From Personnel to Policy: Project 2025 Is President Donald Trump’s Agenda

This article will be updated to reflect recent developments.

Project 2025 is an extensive, extreme road map for how a new far-right presidential administration can take over the country. Its sweeping policy proposals would affect nearly every facet of American life, from increasing taxes on the middle class, to eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, to implementing a national abortion ban. Former President Donald Trump has attempted to distance himself from this far-right plan, claiming, “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.” At the same time, he claims that he likes some parts of it and does not like others. But given President Trump’s close ties to the plan’s authors and their strikingly similar policy priorities, it is clear that Project 2025 is “undeniably a Trump-driven operation” and serves as a playbook for “institutionalizing Trumpism.”

Paul Dans, who until recently was the director of the Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project and was the White House liaison to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in the Trump administration, calls the plan an “instruction manual” for a second Trump term. Americans should take him at his word. Eighty percent of Project 2025’s authors are former Trump administration officials or close advisors, and 140 people who worked for President Trump are involved with Project 2025. Moreover, the project is vetting extreme Trump loyalists to stack thousands of federal jobs. President Trump is more than aware of those behind Project 2025—he has often spoken positively of Kevin Roberts and the Heritage Foundation, calling them “wonderful” and “highly respected.” His vice presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), was praised by the Heritage Foundation and said Heritage would play a “major role” in a Republican presidency. Johnny McEntee, the man behind Project 2025’s personnel database effort, was President Trump’s hand-picked selection to oversee all political appointees from the White House. Given that Project 2025 insiders say that President Trump’s distancing from the plan is simply a public relations gesture, it is clear that no matter what the former president says, this extremist movement is driven by him. If elected, he would be in a position to enact it.

In fact, President Trump already attempted to implement key policy components of Project 2025 during his first term, with varying degrees of success, and there is overlap between the plan and his Agenda 47 campaign policy proposals. Project 2025 was designed to remove the guardrails that prevented President Trump from enacting his baser instincts and priorities in his first term. Many of his former advisers and cabinet officials took the first Trump term’s failures as lessons learned when writing their chapters’ detailed policy agendas. Folding in the personnel database project to vet Trump loyalists who are open to authoritarian governance addresses the other impediment President Trump faced as president: his own appointees and career public servants who refused to break the law refused to break the law or flout institutional norms when President Trump and his diehards gave orders. This would work in tandem with the policy changes Project 2025 proposes, such as those for Schedule F, to allow Trump to do whatever he wants.

Project 2025 and President Trump’s personnel ties

Many of Project 2025’s authors and advisory board members are close Trump allies and advisors

