Project 2025 Revolution Talk 'Frightening'—Constitutional Law Expert

A law professor has criticized Project 2025 as "deeply frightening," following recent comments by right-wing think tank leader Kevin Roberts that the country is in the midst of a "Second American Revolution" against "elites" and "despotic bureaucrats."

Roberts, who is president of The Heritage Foundation, made his comments on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast after the Supreme Court's recent ruling on presidential immunity, which he celebrated, saying the president needed to be a "vigorous executive."

The ruling comes as a boost to the foundation, which created the 900-page Project 2025 document of controversial policies. Its proposals seek to expand the powers of the presidency and fire "deep state" civil servants in the federal government to replace them with conservative loyalists.

Professor Erwin Chemerinsky—an expert in constitutional law and dean of UC Berkeley Law School—told Newsweek that Roberts' vision for the federal government was "inconsistent with the structure and goals of the Constitution."

"It is deeply frightening and would be a significant move to an authoritarian government," Chemerinsky said.

He added that Roberts' claims that people were engaged in a revolution against a leftist government were "nonsense," noting that more than half the states have Republican-majority legislatures and that the Supreme Court is very conservative.

In relation to the presidential immunity ruling, Chemerinsky agreed with the three dissenting Supreme Court justices, saying that the breadth of immunity granted to the president was "stunning."

"The Framers deeply distrusted executive power," he said. "The Supreme Court's decision broadly grants the president immunity from criminal prosecution for anything carrying out the president's powers."

Chemerinsky said a president could now assassinate political rivals as Commander-in-Chief, use the Justice Department to seek retribution by prosecuting opponents, or take bribes to grant pardons with immunity from future prosecution.

Roberts later told Newsweek that Americans in 2024 are "patriots committed to peaceful revolution at the ballot box." He took to X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday to further detail his position, saying that the situation is "more dire than the First American Revolution" and that "patriots" are "organizing a groundwork of resistance" that would "unapologetically destroy those [institutions] that are hostile to human flourishing."

But Roberts' comments are not universally accepted in conservative policy circles. Analyst Avik Roy, a former strategist for leading Republicans Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Marco Rubio, told Newsweek that Roberts was being "far from clear" in his comments. Roy said Roberts' comments about the situation being more dire than the American Revolution "implies that violence is justified."

"I would observe that in modern American political history, conservatives who boast the most about fomenting "revolution" are the ones least likely to accomplish it, Roy said.

He agreed with Roberts that reform is necessary to hold unelected bureaucrats accountable, saying that they "should serve at the pleasure of the President," who is an elected official. However, Roy doubted Project 2025 would be implemented in its current form if Donald Trump were elected in November, saying its influence in a future Trump administration had been "wildly exaggerated."

"Trump is unlikely to take orders from the Heritage Foundation as to what he should do," he said." If anything, based on recent history, the opposite is true: Heritage is likely to contort itself to conform to Trump's agenda and policy desires."