Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts touched on what he said he believes is the threat from the federal government in the interview, a preview of which was exclusively given to the Washington Examiner. Roberts placed the blame on both Democrats and Republicans for what he called the “administrative state’s” rapid growth.

“The third thing that we would encourage any policymaker to do is — and I think that we can say this will be a policy priority of a Trump-Vance administration — is that when they get to Washington, D.C., they correct the abuses and overreach of the American administrative state,” Roberts said.

He pointed to the indictments against Trump as a wake-up call for many people.

“If a government, an administrative state … can abuse its power and persecute and prosecute a former president, that can and does happen to any of us, pro-life, grandmothers, my friend Mark Howell, those of us who, just as you said, are trying to bring order to chaos, we live on the cusp of this great republic being an intellectual totalitarian state,” Roberts argued.

One priority of the Trump administration, he said, must be to cut down on the number of government employees.

“And the real weapon of power there is the administrative state. So, from the Department of Justice, across the department, we need to reduce the number of federal employees. There are nearly 3 million employees in the federal government. There are, hold on to your seats, 24 million Americans who work for federal, state, or local government,” Roberts added.

“Nothing against them as people — it might be some of you in this room. The point is that since the late 1970s, that number has doubled, and it tells you what the problem is, which is that as Congress has abrogated its power to oversee the administrative state, the administrative state has grown,” he continued. “At whose expense? Yours, mine, and that of everyone in this room, and so we have to understand that’s what the battle in D.C. is about.”

In the discussion, Roberts defended Project 2025 and said it has been mischaracterized by its critics: “I guess I should say I’m Kevin Roberts with Project 2025, and I’m here to help.”

Carlson appeared to be in agreement throughout the interview, frequently laughing and nodding his head.

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The Project 2025 head didn’t focus all his criticism on Democrats, arguing that some Republicans were just as culpable.

“And I’m sorry to report to you that it isn’t just progressive Democrats in the radical Left and the Biden Harris regime that we have to fight on this,” he said. “It is the elite establishment that includes some D.C. Republicans.”