• At least 140 people who worked for the Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025. “In fact, at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025, a CNN review found, including more than half of the people listed as authors, editors and contributors to ‘Mandate for Leadership,’ the project’s extensive manifesto for overhauling the executive branch. Dozens more who staffed Trump’s government hold positions with conservative groups advising Project 2025, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and longtime adviser Stephen Miller.” – CNN, July 11, 2024
  • Eighty-one percent of Project 2025 authors are tied directly to Trump. “All told, of the 38 people responsible for writing and editing Project 2025, 31 were appointed or nominated to positions in the Trump administration and transition. In other words, while Trump claims he has ‘nothing to do’ with the people who created Project 2025, over 81% had formal roles in his first administration.” ­– Popular Information, July 8, 2024
• Project 2025 “was drafted with extensive input from many of his allies.” “There is good reason to believe that Trump, if nominated and elected, would find this new set of recommendations even more compelling than he did in his first term. That’s because it was drafted with extensive input from many of his allies, advisers and appointees. Among the groups that contributed are America First Legal (led by high-ranking Trump administration officials Stephen Miller and Gene Hamilton), the Conservative Partnership Institute (where Mark Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff, is a senior partner) and the Center for Renewing America (helmed by Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump). High-ranking Trump administration officials even authored individual chapters of the report, including its recommendations to dramatically restrict abortion access.” – Rolling Stone, December 22, 2023
  • Several of President Trump’s top advisors, including Johnny McEntee and Stephen Miller, are drivers of Project 2025. “This is undeniably a Trump-driven operation. The biggest tell: Johnny McEntee — one of Trump’s closest White House aides, and his most fervent internal loyalty enforcer — is a senior adviser to Project 2025. One of the most powerful architects is Stephen Miller, a top West Wing adviser for the Trump administration.” – Axios, November 13, 2023
  • Project 2025 Director Paul Dans recommended the next president turn to McEntee to “confront the Deep State.” “The 47th president must and will confront the Deep State and will turn to John McEntee to do so. We’re thrilled that he’s joining Project 2025’s broad coalition of conservatives to ensure the next presidential administration is ready in January 2025.” – Heritage Foundation, May 2, 2023
  • Trump administration Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and key adviser Stephen Miller appeared in Project 2025’s “presidential administration academy” video. “Several key former members of the Trump administration are involved with the project, including Stephen Miller, who recently helped Trump with debate prep and acted as a surrogate in the spin room following the CNN presidential debate in Atlanta — and who appears in Project 2025’s educational ‘presidential administration academy’ video and whose organization, America First Legal, is listed as among its advisory members. … The Trump campaign’s now-national press secretary Karoline Leavitt is also prominently featured in Project 2025’s ‘presidential administration academy’ video, which the group says is designed to train the next generation of conservative politicians. The video was produced in September 2023, when Leavitt was serving as a spokesperson for pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc., which is a separate entity from the Trump campaign. Leavitt joined the Trump campaign in January of 2024.” – ABC News, July 8, 2024
• A former White House advisor to Vice President Mike Pence said that President Trump’s attempt to distance himself from Project 2025 was “preposterous.” “‘This is preposterous if you look at the collaborators and the authors of this plan,’ [Olivia Troye] told CNN when asked whether Trump’s denial was credible. ‘A lot of these people…served in Trump’s cabinet during his administration. There are people that I worked with. I sat in those policy meetings with them.’” – The Guardian, July 8, 2024
• 29 of the 36 speakers in Project 2025 training videos leaked to ProPublica worked for President Trump on his transition, administration, or his 2024 campaign. “A review of the training videos shows that 29 of the 36 speakers have worked for Trump in some capacity — on his 2016-17 transition team, in the administration or on his 2024 reelection campaign. … The speakers in the Project 2025 videos are careful not to explicitly side with Trump or talk about what a future Trump administration might do. They instead refer to a future ‘conservative president’ or ‘conservative administration.’ But the links between the speakers in the videos and Trump are many. Most of those served Trump during his administration, working at the White House, the National Security Council, NASA, the Office of Management and Budget, USAID and the departments of Justice, Interior, State, Homeland Security, Transportation and Health and Human Services. Another speaker has worked in the Senate office of J.D. Vance, Trump’s 2024 running mate. Sullivan, the former DOJ acting assistant attorney general in charge of the department’s Office of Justice Programs, which oversees billions in grant funding, appears in three different videos. Leavitt, who is in a training video titled ‘The Art of Professionalism,’ worked in the White House press office during Trump’s first presidency and is now the national press secretary for his reelection campaign.” – ProPublica, August 10, 2024

President Trump and Sen. Vance have strong relationships with the Heritage Foundation, which organized Project 2025

