project 2025 — the right-wing blueprint that Democrats made a rallying cry in the presidential election last year — is mounting a primary challenge to Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, saying he isn’t sufficiently devoted to President Trump’s political movement.

As he begins his challenge, Paul Dans, who is not originally from South Carolina, starts out as a distinct underdog. Mr. Graham, who has the support of Mr. Trump, has won past primaries handily despite appearing vulnerable, and he is likely to have a significant financial edge.

But Mr. Dans plans to run highlighting the work of Project 2025, from which Mr. Trump distanced himself during his campaign before enacting significant portions of it into his government.

 

Mr. Dans joined the Heritage Foundation in 2022 and started Project 2025, although he later had a falling out with the think tank that led to his departure. 

Controversial Academic to Lead USIP

Here is more from Politico:

An academic who has drawn criticism for inflammatory statements on race and praise of the Chinese government has been chosen by the Trump administration to lead the U.S. Institute of Peace.

The State Department said Friday that Darren Beattie would be acting president of the USIP, an independent, congressionally funded organization that the administration sought to eliminate earlier this year.

Beattie, who was fired from his job as a speechwriter during the first Trump administration for speaking at a conference attended by white nationalists, will keep his current role running the State Department’s worldwide public diplomacy efforts.

Beattie, who previously served as a visiting instructor at Duke University, has since been at the forefront of the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul the State Department’s Fulbright Program and shutter its Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Hub.

Trump signed an executive order firing USIP President George Moose and most of USIP’s board in February. The remaining board members, including Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, subsequently installed Department of Government Efficiency staffer Kenneth Jackson, as acting president. DOGE staffer Nate Cavanaugh later took over as acting president.

The Trump administration laid off most of the embattled institute’s staff in March following a tense standoff between USIP staffers and DOGE employees at the institute’s headquarters. A federal judge subsequently blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the organization, which was founded in 1984.

 

It is unclear how many people now work at USIP.

Think Tank Quickies (#521)

• RAND Corp.: China's Evolving Industrial Policy for AI. 
• European Marine Board: "An ocean-policy think tank."
• Flashback: French think tank chief Laurent Bigorgne, who was head of Institut Montaigne and a close associate of the French president, was convicted for attempted spike rape.
• China's think tank diplomacy in Africa.
• The Heritage Foundation launched a new Defense Budget Builder, which allows people to search through defense budget line items more easily. 
• US think tank report (from Defense Priorities) calls for removal of all 500 US military trainers in Taiwan. 
• The Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) was founded in Oct. 2009 "as a result of the Great Recession, and runs a variety of affiliated programs at major universities such as the Cambridge-INET Institute at the University of Cambridge." 
• Movement Advancement Project: "A think tank that studies state policies affecting the LGBTQ+ population." 
• Shift Project: "A French environmental think tank." 

DoD Suspends Participation in Think Tank Events

Here is more from Politico:

The Pentagon has suspended participation in all think tank and research events until further notice, according to an email sent Thursday to staff and obtained by POLITICO, a major shift in engagement from the country’s largest federal agency.

The decision comes a week after the Defense Department pulled out of the high-profile Aspen Security Forum citing “the evil of globalism” and indicating the event did not align with the Trump administration’s defense policies.

The Pentagon’s public affairs office is also reviewing the agency’s participation in other top security conferences, according to the email. It specifically banned attendance at the Halifax International Security Forum, which takes place in Nova Scotia each winter and where the Pentagon chief is usually a top guest. It was not immediately clear why that forum had been singled out.

The move would sideline the Pentagon from national security dialogues that it has used for decades to advance its policy and explain the department’s rationale. Former Defense Secretaries Jim Mattis, Mark Esper and Lloyd Austin have also used think tank events, such as the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Shangri-La Dialogue and the Reagan National Defense Forum, to give major policy speeches and hold sideline meetings with both allies and adversaries.

The Pentagon’s public affairs, general counsel and policy teams will review all requests for participation at events and will ask for officials’ remarks and talking points in advance, according to the email. The directive, which took effect Tuesday, applies to all DOD military officers, civil servants and senior enlisted leaders. The Pentagon’s public affairs team must approve any future events. 

 

The Pentagon also funds numerous think tanks, including the RAND Corporation, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Atlantic Council, Brookings Institution, and Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

 Here is a piece from The Atlantic entitled "The Pentagon Against the Think Tanks." 

Korea Funneling Millions to Think Tanks While Avoiding FARA

Here is more from Korea Pro:

A South Korean nonprofit affiliated with Seoul’s foreign ministry has funneled at least $9.4 million to U.S. think tanks in recent years, a Korea Pro investigation has found, making it one of the top global funders of American policy research despite avoiding registration under foreign agent laws.

