I wonder if any progressive think-tanks published wishlists for the Biden administration back in 2020? Probably could find some if one went looking for them. And Biden probably actually did some of their asks, but failed to do others.

And this is the same thing: a wishlist from a coalition of conservative thinktanks for a second Trump term. If Trump wins, he’ll probably do some items on their wishlist, and probably fail or refuse to do others. But it will be up to those thinktanks to actually convince Trump to agree to all these proposals. They’ll surely succeed for some, fail for others, yet others Trump will only agree to in some watered down form - because he doesn’t personally agree with it, because he’s worried about the political blowback, because he’s listening to other lobbyists or advisers telling him to do something else instead

And that’s where the propaganda aspect comes in - making people think Trump personally agrees with all these desiderata and is personally committed to implementing them, as opposed to recognising them as things other people hope they’ll be able to talk him into doing if he wins. When Trump claims he hasn’t even read these proposals, I don’t think he’s lying. Why would he want to read a mountain of boring thinktank verbiage? If he wins, they’ll break it down into bite-sized portions, and try to talk Trump into agreeing with them one by one - and that may well be his first exposure to many of them

> former president Trump also spoke at a keynote for the Heritage Foundation in 2022, publicly praising the foundation's president, Kevin Roberts, work with the foundation.

Trump recognises they are an important part of the GOP base and so he wants to maintain a good relationship with them. That doesn’t mean he’s always going to do what they want. Likewise, Biden gives speeches at various progressive-aligned groups (e.g. the NEA) but he doesn’t always do what they want him to either