• In April 2022, Donald Trump shared a private flight with Kevin Roberts, the new director of Project 2025 and president of the Heritage Foundation. “In April 2022, Trump shared a 45-minute private flight with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, according to people familiar with the trip, plane-tracking data and a photograph from on board the plane, which has not been previously reported. They flew together to a Heritage conference where Trump delivered a keynote address that gestured to Heritage’s forthcoming policy proposals.” – The Washington Post, August 7, 2024
• In an April 2023 speech, Sen. Vance said the Heritage Foundation would play a “major role” in a Republican presidency. Vance stated: “The Heritage Foundation ‘is going to play a major role in helping us figure out how to govern, at the White House, at the Senate, at the House and all across our great country.’ CNN notes his speech took place one day before Project 2025’s policy proposals were unveiled. – Forbes, July 16, 2024
• JD Vance and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts are “good friends.” “The Associated Press reported that Roberts said Monday that he and vice-presidential pick JD Vance are ‘good friends’ and that the Heritage Foundation had been hoping for a Vance nomination, though it did not endorse him publicly before the announcement.” – USA Today, July 17, 2024
• Kevin Roberts said that Sen. Vance has been a champion for the Heritage Foundation and is going to be one of the “leaders” of the movement. “Vance has been a key champion of Roberts’ efforts to turn the Heritage Foundation ‘into the de facto institutional home of Trumpism,’ Politico reported in a March piece, in which Roberts said the senator ‘is absolutely going to be one of the leaders — if not the leader — of our movement.’ – Forbes, July 16, 2024
• Vance said he was “thrilled to write the foreword” to Dawn’s Early Light, a book about Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts’ manifesto for a far-right government takeover.“Dawn’s Early Light by @KevinRobertsTX is available for pre-order now! I was thrilled to write the foreword for this incredible book, which contains a bold new vision for the future of conservatism in America. Get your copy here.” – @JDVance, X, June 19, 2024
  • Vance’s editorial review of Dawn’s Early Light calls his ideas an “essential weapon” for the future of conservatism. “‘Never before has a figure with Roberts’s depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism… We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.’ — Senator JD Vance.” – Amazon Editorial Reviews, last accessed July 24, 2024
• Heritage President Kevin Roberts calls Sen. JD Vance a man who “personifies hope of our nation’s future” and said the organization was rooting for him to be the vice presidential pick. “Vance, however, openly has close ties with the Heritage Foundation and its founder Kevin Roberts, who told reporters Monday the organization was privately ‘really rooting’ for Vance to be the VP pick and praised him on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday as ‘a man who personifies hope for our nation’s future.” – Forbes, July 16, 2024
• President Trump on Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation: “He’s going to be so incredible.” “Trump gave the keynote address at the Heritage Foundation’s annual leadership conference on April 21, 2022, just a few months after Roberts took the reins of the organization. ‘He’s going to be so incredible,’ Trump said of Roberts. ‘I know that for a fact, because I know what he did and where he came from, and he’s going to be outstanding, and congratulations to his very exciting new role and a very important role.’” – Media Matters for America, July 8, 2024
• President Trump said “working closely” with Heritage was a “winning formula” and “we’re going to work on some other things that are going to be very exciting.” In his 2022 keynote address to Heritage and Project 2025 leaders, where he was introduced by Kevin Roberts, Trump said: “Already we have shown the power of our winning formula, working closely with many of the great people at Heritage over the four incredible years that we’ve worked with you a lot and we were just discussing it with Kevin … we’re going to work on some other things that are going to be very exciting, I think, Kevin, I think maybe the most exciting of all.” – Trump speech, April 21, 2022
• Heritage’s new president aligned the organization more closely with the Trump wing of the party. “Heritage is not institutionally tied to Trump. But under its new president, Kevin Roberts, the organization appears to be moving closer than any previous iteration of Heritage in allying itself with the Trumpian ‘America First’ wing of the Republican Party.  Roberts has developed a closer personal relationship with Trump than his predecessor did. Trump even visited Amelia Island in Florida to speak to Heritage’s annual leadership conference in April. In addition to courting Trump, Roberts has also opened his door to the ‘New Right’ — individuals and organizations whose views differ dramatically from many of the Bush era conservative policies Heritage has traditionally supported.” – Axios, December 1, 2023
• In an interview with Michele Tafoya, Kevin Roberts said that their relationship with President Trump remains “very good.” “On one level, it’s good that President Trump and his campaign distance his campaign from anything else, right? I mean, they’re trying to win an election…our relationship with Mr. Trump and his advisors remains very good.” – Media Matters, August 8, 2024

Project 2025’s directors have said that Trump is well aware of their agenda

• The Heritage Foundation previously bragged about how the Trump administration “embraced” the predecessor to Project 2025. “In a January 2018 blog post, the Heritage Foundation bragged, ‘One year after taking office, President Donald Trump and his administration have embraced nearly two-thirds of the policy recommendations from The Heritage Foundation’s ‘Mandate for Leadership.’” – The New Republic, July 8, 2024
• Dans said Project 2025 “is really going to be the engine room for the next administration.” “But Dans confirmed his team has ongoing connections with the Trump campaign. ‘We have integration with folks on the campaign. The reality is … we often supply ideas and ultimately we hope to offer personnel suggestions,’ Dans says. ‘This is really going to be the engine room for the next administration. Many of these folks served and will be called upon to serve again.’” – Australian Broadcasting Corporation, July 15, 2024
• Project 2025 Director Paul Dans, who was President Trump’s White House liaison to the Office of Personnel Management and its chief of staff, said President Trump is “very bought in” with Project 2025. “Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official and the director of Project 2025, told a right-wing podcast last year that his group has a ‘great’ relationship with former President Donald Trump, and ‘Trump’s very bought in with this.’ His comments fly in the face of Trump’s recent attempts to distance himself from Project 2025.” – Media Matters for America, July 11, 2024
  • Dans says Project 2025 is the “instruction manual” for a second Trump administration and that it was constructed by many who came “right out of the Trump admin.” “We need a big picture vision and Donald Trump sets that forth but we also kind of need the actual instruction manual, how to get things done, and that takes time to figure out…we constructively came together before anyone was running for president, many of us right out of the Trump admin. You know, I was only in politics because I’m a Trump – I’m a forever Trumper, not a never Trumper, a forever, if you will.” – Media Matters for America, June 20, 2024
• Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, sees Project 2025 as “institutionalizing Trumpism.” “Now he’s looking ahead to the 2024 election and beyond. Roberts told me that he views Heritage’s role today as ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’ This includes leading Project 2025, a transition blueprint that outlines a plan to consolidate power in the executive branch, dismantle federal agencies and recruit and vet government employees to free the next Republican president from a system that Roberts views as stacked against conservative power.” – The New York Times, January 21, 2024
• Kevin Roberts, the new director of Project 2025 and president of the Heritage Foundation, says he personally discussed Project 2025 with Trump. “Roberts told The Washington Post in an interview in April of this year that he had previously discussed Project 2025 with Trump as part of offering briefings to all presidential candidates. ‘I personally have talked to President Trump about Project 2025,’ he said in the interview, ‘because my role in the project has been to make sure that all of the candidates who have responded to our offer for a briefing on Project 2025 get one from me.’” – The Washington Post, August 7, 2024