The findings show that the Korea Foundation (KF), which maintains offices in Washington and Los Angeles, provided grants to at least 31 different organizations from 2019 to 2023.

But while KF claims to be a non-governmental body and a “nonprofit public institution,” Korea Pro’s findings show that the foundation is closely tied to the South Korean government and explicitly seeks to advance Seoul’s interests, at times pressuring scholars to promote the positions of the administration in power.

KF’s activities reportedly caught the attention of U.S. authorities before, and last year’s indictment of Korea expert Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst accused of failing to register as a foreign agent for Seoul, has exacerbated KF’s fears of being seen as a foreign agent itself, Korea Pro’s investigation found.

 

Think tanks that have received Korea Foundation money in recent years include the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Center for a New American Security (CNAS), RAND Corporation, Atlantic Council, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Stimson Center, and the Brookings Institution.

Korea Pro said it could find only $731,592 of Japan Foundation donations recorded for US-based think tanks and research organizations between 2019-2023, compared to the over $9.4 million provided by Korea Foundation.

Korea Pro also pointed out that in 2021, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) National Security Division allegedly wrote to KF, recommending that it consider FARA registration for work in the US. But the Foundation reportedly objected on the grounds that it is an “independent organization … engaged in cultural and academic exchanges exempt from FARA.” 

Think Tank Quickies (#520)

• Pro-Trump think tanks and advocacy groups paid top Trump Administration officials including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and policy adviser Stephen Miller, and a number of officials received payments from Trump's campaigns and consultants before being appointed to positions in the administration.
• Think tankers, including Julianne Smith, are part of former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's consulting firm, Clarion Strategies. 
• Think tankers join the Washington Post's new WP Intelligence Councils. 
• Quorum is now curating research from top think tanks. 
• Tracking the murky world of think tanks. 
• Islamabad think tank hires US lobbyist for $1.5 million a year. 
• Columbia's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law teams up to launch "Model Climate Laws Initiative" to draft state laws countering Trump Administration rollbacks.  While there have been universities and think tanks, such as the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, that provide resources for state-level policymakers looking to write climate laws or exchange information, this is the first instance of such a coordinated project to pass climate legislation that is actively seeking to get draft laws in the hands of US state lawmakers.
• Institute for Progress (IFP): "A think tank for accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress." 
• The Abigail Adams Institute: "An independent institute that is part of a broader network of about a dozen centers near elite universities, including Yale, Princeton, and Stanford.  The goal is to create an intellectual community that supplements what students can find on their own campuses." 
• Columbia University's energy think tank: Center on Global Energy Policy. 

Harvard Explores Starting a Hoover-like Think Tank

Here is more from the Wall Street Journal: 

Harvard leaders have discussed creating a program that people briefed on the talks described as a center for conservative scholarship, possibly modeled on Stanford’s Hoover Institution, as the school fights the Trump administration’s accusations that it is too liberal.

The idea has circulated at the university for several years but gained steam after pro-Palestinian protests began disrupting campus in late 2023. Harvard has discussed the effort with potential donors, people familiar with the matter said. The cost of creating such a center could run somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion, a person familiar with Harvard’s thinking estimated.

The Hoover Institution, which resides on Stanford’s campus and champions free markets and small government, dates back decades. Academic institutes elsewhere devoted to civics, American history and Western civilization began popping up, mostly at public universities in red states, about a decade ago.

Arizona State University launched its School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership in 2016. Founding director Paul Carrese said there are now more than a dozen centers on public university campuses and several more at private schools.

At the University of Florida’s Hamilton School of Classical and Civic Education, University of North Carolina’s School of Civic Life and Leadership and Yale University’s Center for Civic Thought, students read classic texts, apply lessons to current problems and hash out differences in small group discussions.

 

The Hoover Institution was founded in 1919 and has annual revenues of around $100 million. 

Think Tank Quickies (#519)

• The night USIP was taken over, March 17th, staffers from Elon Musk's DOGE walked around its headquarters smoking cigars and drinking beers while they dismantled the signage and disabled the computer systems.
• Think tanks are helping the DoD dodge DOGE. 
• This small but influential think tank is charting a controversial course for Trump's populism. 
• JPMorganChase announced it launched the Center for Geopolitics, a new client advisory service led by Derek Chollet, the former State Department counselor and former chief of staff to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. 
• Christine Largarde discussed leaving the ECB early to head the World Economic Forum (WEF).
• Jordan Brewer is leaving the Cato Institute to join the State Department as special adviser in the bureau of cyberspace and digital policy. 
• The Burning Glass Institute: "A labor market think tank." 
• JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both addressed the American Compass New World Gala in Washington, DC. 
• Nada Hamadeh, a member of the Middle East Institute's Board of Governors, was named Lebanon's ambassador to the US. 
• Defense Priorities, the other think tank influencing US intelligence. 

