Former President Donald Trump has denied any interest in following Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a conservative president winning reelection. This plan is different from Trump’s ideas and was meant to start a shift toward a more conservative White House.
But now Trump has been calling for the end of Project 2025, and the Heritage Foundation is losing its patience with the former president.
The 900-page guide of Project 2025 shows how to create a conservative presidency. It includes policy ideas and is part of a tradition of creating presidential blueprints that started during the Reagan era.
The Trump campaign has consistently said that Project 2025 does not reflect its transition plans. Project 2025 has also made efforts to emphasize this. However, Democrats have attacked them more on social media and through celebrities, and both sides have responded more assertively.
When news about Project 2025 first came out last fall, Trump’s senior advisers, Susie Wiles, and Chris LaCivita, said that while they value the help from different non-profit groups, the ideas from Project 2025 would only be suggestions.
But that gentle dismissal has turned nasty. At the Republican National Convention last month, LaCivita called Project 2025 “a pain in the a–.” Last week, when the news came out that Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025 and a former Trump official, left his job, the Trump campaign was overjoyed.
In a statement on Tuesday, Wiles and LaCivita said that if Project 2025 is falling apart, it’s a warning to anyone trying to influence Trump.
Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, criticized Project 2025 in an opinion piece on Thursday, calling it a “crazy idea” with “almost no common sense.”
This harsh criticism is causing concern. Some people worry that it might hurt Trump’s connections with his conservative supporters and give Democrats more reasons to talk about Project 2025.
One person who helped with Project 2025 said the Trump campaign is worsening things. They’ve noticed that Democrats are trying harder to connect Project 2025 to Trump.
There are some significant differences between Project 2025 and Trump’s ideas, especially about abortion. Project 2025 wants to stop the federal approval of an abortion pill called mifepristone, but Trump has said he won’t stop people from getting abortion pills.
But there are also many similarities. For example, Trump’s 2024 GOP plan wants to have the most extensive deportation effort ever. Project 2025 also focuses on border security and immigration, including detaining and deporting people.
One person who helped with Project 2025 said that even if Trump doesn’t use all the ideas in the book, it still has many “good suggestions.”
One of the more controversial parts of Project 2025 involves listing the names of potential employees vetted to work with the new Trump administration. This was to avoid the problems encountered during Trump’s first term when some of his appointees didn’t agree with his administration’s goals.
The Heritage Foundation seeks to keep Trump from making the same “mistakes” if he wins reelection. People who worked on Project 2025 claim that dropping support for the roadmap shows Trump’s supporters that he “might not have learned those lessons.”
According to one source, the real issue isn’t policy. It’s a power struggle over who will decide who gets hired for the next administration. The person also mentioned that Trump will choose his team members regardless.
Those who worked on Project 2025 aren’t the only ones upset by Trump’s refusal to play along. Several conservative commentators have raised concerns.
Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist, posted on social media that it seems like Trump is listening to left-wing media lies. She said he is uninterested in his most loyal supporters or their conservative ideas.
The Trump campaign is focused on winning the election and will be ready to move Trump into the White House in January 2025. It also said that Trump’s policies for a second term are based on his 20 promises and the RNC Platform, not Project 2025. The campaign criticized Democrats for spreading false information and using fear tactics.
But fear tactics are strategies Democrats use best. And it seems that Democrats have a lot to fear from Project 2025, even if it is all in their minds.
