Project 2025 Architect Can’t Explain Wild Report of Him Killing a Dog

One of the architects of Project 2025, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, apparently killed a neighborhood dog with a shovel because its loud barking was bothering his family.

The Guardian reports that about two decades ago, Roberts was a history professor at New Mexico State University, and told his colleagues and dinner guests that he killed a pit bull belonging to one of his neighbors in 2004.

“My recollection of his account was that he was discussing in the hallway with various members of the faculty, including me, that a neighbor’s dog had been barking pretty relentlessly and was, you know, keeping the baby and probably the parents awake and that he kind of lost it and took a shovel and killed the dog. End of problem,” said Kenneth Hammond, who was chair of the university’s history department at the time.

Two other people who attended a dinner at Roberts’s home, a professor and her spouse, remember hearing a similar story, and three other professors told The Guardian that they remember hearing it from colleagues who heard it from Roberts. All of these people said they didn’t remember Roberts ever saying that the dog was directly threatening him or his family.

Roberts denied killing a dog with a shovel in a statement to the publication, and didn’t respond to questions as to why people said that he had.

“This is a patently untrue and baseless story backed by zero evidence. In 2004, a neighbor’s chained pit bull attempted to jump a fence into my backyard as I was gardening with my young daughter,” Roberts said. “Thankfully, the owner arrived in time to restrain the animal before it could get loose and attack us.”

At the time, the people who heard the story didn’t ask Roberts for any details, finding the story disturbing.

“I think that probably people were not eager to engage with him over this. It sounded like a pretty crazy thing to do and people didn’t want to get into it at that point,” Hammond said.

As the president of the Heritage Foundation, a giant in the conservative world, Roberts has been a major figure behind the Project 2025 manifesto, which provides a right-wing blueprint for a future Republican president. The project has become very unpopular, thanks to its recommended restrictions on the LGBTQ community, reproductive rights, and other conservative policy priorities.

Trump has tried in vain to distance himself from the project but has been unsuccessful thanks to the extensive ties between himself and the Heritage Foundation, especially Roberts. This canine revelation isn’t the first time something damaging has come about the foundation’s president: A disturbing book written by Roberts, Dawn’s Early Light, was delayed because of how bad it could be for Trump, particularly since his running mate, J.D. Vance, wrote its foreword. Roberts was also a member of Opus Dei, a secretive, ultraconservative Catholic organization.

Roberts is scheduled to speak at the New York Times Climate Forward event on Wednesday, where it’s possible that he’ll face questions about his thoughts on loud dogs in addition to Project 2025’s ideas on weakening environmental laws. Trump and Vance hope that their presidential campaign won’t come up.