Russia Targeting Personal Emails of Think Tankers

Here is more from CNN:

The second campaign, according to the cable, began in April and involves a “Russia-linked cyber actor” who “conducted a spear phishing campaign targeting personal Gmail accounts associated with think tank scholars, Eastern Europe-based activists and dissidents, journalists, and former officials.”

The cyber actor “posed as a fictitious Department official, inviting targeted users to a meeting and attempting to convince them to link a third-party application to their Gmail accounts” that “would almost certainly grant the actor persistent access to the contents of the users’ Gmail.”

The campaign was highly detailed and the actor “demonstrated extensive knowledge of the Department’s naming conventions and internal documentation,” the cable said.

That hacking activity matches what researchers from Google and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab documented last month: a stealthy effort to pose as US diplomats and infiltrate the digital lives of prominent academics and critics of Russia.

 

No specific think tanks or think tankers were named in the article.  But Cyberscoop reported that think tanker Keir Giles, a Russian military expert with the Chatham House, was targeted by Russia.

Think Tank Quickies (#518)

• US Institute of Peace staff received termination notices.  But now judge says Trump lacked authority to dismantle USIP.
• Project Esther: Inside the Heritage Foundations' plan to crush the pro-Palestinian cause.
  
• Jared Bernstein, previously the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), is now a senior fellow for economic policy at CAP.
• Trump Administration quietly holding discussions and consulting outside experts, including those in think tank land, as it considers options for potentially restarting dialogue with North Korea.
• The Library of Congress' Kluge Center "invites into residence top thinkers from around the world to distill wisdom from the rich resources of the Library and to foster mutually enriching relationships with lawmakers and other policy leaders."
• Stephanie Sutton is joining the Center for American Progress as COO.
• CNAS named Kurt Campbell and Anne Neuberger to its board of directors.
  
• European think tanks launch interactive tool on China-Russia trade relations.
• The not-so-secret society (Ben Franklin Fellowship) whose members run the State Department.
  
• The think tanks who do most of the talking for Britain's Labour party.

Democrats Trying to Copy Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 Model

Here is more from the New York Times:

Mr. AndreiCherny, the co-founder of a nearly two-decade-old liberal policy journal, is organizing a group of Democratic thinkers to recreate what Mr. Trump’s allies did when he was voted out of office: draft a ready-made agenda for the next Democratic presidential nominee.

They’re calling it Project 2029.

The title is an unsubtle play on Project 2025, the independently produced right-wing agenda that Mr. Trump spent much of last year’s campaign distancing himself from, and much of his first few months back in power executing.

They plan to roll out an agenda over the next two years, in quarterly installments, through Mr. Cherny’s publication, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. The goal is to turn it into a book — just like Project 2025 — and to rally leading Democratic presidential candidates behind those ideas during the 2028 primary season. 

Ms. Neera Tanden, leader of the Center for American Progress, is part of a sizable advisory board for Project 2029 that includes Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.; Anne-Marie Slaughter, the chief executive of New America; the economist Justin Wolfers; Felicia Wong, until recently the president of the progressive Roosevelt Institute; and Jim Kessler, a founder of the centrist group Third Way. 

 

A number of others are involved in Project 2029, including Marc Dunkelman, a fellow at the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown University.

Think Tank Quickies (#517)

• In Feb. 2025, former Chinese ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai quietly led the first of multiple delegations to Washington, meeting with think tank representatives and exploring how Beijing might engage the Trump Administration.
  
• World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Klaus Schwab is under investigation by the organization he created after a new whistleblower letter alleged financial and ethical misconduct by the longtime leader and his wife.
• Dr. Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer has been appointed as the new president of the German Marshall Fund (GMF).  She will be the think tank's first European president.
• Project 2049 has rebranded as the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security.
  
