Heritage President Blocked From White House Post by Omarosa

Here is more from Politico:

Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James says she was “blocked” from serving in President Donald Trump’s administration by Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former White House aide and reality television star.

“It was Omarosa,” James said in an interview with POLITICO’s Women Rule podcast, discussing how she has not managed to land a job in the administration despite her conservative bona fides.

James, the first African-American female president of Heritage, led Trump’s transition team for several offices in the White House. Following the inauguration, James — a longtime conservative who served under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and later as George W. Bush’s Office of Personnel Management director — said she had been excited for a possible spot in the administration.

By being blocked from a White House post, Kay Coles James is arguably in a better position, particularly with her think tank salary, which is likely around four to five times what she would have been making in the Trump Administration.

How the Heritage Foundation is Shaping President Trump

Alex Shephard of the New Republic has a new piece entitled "D.C. Think Tank Behind Donald Trump: How the Heritage Foundation is Shaping the President's Playbook."

Here are some of Think Tank Watch's favorite quotes:

• "No group is more responsible for helping craft Trump's agenda than the Heritage Foundation."

• "The Heritage-Trump alliance is one of the more improbable developments in an election season that was full of them.  A year ago, Heritage’s political arm dismissed Trump as a distraction, with no track record of allegiance to conservative causes. Today the group’s fingerprints are on virtually every policy Trump advocates, from his economic agenda to his Supreme Court nominees."

• "The partnership between Trump and the Heritage Foundation represents a return to prominence for the conservative think tanks."

• "Under George W. Bush Heritage's influence began to wane.  Unlike his father, the younger Bush favored the neoconservative ideas of the Project for the New American Century and the American Enterprise Institute."

• "With the election of Barack Obama, however, Heritage came roaring back. It sprang into action as a prominent supporter of the Tea Party, paying for demonstrations and staging town hall outbursts that fostered an intense anti-Obama mood among Republicans."

• "Although the group initially opposed Trump, [Heritage President Jim] DeMint quietly reached out to the candidate last year, offering his group’s assistance."

• "Now, two decades after it fell from conservative grace, Heritage has regained its standing in the White House."

If you just can't get enough of the Heritage Foundation and President Trump, Think Tank Watch has written numerous pieces about Heritage and the new Trump era, including pieces here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

VP-Elect Pence Keynotes Heritage Foundation Event

Here is more from Politico:

The Heritage Foundation has reserved the “presidential ballroom” at President-elect Donald Trump’s Washington D.C. hotel on Tuesday for an event to honor some of the group’s top donors — those who give at least $1,000 annually.

And who keynoting the evening event at Trump’s hotel? None other than Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

Trump’s hotel, in the renovated Old Post Office Building only blocks from the White House, has become a symbol of the potential financial conflicts for the incoming president, as two foreign nations have already scheduled events there.

As Think Tank Watch has reported, Mike Pence is no stranger to think tank land and has close ties to the Heritage Foundation, and no other think tank is more closely aligned with the Trump transition team than Heritage.

We should also point out that Pence served in the House with Jim DeMint, the current President of the Heritage Foundation.  Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who has been tapped by Mr. Trump to be is Attorney General, also has a close relationship with DeMint and Heritage.

In related news, CNN just published a new piece entitled "Meet Donald Trump's Think Tank" which is all about Trump's connections to Heritage.

Trump's DOT Pick Elaine Chao Has Close Ties to Heritage Foundation

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Elaine Chao to be his Secretary for the Department of Transportation (DOT).  Chao, whose husband is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), was a Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation from 2009 to June 2016 and has been a Distinguished Fellow at the Hudson Institute since June 2016.  Chao was also a Distinguished Fellow at Heritage from 1996 to 2000.

With the Heritage Foundation's close connections to Donald Trump, the Chao pick was by no means a surprise.

Paul Conway, a former Heritage staffer who is heading up the landing team at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for the Trump transition, was the chief of staff to Chao when she served as US Secretary of Labor in the George W. Bush Administration.

Here is an interesting tidbit about Chao from WND:

When she [Elaine Chao] served the conservative Heritage Foundation as Asian studies adviser, a military analyst who sounded warnings about Chinese threats to U.S. security was shown the door, WND reported at the time. Chao served at Heritage beginning in 1996 before leaving to become Bush’s labor secretary in 2001. While at Heritage, the think tank opened an office in Hong Kong.

Some reports by the ousted Heritage analyst – 16-year veteran Richard Fisher Jr. – were footnoted in the declassified version of the bipartisan Cox Report, which documented Chinese espionage at U.S. defense labs, while warning of China’s goal of modernizing the People’s Liberation Army to project power past the mainland’s waters, targeting U.S. allies like Taiwan and even the U.S.

“Elaine Chao was part of the deal that got Rick Fisher fired from Heritage,” a congressional aide who worked with him on China matters told WND. “She pushed him out not because of free-trade issues, but because he raised national security concerns over China.”  A Heritage insider agreed: “She was not supportive of any of his writings on the Chinese military.”

