Freedom rings: People from all over the world are following America’s lead and saying that enough is enough—the progressive elites and their tyrannical rule have run their course, Heritage President Kevin Roberts told attendees of the EU Patriots Summit in Madrid last week. 

• “It is the end of the post-Cold War liberal elite managerial consensus,” Roberts said. “And what Donald Trump is doing with every single executive order—three weeks into his presidency—is drawing a line in the sand and telling them ‘the jig is up.’” 
• And while we’re winning, the elites are panicking. “When they fail to win on substance, they simply choose to attack. First, it was Project 2025. Now, it’s DOGE. Different name, same baseless fearmongering,” Roberts told Fox News. 

Watch Roberts’ speech here and read the interview here. 

Busted: Americans will pay for a strong national defense but shouldn’t have to pay for $1,500 coffee cups and $150,000 soap dispensers. 

• The Defense Dept. "should be able to protect the U.S. without squandering funds on overpriced equipment and unnecessary expenditures,” write Jim Fein, research assistant, and Ka’Von Johnson, a Young Leaders Program intern. Read more here.  

Related: The Daily Signal obtained exclusive footage showing how the Defense school system tried to hide a DEI program from President Trump.  

 

Read the bombshell piece here. 

Fifty-two years ago, our founders created The Heritage Foundation to be the voice of American patriots and to develop promote public policies that keep this country great. 

 

Make your special Founder's Day gift right now at this secure link: https://secured.heritage.org/founders-day/ 

R.I.P. USAID: While the Left reels from the defunding of USAID, the dismantling of the agency left many conservatives unsurprised.

• USAID took a severe turn to the left “sometime during the Clinton administration,” writes Senior Research Fellow Max Primorac.
• Senior Fellow Mike Gonzalez writes that USAID funded things like training for foreign citizens in street “activism,” “civic engagement,” and “mobilization.”

Read more here and here.

Closing shop: President Trump wants to dismantle the Department of Education, but is that something he could do? 

• Crystal Bonham, senior advisor to the president at Heritage, points out: “The federal government has eliminated entities before, and yet the Department of Education, the most expensive failure of them all, still exists.”
• Bonham explains how President Trump should go about dismantling it.

Watch the video here.

Not Bobby approved: Big Food, Big Pharma, Big…Sugar? 

• “Sugar crops make up less than 2% of the total value of U.S. crops, but sugar lobbying costs more than a third of all U.S. crop lobbying, and sugar PAC donations are more than all other U.S. crops combined,” write Andrew Hale, senior policy analyst in trade policy, and Paul Joshua Bustamante, an intern with the Young Leaders Program. 

Read more here.  

Weird science: When the Trump administration imposed a cap on overhead costs for federal research grants to universities, the mainstream press was dumbfounded.  

• Senior Research Fellow Jay Greene exposed this scam in a 2022 paper, showing how NIH was coughing up as much as 69% for overhead costs in grants to universities instead of the 15% paid by the private sector for research.  

Read more here.  

250 years young: Heritage has launched a special round of the Innovation Prizes ahead of America’s 250th anniversary to recognize and provide substantive financial awards that, in total, amount to $250,000 to non-profits for projects focused on themes relating to the Semiquincentennial in 2026. We welcome projects that focus on the following: 

• Celebrating America’s 250th anniversary 
• Building civic awareness and encouraging Americans to engage in civic life 
• Inspiring patriotism 
• Educating citizens about America’s founding principles 
• Teaching Americans about our government’s foundational tenets 

Applications for America’s 250th Anniversary Innovation Prizes are open through May 1. For more information and to apply, please visit our website.

500 Days in Captivity: Hostage Families Speak Out

 

February 18, 2025, marks 500 days in captivity in Hamas’ terror dungeons in the Gaza Strip. Families of these hostages have been on the front lines around the world, sharing their stories. Join The Heritage Foundation to hear from family members of those still held hostage as they highlight the urgency of this situation.

 

Feb. 18, 11 am. Register here.

• Donald Trump and Narendra Modi Can Transform U.S.-India Relations—Jeff Smith
• The Drug Crisis Hasn’t Gone Away. The Trump Administration Should Confront It—Paul Larkin and Bertha K. Madras, Ph.D.
• DOGE Isn’t ‘Unprecedented,’ but Trump Is Doing It Better than Eisenhower Did—Hans A. von Spakovsky and Seth Lucas
• Trump’s Penny Policy: It Makes Sense to Stop Making Cents—EJ Antoni
• Trump’s Foreign Policy: Good News for Hemispheric Relations—Max Primorac and Andrés Martínez-Fernández
• Our Energy Crisis Has a Nuclear Solution—Jack Spencer
• President Trump Should Reinstate President Obama’s Moratorium on Risky Biological Research—Dr. Robert R. Redfield and Robert E. Moffit, Ph.D.
• How Trump Is Uprooting Radical ’60s Foundations of Poisonous DEI and CRT Programs—Mike Gonzalez
• Big Porn Shouldn’t Get Special Treatment in Court—Daniel Cochrane
• Crypto Isn’t Going the Way of the Tulip Bulbs—Paul Mullen

Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center, appeared on Newsmax to discuss the Trump administration’s use of the military to secure America’s southern border. Watch the clip here.