(NewsNation) — If former Republican President Donald Trump wins the presidency in November, conservative groups aim to implement a wide-ranging plan to dismantle federal government agencies.
A nearly 1,000-page handbook from conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, and what they say is a “broad coalition” of other organizations, offers details on how to implement “Project 2025.”
Authors of Project 2025 say it’s a guide on what the next president needs to do so they can undo the “damage” to America they claim has been caused by liberal politicians. Critics, though, say Project 2025 is extremist, “authoritarian” and even dystopian.
The controversial project has come under fire not only by Democrats but by Trump and his campaign as well.
Trump has previously disavowed the plan, posting on his social media site that he has “no idea” who is behind Project 2025 and knows “nothing” about it. However, dozens of people who worked closely with Trump, who helped shape his administration, are involved in the plan.
Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, stepped down from his position at Heritage amid escalating criticism of the plan by Trump and his campaign, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris has pushed back against Trump’s denials, saying on her website he will implement the conservative plan “hatched by people who used to work for Donald Trump that focuses on the first 180 days.”
What is Project 2025?
Essentially, the Project 2025 handbook acts as a manual for the next Republican president, detailing ways to reshape and give the executive branch more power.
“We need to flood the zone with conservatives,” Dans, director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project at The Heritage Foundation and a former Trump administration official, said, according to the Associated Press.
Building off four pillars — a policy agenda, personnel, training, and a “180-day playbook” — Project 2025 organizers plan to “pave the way for an effective conservative administration.”
The plan hinges on the election of a Republican president and uses Trump’s “Schedule F” policy, which was ended by Biden, to reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers as political appointees to try and enable mass dismissals. However, Trump’s campaign has previously said he sets his own priorities and that outside groups don’t speak for him.
A main component of Project 2025 is the firing of as many as 50,000 federal workers who conservative groups say will get in the way of his agenda. Under Project 2025, agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education would be “eliminated,” and others, like the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission, and Justice Department, would be put under the president’s control.
A so-called top-to-bottom “overhaul” of the Department of Justice would end FBI efforts to stop misinformation. The Pentagon would “abolish” diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives if Project 2025 is adopted, and service members discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine would be reinstated.
When it comes to social issues such as abortion, Project 2025 calls for restricting the procedure through a limit on mail-order pills and penalizing providers; other health care services and social services like Medicare and Social Security would be scaled back and privatized as well. Many of the Biden administration’s climate change policies would be reversed through Project 2025, and more focus would be placed on the fossil fuel industry.
What have people said about Project 2025?
Experts the Associated Press spoke to warned of dire consequences should Project 2025 come to fruition. Bringing back Schedule F could create chaos in the civil service, Mary Guy, a professor of public administration at the University of Colorado Denver, said. Doreen Greenwald, the national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, expressed fears that federal employees would be seen as “the enemy.”
“It frightens me,” Guys said. “We have a democracy that is at risk of suicide. Schedule F is just one more bullet in the gun.”
In a July plea to Gen Z voters, Harris said that “Donald Trump has an extreme and divisive agenda for a second term. It’s called Project 2025 and it includes plans to ban abortion nationwide even without an act of Congress, to undermine LGBTQ rights, to roll back our efforts to fight climate change and they intend to eliminate the Department of Education, including Head Start.”
Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, also has spoken out against the conservative guidebook.
The governor said, if implemented, the project’s recommendations would restrict freedoms, rig the U.S. economy in favor of the top 1%, cut Social Security, underfund public schools and hurt health care.
U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., warned that Americans ” don’t understand just how far down the road to a dystopic, right-wing theocracy we are right now.”
In a June news release, he characterized Project 2025 as a “far-right roadmap for Donald Trump to seize ‘supreme’ powers and radically undermine reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, racial justice, free speech, and other democratic institutions and freedoms.”
A Project 2025 spokesperson rejected these criticisms in a statement to NewsNation partner The Hill, saying they are “simply projection” and that it is Biden who is abusing his executive power.
Even some former Trump supporters echoed criticisms about government overreach brought up by Democrats.
“He’d continually be trying to exceed his authority, but the sycophants would go along with it,” John F. Kelly, Trump’s second White House chief of staff, said in the New York Times. He, like Guy, characterized the idea as “chaotic.”
“It would be a nonstop gunfight with the Congress and the courts,” Kelly said.
Trump on Truth Social in July said he knows “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,” he wrote. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
Biden campaign staff were quick to point out that several former Trump administration officials were behind Project 2025, with spokesperson Ammar Moussa writing on X that Trump’s super PAC had ads highlighting it.
“Project 2025 staff and leadership routinely tout their connections to Trump’s team, and are the same people leading the RNC policy platform and Trump’s debate prep, campaign, and inner circle,” Moussa said in a follow-up statement to Axios.
Harris, Democrats work to counter Project 2025
Democrats like Huffman are now making moves to try and combat some of the measures listed in Project 2025.
Huffman, The Hill wrote, is spearheading an effort called the Stop Project 2025 Task Force made up of prominent Democrats with various policy focuses. Groups such as Accountable US and the Center for American Progress will coordinate with the task force to get their messaging together ahead of November’s elections. Their strategy, Huffman said in June, will likely consist of a series of public forums.
Politico reported on Third Way, which says it’s launching a “talent bank” to stock a Biden administration, or another Democratic government, with political hires that fit its brand. It will also create a “venture fund” to “seed politically simpatico groups,” per Politico. The centrist Democratic think tank calls this the Moderate Power Project.
“We’re ensuring that center-left Democrats have a seat at the table,” said Destine Hicks-Lundy, a former Biden White House staffer who recently joined Third Way.
Even as Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, Harris’ campaign has been tying the former president to it. On her campaign website, Harris describes it as “the plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins.”
“Trump’s campaign advisors and close allies wrote it — and are doing everything they can to elect him so he can execute their playbook immediately,” the website said.
Project 2025 is also mentioned in Harris’ newest ad, where the campaign argues Black Americans would be hurt if its objectives were achieved, NewsNation partner The Hill reports. Called “Backwards,” the ad says that Project 2025 would give Trump “unchecked political power with no guardrails, and it would take Black America backward.”
This ad, the second to criticize Project 2025, is part of the Harris-Walz campaign’s $370 million plan for digital and television advertising between Labor Day and Election Day, The Hill reports. According to the outlet, the ad is set to air during sporting events in battleground states, as well as the “Today” show, “Sherri” and “The Jennifer Hudson Show.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
