What is Project 2025? Is it Trump's plan? What to know about the political right's plan for a conservative nation
Social media has been abuzz with the ultra-conservative initiative Project 2025. So just what is it?
The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank out of Washington, D.C., launched the 2025 Presidential Transition Project to "assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State."
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It is based on a more than 800-page "Mandate for Leadership," published in April 2023 by the Foundation, reimagining the executive branch and as a plan to overhaul multiple federal government agencies, including the FBI, Department of Justice and Department of Education, and that isn't even talking about the want to ban certain words from the legislature and what jobs in the federal government will be appointed.
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All of this is intended to be the playbook for the next conservative president to follow.
Here's what we know about Project 2025 and what it could mean for the 2024 presidential election.
What is Project 2025?
For many it is being referred to as just Project 2025, and it has become a hot topic among celebrities, political figures, media and on social media in recent weeks.
The "Mandate for Leadership" outlines conservative agendas that would mean the repeal of parts of initiatives President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama brought forth during their tenure at the White House, including student debt forgiveness and the Affordable Care Act. Beyond that, the deportation of undocumented immigrants is high up on Project 2025's to-do list.
There is also a section of this plan that appears to undo LGBTQ+ rights in multiple different areas, including banning people with HIV or those who are transgender from serving in the military, rescinding regulations that bar discrimination “on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics,” and also seems to oppose same-sex marriage and gay couples adopting children by seeking to "maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family."
Here are just some other items that Project 2025 entails:
Passing sweeping tax cuts and changes to the tax code which will impact those with lower incomes while benefiting those with a higher income.
Reversal of DEI programs
Development of new nuclear weapons and building of more nuclear power plants
Dismantling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration due to it being "one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”
Ending Head Start and dismantling the Education Department
Why are people worried about Project 2025?
One of the main things in this playbook? The reinstatement of a Trump executive order augmenting a president's power to hire and fire federal officials by replacing civil servants with political appointees throughout government.
Project 2025 has been “pre-screening the ideologies” of thousands to become part of the federal government once a conservative takes office to have, “a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists."
Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation leadership have also called this group "conservative warriors," and enacted imagery of them marching into Washington, D.C., like an army.
While the Heritage Foundation's nearly 900-page mandate is a blueprint for a far-right way of "taking back control" of the federal government, it is also the rhetoric that is coming from people like the group's president, Kevin Roberts.
“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless ― if the left allows it to be,” Roberts said on a conservative media outlet called Real America’s Voice.
"Project 2025 should scare every single American," said President Joe Biden, in a speech slamming former President Donald Trump for having any part of Project 2025. "It would give Trump limitless power over our daily lives and let him use the presidency to enact 'revenge' on his enemies, ban abortion nationwide and punish women who have an abortion, and gut the checks and balances that make America the greatest democracy in the world."
Is Project 2025 part of Trump's plan if he wins the 2024 presidential election?
Though the plan's organizers want Trump to follow Project 2025 if he wins the November election ― it even has his name in different areas throughout the plan ― the businessman turned politician has tried to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation after Biden slammed him in the press for being affiliated with the group.
Trump took to his Truth social media account in an attempt to lead the narrative away from his affiliation with Heritage Foundation writing. "I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them."
In a post early Thursday morning he wrote, " I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it. The Radical Left Democrats are having a field day, however, trying to hook me into whatever policies are stated or said. It is pure disinformation on their part. By now, after all of these years, everyone knows where I stand on EVERYTHING! DJT"
And while Trump denies knowing the people who are "in charge of it," some are members of his previous staff.
Russ Vought (Project 2025 writer) headed the Office of Management and Budget under Trump
John McEntee (senior adviser for Project 2025) was the director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office under Trump
Paul Dans (head of Project 2025 team), former Trump staffer
Spencer Chretien (head of Project 2025 team), former Trump staffer
Troup Hemnway (head of Project 2025 team), former Trump staffer
Project 2025 said it “does not speak for any candidate or campaign” in a July 5 post on X, formerly Twitter. Its playbook is comprised of suggestions the coalition believes will benefit the "next conservative president."
Who is involved with Project 2025?
The Heritage Foundation has pulled together 100 coalition partners of conservative groups in the country. Here are the partners of Project 2025 reported by the Heritage Foundation:
1792 Exchange
American Accountability Foundation
American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Alabama Policy Institute
Alliance Defending Freedom
ACLJ Action
American Commitment
American Compass
American Cornerstone Institute
The American Conservative
American Council of Trustees and Alumni
American Family Association
America First Legal
American Juris Link
American Legislative Exchange Council
The American Main Street Initiative
American Moment
American Principles Project
The American Family Project
The American Redistricting Project
Americans United for Life
AMAC Action
California Family Council
Centennial Institute
Center for a Secure Free Society
Center for Equal Opportunity
Center for Family and Human Rights
Center for Immigration Studies
Center for Military Readiness
Center for Renewing America
Citizens Against Government Waste
The Claremont Institute
Coalition for a Prosperous America
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Concerned Women for America
Conservative Partnership Institute
Defense of Freedom Institute
Discovery Institute
Eagle Forum
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Fairer America
Family Policy Alliance
Family Research Council
Feds for Freedom
First Liberty Institute
For America
Forge Leadership Network
Foundation for American Innovation
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Foundation for Government Accountability
Freedom’s Journal Institute
The Frederick Douglass Foundation
Calvert Task Group
The Heartland Institute
The Heritage Foundation
MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates
Hillsdale College
Honest Elections Project
Independent Women’s Forum
Institute for Education Reform
Institute for Energy Research
Institute for the American Worker
The Institute for Women’s Health
Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Dr. James Dobson Family Institute
The James Madison Institute
Job Creators Network
Keystone Policy
The Leadership Institute
League of American Workers
Liberty University
Mackinac Center for Public Policy
The Malone Institute
Media Research Center
Mississippi Center for Public Policy
Moms for Liberty
Mountain States Policy Center
National Association of Scholars
National Center for Public Policy Research
Native Americans for Sovereignty and Preservation
Noah Webster Educational Foundation
Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs
Project 21 Black Leadership Network
Pacific Research Institute
The Palm Beach Freedom Institute
Palmetto Promise
Patrick Henry College
The Patriot Foundation Trust
Personnel Policy Operations
Public Interest Legal Foundation
Recovery for America Now Foundation
Republicans Overseas Foundation
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments
Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services
Students for Life of America
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America
Tea Party Patriots
Texas Public Policy Foundation
Teneo Network
Turning Point USA
Young America’s Foundation
USA TODAY contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: What Trump says about Heritage Foundation's controversial Project 2025