A WND article from 2001 notes that one of Chao's "patrons" at the Heritage Foundation was former Chairman and CEO of American International Group (AIG) Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, then a "pro-China lobbyist."  Greenberg, protested about a Heritage paper by analyst Stephen Yates and threatened to cut off funding to the think tank.  After that threat, Heritage reportedly issued a new report (co-authored by Yates' replacement Larry Wortzel) that was beneficial to Greenberg.

With Chao's deep connections to Heritage, the Department of Transportation may be loaded up with people from that think tank.  When she was Labor Secretary, Chao hired former Heritage analyst Mark Wilson who wrote a paper in 1995 calling for closing the department and moving its key functions to other Cabinet agencies.

Citing her past writings at the Heritage Foundation, safety advocates are worried that Chao may roll back consumer protections put in place under the Obama Administration.

Here is the Heritage Foundation's statement on Mr. Trump's nomination of Elaine Chao.  Her past work at Heritage can be found here.

In other Trump-think tank news, here is a Think Tank Watch piece on speculation that the former head of the Cato Institute may get a top White House post in the Trump Administration.

Heritage Vetting Resumes for Trump Team

Politico has just published a story on the Heritage Foundation's close connection to the Donald Trump team.  Here are some excerpts:

Three sources from different conservative groups said that Heritage employees have been soliciting, stockpiling and vetting résumés for months with an eye on stacking Trump’s administration with conservative appointees across the government. One source described the efforts as a “shadow transition team” and “an effort to have the right kind of people in there.”

...There’s no question that the organization is recognized, among other conservative movement leaders, as the entry point into the Trump transition team.

After Heritage Action, the foundation's political arm, offered a bruising assessment of Trump last November, Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint went on to meet with Trump during the campaign. Although there were certainly many tied to Heritage who preferred other candidates in the primary, the main organization largely steered clear of anti-Trump rhetoric throughout the rest of the election, instead assisting the candidate and his team with matters like determining potential Supreme Court justice nominees. That dynamic has helped pave the way for a relationship with an incoming administration that so heavily prizes loyalty.

Heritage, as a think tank, cannot engage in partisan campaign activity — it makes its research available to everyone, staffers stress — but that doesn’t mean its members can’t advise candidates on both political and policy matters.

It’s also unclear how much Trump, who maintains a very tight circle of trusted advisers — his family makes up a significant portion of that circle — can actually be influenced by outside forces. The Trump administration’s ultimate commitment to conservative approaches on a host of issues, including spending, is very much an open question.

Here is a new Think Tank Watch piece on the new think tank landscape in a Trump Administration.

Has Heritage Just Released Donald Trump's Bible?

The Heritage Foundations has just released its Blueprint for Reform: A Comprehensive Policy Agenda for a New Administration in 2017, a document meant to guide what they hope is Donald Trump's policy agenda.

The think tank has released such policy agendas in every presidential election year since 1980.  At that time, Heritage released the well-known Mandate for Leadership, a series of books spanning some 3,000 pages.  That blueprint was titled Mandate for Leadership in subsequent years, and was last published under that name in 2005.

Nevertheless, the decades-old document is alive and well, albeit under a different name.  In fact, Heritage chief Ed Feulner penned a piece in The Washington Times saying that the new Blueprint is the "latest" in the think tank's "Mandate for Leadership" series.

Mandate for Leadership was dubbed "the bible" of the Reagan White House by the Washington Post, and "provided a step-by-step guide to how to transform conservative principles into government policy."

Heritage's new report says that the next president and US Congress should pursue a number or proposals, including:

• Pro-growth tax reform
• Balancing the budget
• Reducing regulatory burden
• Repealing "harmful" laws such as Obamacare and Dodd-Frank
• Rebuilding the military capabilities of the US
• Welfare reform

The Blueprint calls for reducing total US spending by $10 trillion over 10 years and balancing the federal budget by 2024.  Among other things, it also calls for closing most of the Department of Energy.

The full Blueprint for Reform report, which spans more than 130 pages, can be found here.

The Washington Times notes that the Blueprint offers "scores" of policy recommendations for the next administration.  A Heritage analysis of the Republican Party's platform notes that the 2016 platform has many of the same ideas as Heritage's Blueprint; others note that the Blueprint has a "competing" anti-poverty plan than House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI).

A number of advisers to Donald Trump are housed within the Heritage Foundation, including Stephen Moore (who is helping write Mr. Trump's tax plan).  Heritage was also tapped to select a list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court should he become president.

Morning Consult says that Heritage hopes their plan will be embraced by the Trump transition team if Mr. Trump wins the presidency.  Heritage has said that it has been in contact with Trump's campaign policy team and that the campaign was "very interested" in Heritage's views.  However, Morning consult notes that there is distance on some issues between the Heritage approach and Trump's campaign rhetoric.

Think Tank Watch should note that Heritage says it does not endorse any political candidate or party.  And James Jay Carafano of Heritage reminds us that anyone can use the Blueprint.