This summer, more and more voters have learned the essence of Project 2025, the political work that aims to guide a second Trump administration, and they deeply dislike it. Which explains the project's alleged failure in recent days at the hands of the Trump campaign, just as the Democrats have launched the presidential race with the candidacy of Kamala Harris.
Opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
The ruthlessness with which Donald Trump and his top campaign lieutenants supposedly cut any ties with the agenda-setting effort brought back memories of the Trump presidency, when he abruptly announced a policy change either Cabinet of the member Shooting with a tweet.
Just like that, someone or something that once had Trump's favor was dispatched with the push of two thumbs on the buttons of a smartphone.
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump wrote in a poorly titled message “TRUE” Last month on his social media site, he said: “I have no idea who is behind this. I don’t agree with some of the things they are saying and some of the things they are saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Whatever they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.” He reiterated that message several times during July, blaming “radical left Democrats” for “pure misinformation” about his ties to the effort.
As usual, that was all lies, but when the right-wing coalition behind the plan, including many former Trump advisers, continued to promote it, Trump's enforcers finally brought out the knife: a no-holds-barred strategy. statement On Tuesday, senior campaign adviser Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said:
“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak on behalf of the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way. Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be most welcome and should serve as a warning to any person or group attempting to misrepresent its influence over President Trump and his campaign. It won't end well for you.” (Emphasis mine.)
That same day, the once-respected and now MAGA-fied Heritage Foundation, the force behind Project 2025, announced that director Paul Dans had left his job and that the project, two years in the making, would be slowing down. The Washington Post reported that some contributing authors, who once saw their participation as a ticket to a job on Trump 2.0, were asking that their names be removed from the final product. Their fear is not in vain: LaCivita had threatened to ban them from employment if Project 2025 contributors continued to link their work to Trump’s agenda.
And that's the end of it all? You have to be skeptical. You have to be very skeptical.
On the one hand, Trump hugged The effort is in its infancy. In a speech at a Heritage conference in 2022, he said he would “detail plans for exactly what our movement will do … when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.” review The contributors included at least 140 former Trump administration officials, including six Cabinet secretaries.
So Trump can badmouth the Heritage project now that it has become a ghost, but if he wins, he will surely make use of the policy prescriptions of Project 2025 and its database of 20,000 vetted MAGAts to form a government and execute his stated agenda.
Which brings us to the second reason why Project 2025 should be considered alive and kicking: much of it is Trump's agenda, but with concrete political content.
Most of the best-known and least-popular parts of the 900+ pages of the project, that the media and Democrats have highlighted: “Can you believe they put that in writing?” Harris scoffed. ask The mass demonstrations that have taken place recently are, in fact, ideas that Trump himself defends.
Among them: abolishing the Department of Education; dismantling the civil service system and returning to a reward system that rewards MAGA loyalists with federal jobs; tearing down the ethical wall that has blocked White House interference in Justice Department proceedings and FBI investigations since Watergate, so that Trump can drop criminal cases against him and order new ones opened against his enemies.
And more: Conduct anti-immigration raids across the country, with the help of the military, and deport millions of people who live and work here without authorization. Repeal climate change mitigation programs and other environmental regulations. End affirmative action. Undo President Biden’s student loan relief program.
Trump has talked about all of them. Where he and Project 2025 differ most is on abortion. Like the rest of us, the former president has seen the decisive power of pro-choice voters in every election since Supreme Court appointees allowed the overturn of Roe in 2022. He is desperate to avoid talk of further federal abortion restrictions, insisting he would leave the issue to the states. But Project 2025 proposes a series of federal limits on abortion and contraception, and a ban on the delivery of the pills that account for nearly two-thirds of abortions.
Suppose Trump, as president, leaves abortion issues to the states. As we’ve already seen, his anti-abortion appointees to the federal courts would almost certainly not hesitate to issue rulings that would affect us all. And that still leaves all those other policy areas where Project 2025 reflects his policy wish list.
Familiarize yourself with Project 2025, if you haven't already. Trump's advisers may welcome reports of its demise, as they say. But the truth is…, Reports of his death are greatly exaggerated. The only way to stake him is to make sure Trump does not return to the White House.
@jackiekcalmes
