As Project 2025 became a political liability for Donald Trump during his 2024 reelection bid, he distanced himself from the initiative he once called a road map for "exactly what our movement will do," denying to have ever had connections with it.
Now, as his move-in date to the White House approaches, he has seemingly reconnected with the far-right playbook, nominating several of its contributors to serve in his incoming administration.
Project 2025 includes proposals for the president to replace thousands of career civil servants with loyalists and dissolve government agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration— all in the name of streamlining government under the president's control.
It also includes hundreds of pages of policy recommendations— not all of which Trump has endorsed— from ending student debt relief, to criminalizing pornography, to restricting access to abortion pills. During the campaign cycle, Trump denied his connections to the initiative.
"I have no idea who is behind it," Trump wrote in a July Truth Social post, despite a CNN investigation showing at least 140 people who worked for him were involved. "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."
But now, he is seemingly backing off from his previous comments, inviting some of its top contributors to be part of his second term in office.
Trump appointees tell another story
Most notably, Trump recently tapped Russ Vought, one of the architects of the 900-plus-page Heritage Foundation-backed document, to return to his administration as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Vought served as deputy OMB director for most of Trump's term and as director in its final year. The Government Accountability Office determined while Vought was there that OMB violated federal law by following Trump's orders to withhold money Congress had appropriated.
Vought authored the Project 2025 chapter on the department he's been tipped to lead, as did Trump's pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr. Vought said in the blue print document that he wants the post he is now nominated for to wield more direct power, Axios reports.
"The Director must view his job as the best, most comprehensive approximation of the President's mind," Vought wrote. The OMB, he said, "is a President's air-traffic control system" and should be "involved in all aspects of the White House policy process," becoming "powerful enough to override implementing agencies' bureaucracies."
Carr, another one of Project 2025's key architects, has also been picked by Trump to lead the Federal Communications Commission. In the document, he outlined his plans to challenge "Big Tech," calling the FCC to issue an interpretation of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to eliminate "expansive, non-textual immunities that courts have read into the statute."
Section 230 protects online platforms, like Facebook or YouTube, from liability over content posted by their users.
On immigration, one of Trump's most highlighted issues during the campaign trail, he pointed to Tom Homan, who is listed in Project 2025 as a contributor who aided in "development and writing." Homan has been nominated to serve as border czar, being responsible for southern and northern borders, maritime and aviation security and will be responsible for deportation efforts, The Associated Press reports.
At the National Conservatism Conference in Washington earlier this year, Homan said that while he thinks the government needed to prioritize national security threats, "no one's off the table. If you're here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder."
Other Project 2025 picks include John Ratcliffe as CIA director, who was consulted on the document's chapter on the intelligence community; Stephen Miller, as deputy Chief of Staff whose America First Legal nonprofit is listed on the project; Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) to be Trump's ambassador to Canada who is listed as a contributor in the blue print; and more.
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