WASHINGTON — The president of the Heritage Foundation has asserted to CNN that Donald Trump’s notorious interactions with porn stars do not disqualify the presumptive Republican nominee from implementing the conservative organization’s plan to criminalize all production and distribution of adult content.
“We understand our lord works with imperfect instruments, including us,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts told CNN. “While on the surface it seems like a contradiction, on the whole, it may make him a more powerful messenger if he embraces it.”
The quote is included in a lengthy report by CNN’s Steve Contorno about apparent contradictions between the anti-porn views of Trump’s allies and supporters, and his past behavior. It comes amidst the current trial over the source of “hush money” he allegedly used to cover up his sexual encounter with adult star Stormy Daniels.
“If some of the former president’s allies get their way, a second Trump term would put that industry on the ropes — and potentially its actors and producers behind bars,” Contorno writes.
The Heritage Foundation’s Roberts told CNN that while he hasn’t discussed a porn ban directly with Trump, “he has talked to the campaign and said there is alignment among those who have policy influence, including Ben Carson, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development.”
“Without being presumptuous of the president’s will, there will at least be conversations” about a porn ban “being a priority we can tackle,” Roberts said.
The Trump campaign’s top advisers, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, have downplayed the role of the Heritage Foundation and other anti-porn groups in a future Trump administration, CNN noted.
“Let us be very specific here: unless a message is coming directly from President Trump or an authorized member of his campaign team, no aspect of future presidential staffing or policy announcements should be deemed official,” LaCivita and Wiles said in a statement.
Earlier this month, John McEntee, a former key figure in the first Trump administration and a senior advisor to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — a road map for an anticipated second Trump administration — predicted an eventual full ban on pornography, claiming that once it is enacted, “this country will flourish.”
McEntee told a podcaster that pornography is “the elephant in the room, which is a stain on not only society but the entire dating culture as well.”
“Whenever America bans that, which will be happening at some point, everyone will be much better off,” McEntee proclaimed.
The introduction to Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” blueprint document declares that pornography “has no claim to First Amendment protection” and should be outlawed.
Main Image: President Donald Trump delivers the keynote address at The Heritage Foundation’s President’s Club Meeting, October 2017 (Photo: White House)