Heritage Foundation Calls for More Babies, Marriage Bootcamps

Here is more from the Washington Post:

A conservative think tank tied to the architects of Project 2025 is rolling out a sweeping set of policy proposals aimed at reshaping American families and promoting marriage and childbearing between heterosexual couples, according to a report obtained by The Washington Post.

A report from the Heritage Foundation, titled “Saving America by Saving the Family,” urges President Donald Trump and lawmakers “to save and restore the American family” through massive tax credits for families with more children while capping alimony payments, enacting strict work requirements on social benefit programs, discouraging online dating, creating marriage “bootcamp” classes and more.

The report suggests public-private partnerships to honor and provide monetary awards for every decade a couple remains married. It calls for a 16-year-old age limit on social media and certain AI chatbots, and further age restrictions on access to pornography, and it argues that “climate change alarmism” demoralizes young people and dissuades them from having children. 

 

The newspaper notes that Heritage's plan represents a "sharp pivot for the organization away from its tradition of promoting small government and free-market conservatism toward an ideology that embraces government intervention in affairs as private as procreation."

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.

Think Tank Quickies (#327)

• Dan Caldwell, who left the DoD in 2025 as a top aide to Pete Hegseth as part of a high-profile staffing shakeup, has joined American Moment as a senior fellow for foreign policy.
• Chinese think tanks warn of Japan's nuclear ambitions. 
• WSJ Editorial Board: The Heritage Foundation Blows Up. 
• Experts at oil and weapons-funded think tank (CSIS) call for US to "go big" in Venezuela. 
• Citgo-tied think tank expert (Hudson Institute) touting views on Fox News.
• Mark Ein, chairman and CEO of Venturehouse Group and owner of Washington City Paper, helped start the DC Policy Center, a think tank focused on expanding economic activity in the city. 
• Think tank Bitcoin Policy Institute operates out of PubKey, DC's first Bitcoin bar. 
• Matt Klein is founder and director of the "cultural intelligence think tank" Zine. 
• Conservative think tanks challenge New England's clean energy strategy.
• Mackinac Center: What is the role of a think tank? 

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."