Revealed: Trump’s think tank paid Liz Truss to give a speech…in Poland
Last month, in Warsaw, Truss railed against “the extreme environmental movement”. The Heritage Foundation paid her £6,000 to give the speech
Liz Truss can’t seem to get enough of the US radical right.
The former prime minister has endorsed Donald Trump and told Steve Bannon that she was an innocent victim of a ‘deep state’ that includes, eh, the Bank of England and the Financial Times.
On Monday, Truss was back in the US, taking her war on “the global left” to the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, DC.
The Heritage Foundation has long been one of the most powerful conservative outfits in US politics. Heritage’s ‘Project 2025’ wants nothing less than to “instituionalize Trumpism”.
Heritage has received hundreds of millions from dark money donors such as the Kochs and the Scaife Foundation.
Heritage has also previously paid Truss to give its ‘Margaret Thatcher memorial lecture’ and paid for her to travel to the autocrat friendly International Democracy Union (which this newsletter has written about before.)
Now it emerges that Heritage has even started paying Liz Truss to travel around Europe making speeches to spread her irony-free warnings about saving the West.
Heritage paid Truss £6,282 to give a speech at the ‘Future of Europe’ forum in Warsaw last month, according to the latest Register of Members’ Interests. The DC-based think tank also paid for flights and accommodation for Truss and her assistant.
In Warsaw, Truss told journalists of the need to support Ukraine but also railed against “the extreme environmental movement” that, she said, was “undermining Western values from within”.
This would be music to the Heritage Foundation’s ears. Described by some as “Trump’s think tank”, Heritage’s president, Kevin Roberts, was accused of spreading anti-Semetic tropes at last year’s ‘NatCon’ conference in London.
Truss is no stranger to dark money. As this newsletter previously showed, her new ‘Popular Conservatives’ vehicle is being stage-managed by the former head of the Institute of Economic Affairs.
The IEA refuses to declare its donors but was happy to take credit for ‘incubating’ Truss - that is until her disastrous ‘mini budget’.
US funders who bankrolled climate denialists and Trumpists have poured millions into British think tanks.
While we need to be vigilant against Russian and Chinese attempts to influence British politics, too many ignore the threat to our democracy from US dark money.
A well-placed source tells me that a Heritage Foundation staffer comes in and out of London regularly, meeting with Conservatives and the dark money think tanks of Tufton Street.
It is tempting to dismiss Truss as a joke. She certainly lacks any shred of self awareness.
But in Truss US conservatives who have already shown a willingness to influence British politics have a senior politician that not only parrots their talking points but takes their money, too. That, unfortunately, is no laughing matter.