(NewsNation) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris‘ running mate in the 2024 presidential election, has vocally opposed the conservative guidebook Project 2025.
Walz, a former teacher, veteran and congressman, has attacked former President Donald Trump‘s ties to the nearly 1,000-page document from conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.
Trump has disavowed the plan entirely, with posts on his social media site asserting he has “no idea” who is behind Project 2025 and knows “nothing” about it.
But Walz believes otherwise, sharing on X: “I coached football for enough years. When somebody draws up a playbook, they plan on using it.”
Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, has also avoided associating with the controversial project, but the pair have plenty of connections to the minds behind it.
At least 140 other people who worked in the Trump administration have also had a hand in Project 2025, CNN reported. Vance even wrote a foreword for a forthcoming book by the leader of The Heritage Foundation.
The Trump-Vance campaign’s relationship with Project 2025 is a constant refrain at Harris-Walz campaign stops.
What is Project 2025?
Project 2025 lays out a blueprint to overhaul the federal government for the next Republican administration.
The Heritage Foundation said 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.
A main component of Project 2025 is the firing of as many as 50,000 federal workers who conservative groups say will impede the president’s 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.
On 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, and any of the Biden administration’s climate change policies would be reversed through Project 2025.
What Walz has said about Project 2025
Walz has spoken negatively, albeit briefly, about Project 2025.
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.
“Don’t believe him when he’s playing dumb about this Project 2025,” Walz said at a Glendale, Arizona, rally. “He knows exactly what it will do. They are not playing. They wrote their plan out.”
The other half of the Democratic ticket, Harris, has spoken about Project 2025 many times, both while campaigning for Biden and after becoming the party’s nominee.
Harris’ campaign website has an entire page dedicated to the guidebook, which she calls “Trump’s plan to take your power, your control, and your money.”
Pertinent to the Harris-Walz campaign are the reproductive rights policies outlined in the document, with abortion and IVF access remaining at the top of the ticket for Democrats.
Walz emphasized this policy point in his first official appearance as Harris’ vice presidential pick, telling a personal story about his family’s experience with infertility treatments.
“When my wife and I decided to have children, we spent years going through infertility treatments,” Walz said. “I remember praying every night for a call for good news, the pit in my stomach when the phone rang and the agony when we heard that the treatments hadn’t worked.”
Harris has also called Project 2025 “the latest attack in Donald Trump’s full-on assault on reproductive freedom.”
NewsNation’s Safia Samee Ali contributed to this report.