The plans have become so controversial that Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from the project after Democrats sounded the alarm for months and Kamala Harris and her campaign amplified their warnings in recent days.
He may have realized that it has become a political liability and that’s why he claimed to know nothing about Project 2025 or the people behind it – but how credible is that really?
Trump and Kevin Roberts, chairman of The Heritage Foundation – the think tank that produced the 900-page plan – know each other well.
Here they are together on a private jet in April 2022.
Trump has spoken at Heritage events – read this endorsement given the same month:
“With Kevin and the staff – and I’ve met so many of them now, I’ve taken pictures with the brightest and most beautiful people I’ve ever seen… this is an amazing group and they’re going to lay the foundation for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America – and that is coming.”
Yet this summer at a meeting in Michigan, he said this:
“Like some on the right, the far right, came up with this Project 25 and I don’t even know, I mean, some of them I know who they are, but they’re very, very conservative – they’re kind of the opposite of radical left.”
So there we are, two completely contradictory statements from the same man about the same group.
“I have nothing to do with Project 2025. That’s out there, I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it on purpose, I’m not going to read it,” he said during the presidential debate earlier this month. .
However, it seems clear that many of Project 2025’s policies overlap with Trump’s official policy proposals, called Agenda 47.
Speaking to tech billionaire Elon Musk on X, Trump said he would dismantle the Department of Education if he wins the White House in November.
“And what I’m going to do, one of the first acts – and this is where I need an Elon Musk, I need someone who has a lot of strength, courage and smarts – I want to close the Ministry of Education, move education back to the United States.”
That policy is included, for example, in Project 2025.
On education, the manual says that “federal education policy should be limited and ultimately the federal Ministry of Education should be eliminated.”
The chairman of the Heritage Foundation has praised what he sees as a seamless connection between Project 2025 and Trump’s Agenda 47, saying the overlap is enormous.
When asked about his reaction to Trump’s rejection of Project 2025, he said:
“Well, I think this is the sign of a great leader who understands that he is in a great political news cycle… so no hard feelings from any of us at Project 2025 about the statement because we understand that Trump is the standard bearer and he makes a political message. tactical decision there.”
At least 140 people associated with Project 2025 served in some form during the last Trump administration.
Reporters from two research organizations called Documented and ProPublica obtained 14 hours of private training videos for Project 2025.
They found that 29 of the 36 speakers in the videos had worked for Trump in some capacity.
The twist is that this is an agenda that is overwhelmingly popular among conservatives.
Roberts has previously said “never before has the conservative movement been so united around a government agenda.”
Many of the policies seem popular enough among Trump’s supporters, but not so much outside of them.
The question, which remains unanswered for now, is whether Project 2025 really represents a blueprint for a second Trump term.
If he wins, and he will, America will have to brace for fundamental political and social changes.
Learn more about what Project 2025 really means in the video below…