• The roots of Vladimir Putin aligning himself with a small cadre of conservatives inside the US who shared his disdain for modern liberalism can be traced back to 1995 - before Putin was even president - when two Russian sociologists, Anatoly Antonov and Viktor Medkov, summoned Allan C. Carlson, an academic and the president of a conservative think tank in Illinois, to Moscow. 
• Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution among the think tankers kicked off the Defense Policy Board.
• Navy leadership concerned that criticism of Trump by invited speakers could cause another outcry from conservative think tanks. 
• American Compass' "membership group" - an off-the-record confab that has seminars, salon dinners and an annual retreat to the Eastern Shore of Maryland - crossed 200 members in 2024.
• Saikat Chakrabarti is the president and co-founder of New Consensus, a think tank "that has been trying to think through what it would take to build at Green New Deal scale and pace." 
• From The Atlantic: The Project 2025 Presidency.

Can a New Think Tank Fix the Democratic Party?

Here is more from Politico:

At a private meeting last month, a top Democratic strategist pitched party leaders and donors: We need to break down ideological lanes and reject interest group agendas if we plan to win again.

Adam Jentleson, former chief of staff to Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) and top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), used the retreat to preview his new policy research and messaging hub, called Searchlight. Its goal: push the Democratic Party toward the most effective, broadly popular positions regardless of which wing of the party they come from, with an eye toward 2028, according to five people who have spoken directly to Jentleson and were granted anonymity to describe private conversations. Seth London, an adviser to major Democratic donors, is working with Jentleson on the effort.

 

Meanwhile, think tanker Tevi Troy asks if a new think tank can fix the Democratic Party.

Think Tank Quickies (#516)

• The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace canceled a conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi at their nuclear policy conference, and both sides blamed each other.
  
• Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has returned to Brookings as a Distinguished Fellow.
  
• Jeremy Symons, most recently a principal at Symons Public Affairs, launched a nonpartisan think tank, the Center for Energy & Environmental Analysis. 
• Pro-Trump think tank AFPI is launching a "farmer first" policy agenda led by ag insiders who boast ties to Trump and Capitol Hill.
• Julie Margetta Morgan has been named the next president of The Century Foundation.
  
• The Trump Administration's push to cast pro-Palestinian protesters as Hamas supporters - and then use anti-terror and immigration laws to quiet campus demonstrations - was forecast in a little-known plan last year from the creators of Project 2025. It was called "Project Esther."
• The Heritage Foundation, which has called for ending the Department of Education for decades, had three of its education policy experts present for President Trump's executive order signing to begin winding down the DOE.
• A Heritage Foundation-linked group, the Oversight Project, is seeking free legal help from major law firms to support conservative causes, suggesting they provide pro-bono work worth $10 million to avoid scrutiny from the White House.
  
• CSIS on Russia's shadow war against the West.
• Did Georgetown University researcher Badar Khan Suri have ties to the United Association for Studies and Research, a Hamas-affiliated think tank that operated in the US from 1989 to 2004?

Think Tanks Helping Government Use AI for Peace Deals

Here is more from The Economist:

In a messy age of grinding wars and multiplying tariffs, negotiators are as busy as the stakes are high. Alliances are shifting and political leaders are adjusting—if not reversing—positions. The resulting tumult is giving even seasoned negotiators trouble keeping up with their superiors back home. Artificial-intelligence (AI) models may be able to lend a hand.

Some such models are already under development. One of the most advanced projects, dubbed Strategic Headwinds, aims to help Western diplomats in talks on Ukraine. Work began during the Biden administration in America, with officials on the White House’s National Security Council (NSC) offering guidance to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think-tank in Washington that runs the project. With peace talks under way, CSIS has speeded up its effort. Other outfits are doing similar work.

The CSIS programme is led by a unit called the Futures Lab. This team developed an AI language model using software from Scale AI, a firm based in San Francisco, and unique training data. The lab designed a tabletop strategy game called “Hetman’s Shadow” in which Russia, Ukraine and their allies hammer out deals. Data from 45 experts who played the game were fed into the model. So were media analyses of issues at stake in the Russia-Ukraine war, as well as answers provided by specialists to a questionnaire about the relative values of potential negotiation trade-offs. A database of 374 peace agreements and ceasefires was also poured in.

 

Here is a link to CSIS's Futures Lab, which is run by Dr. Benjamin Jensen.

Jill Biden Joins Milken Institute

Here is more from the Milken Institute:

While women make up half the U.S. population and nearly half the workforce, women’s health has faced decades of underinvestment, which is critical for wider economic productivity. Today, the Milken Institute announced the launch of the Women’s Health Network to serve as a global collaborative to collate, elevate, and advance existing and new efforts across the women’s health ecosystem. The Milken Institute has also announced that Dr. Jill Biden, the former First Lady of the United States, has joined its new Women’s Health Network as Chair.

 

The Milken Institute is a California-based think tank and the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream (MCAAD) is expected to open this summer in Washington, DC.