# America First Policy Institute (AFPI) **America First Policy Institute** is the **Trump-aligned policy think tank** founded in April 2021 by former Trump 1.0 [[Domestic Policy Council]] director [[Brooke Rollins]] (now USDA Secretary in T2), specifically to serve as a **government-in-waiting** for a second Trump administration. Its stated mission is to "advance policies that put the American people first, their families first, and their communities first" — but operationally it functioned as one of the most important **personnel preparation and policy continuity operations** of the 2021–2024 wilderness years. [[Linda McMahon]] chaired AFPI's board from 2021–2024 before being nominated as [[Trump 2.0]] Education Secretary. A substantial fraction of AFPI's 2024 staff and senior fellows transitioned directly into Trump 2.0 administration appointments — making AFPI a **personnel pipeline** comparable to [[Heritage Foundation]] and [[Center for Renewing America]] for Trump-aligned governance. AFPI participated in [[Project 2025]] as a coalition contributor, though it positioned itself somewhat distinctly as the "MAGA-aligned" alternative to Heritage's traditional-conservative-with-MAGA-overlay character. The organizations cooperated extensively but maintained somewhat distinct factional identities within the broader conservative ecosystem. ## Founding (April 2021) **Brooke Rollins** founded AFPI in **April 2021**, immediately after the end of the first Trump administration. Rollins had served as **Director of the Domestic Policy Council** in the [[Trump White House]] (2020–2021) and before that as president and CEO of the **[[Texas Public Policy Foundation]] (TPPF)** — a major state-level conservative think tank in Austin, Texas (founded 1989, ~$20M+ annual budget). TPPF's positioning as a state-level policy incubator for deregulation, criminal-justice reform, and energy-policy provided the organizational template for AFPI's federal-level operation. Rollins designed AFPI explicitly as a **government-in-waiting** — an organization that would maintain policy-development capacity, retain Trump-aligned policy personnel, and prepare detailed policy proposals for a second Trump administration. This function was more overtly personnel-focused than traditional think-tank operations: AFPI was as much about keeping the team together as about producing policy papers. ## Leadership and Board **[[Linda McMahon]]** (co-founder of WWE, former SBA Administrator in Trump 1.0) served as **AFPI board chair** from 2021 to 2024. McMahon was subsequently nominated as **Trump 2.0 Education Secretary** — one of the most direct personnel-pipeline trajectories from AFPI to administration appointment. AFPI's senior staff and fellows included a substantial roster of Trump 1.0 administration alumni, including former cabinet-level officials, agency heads, and senior policy staff. The organization functioned as a **holding pattern** for Trump-aligned officials who would return to government in a second term. ## Policy Centers AFPI organized its work into **~20 policy centers** covering major domestic and foreign-policy areas. The most analytically-consequential include: **Center for Election Integrity** — focused on election-administration issues, voter-roll maintenance, and election-law reform. The center's work aligned with the broader conservative-movement emphasis on election-integrity measures post-2020, including support for voter-ID requirements, restrictions on mail-in voting, and election-observer access. **Center for American Security** — foreign-policy and defense. **Center for Energy and Environment** — deregulatory energy policy, opposition to climate regulation. **Center for Health Care** — ACA alternatives, telemedicine, pharmacy-benefit reform. **Center for Education Opportunity** — school-choice, parental-rights, opposition to DEI in education. ## Personnel Pipeline to Trump 2.0 AFPI's most consequential function was as a **personnel pipeline**. When Trump won the 2024 election, a substantial fraction of AFPI's senior staff and fellows transitioned directly into Trump 2.0 administration positions: **Brooke Rollins** — nominated and confirmed as **USDA Secretary**. **[[Linda McMahon]]** — nominated as **Education Secretary**. Multiple AFPI center directors and senior fellows received sub-cabinet appointments, agency leadership positions, and senior White House staff roles. The AFPI-to-administration pipeline was comparable in scale to the [[Heritage Foundation]]'s traditional personnel-placement function and [[Center for Renewing America]]'s more ideologically-MAGA pipeline. ## Differentiation from Heritage and CRA AFPI occupied a distinctive factional position within the broader Trump-aligned infrastructure: **vs. [[Heritage Foundation]]**: Heritage is the traditional-conservative institution with MAGA overlay; AFPI was built MAGA-native. Heritage brought institutional credibility and the [[Project 2025]] policy-manual operation; AFPI brought direct personnel continuity from Trump 1.0. The organizations cooperated extensively but maintained distinct factional identities. **vs. [[Center for Renewing America]]**: CRA ([[Russell Vought]]) was more ideologically-radical and more focused on administrative-state restructuring ([[Schedule F]], unitary executive, agency deconstruction). AFPI was broader-tent and more conventionally policy-focused. CRA operated through [[Conservative Partnership Institute]]'s back-office infrastructure; AFPI operated independently. The three organizations — Heritage, AFPI, CRA — formed a **triangular infrastructure** for the Trump 2.0 transition, with overlapping but distinct personnel, policy, and factional functions. ## Funding AFPI has not disclosed its full donor list (as a 501(c)(3), it is not required to publicly disclose donors). Revenue grew rapidly from founding: estimated at **$20–30 million** in annual revenue by 2023, reflecting substantial large-donor support from the Trump-aligned conservative donor class. ## KB Significance AFPI is the **MAGA-native policy think tank and personnel-pipeline** of the Trump-aligned ecosystem — distinct from Heritage's traditional-conservative-with-MAGA-overlay positioning and CRA's administrative-state-deconstruction focus. Its primary significance is as a **personnel holding pattern**: AFPI kept Trump 1.0 policy officials organized, compensated, and policy-active during the 2021–2024 interregnum, enabling rapid personnel deployment into Trump 2.0. The Rollins-TPPF lineage connects AFPI to the state-level conservative-policy-infrastructure network; the McMahon connection illustrates the WWE/business-elite-to-government pipeline. AFPI's function within the Heritage-AFPI-CRA triangle is one of the most analytically-useful frameworks for understanding the institutional structure of the Trump 2.0 transition. ## See Also - [[Linda McMahon]] - [[Heritage Foundation]] - [[Center for Renewing America]] - [[Conservative Partnership Institute]] - [[Project 2025]]