Project 2025 and Trump policy ties

Some skeptics say that even if President Trump has connections to Project 2025, he would never actually try to implement such its policies: Even Trump’s campaign chiefs “greatly welcomed” its “demise.” Yet much of the agenda outlined in Project 2025 was attempted or partially achieved by the Trump administration when he was president. Key components of Project 2025 are designed to allow President Trump to do many of the extreme things he tried to do as president, but was prevented by luck, advisers refusing to carry out illegal orders, or institutional guardrails. And key parts of Project 2025 are front and center in President Trump’s own Agenda 47 videos, where he outlines what he would do if he took office again.

Checks and balances

Implement Schedule F to purge insufficiently loyal public servants

• Project 2025 specifically calls for the reinstatement of the Trump administration’s Schedule F executive order, which will make it easier to fire civil servants and experts who do not politically align with President Trump and replace them with sycophants. “The Trump Administration issued Executive Order 13957 to make career professionals in positions that are not normally subject to change as a result of a presidential transition but who discharge significant duties and exercise significant discretion in formulating and implementing executive branch policy and programs an exception to the competitive hiring rules and examinations for career positions under a new Schedule F. The order was subsequently reversed by President Biden at the demand of the civil service associations and unions. It should be reinstated, but SES responsibility should come first.” – “Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy, Project 2025,” in Mandate for Leadership (2023)
  • President Trump’s Agenda 47 promised to reestablish Schedule F, making it easier to fire “rogue bureaucrats.” “Here’s my plan to dismantle the deep state and reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption once and for all, and corruption it is. First, I will immediately re-issue my 2020 Executive Order restoring the President’s authority to remove rogue bureaucrats. And I will wield that power very aggressively.’” – DonaldJTrump.com, March 21, 2023

Target political enemies

• Project 2025 would overhaul the U.S. Department of Justice to allow the president to target “political enemies with enforcement actions.” “The chapter on the Department of Justice (DOJ) proposes overhauling the agency to eliminate its longstanding tradition of political insulation from the White House. In theory, this insulation follows from the idea that the job of the DOJ’s head, the attorney general, is to represent the U.S. government and not the president. Institutional mechanisms have been used to ensure the agency’s independence and to guard against both the perception and reality of conflicts of interest, including, most notably, the use of a special counsel to investigate and prosecute the president or certain administration officials. As was demonstrated during the first Trump term, though, the actual independence of a special counsel can be limited. Mandate would seek to further degrade the DOJ’s independence by injecting greater presidential control into questions of litigation strategy, even raising the disturbing specter of the president targeting political enemies with enforcement actions.” – Boston Review, July 1, 2024
• Project 2025 says that all litigation decisions must be made consistent with the president’s agenda, even admitting that this will force attorneys into “uncomfortable positions.” “While the supervision of litigation is a DOJ responsibility, the department falls under the direct supervision and control of the President of the United States as a component of the executive branch. Thus, and putting aside criminal prosecutions that can warrant different treatment, litigation decisions must be made consistent with the President’s agenda. This can force line attorneys to take uncomfortable positions in civil cases because those positions are more closely aligned with the President’s policy agenda.” – “Department of Justice,” in Mandate for Leadership (2023)
  • President Trump told his White House counsel he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and FBI Director James Comey. “President Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation. The lawyer, Donald F. McGahn II, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. Mr. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, Mr. McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Mr. Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment. The encounter was one of the most blatant examples yet of how Mr. Trump views the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies.” – The New York Times, November 20, 2018
  • President Trump’s Agenda 47 promises to press criminal charges against “government leakers” who collude with “fake news” to “subvert our government and our democracy.” “Fifth, we will launch a major crackdown on government leakers who collude with the fake news to deliberately weave false narratives and to subvert our government and our democracy. When possible, we will press criminal charges.” – DonaldJTrump.com, March 21, 2023
• Project 2025 vows to prosecute local officials, including district attorneys, for “refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions.” “Where warranted and proper under federal law, initiate legal action against local officials—including District Attorneys—who deny American citizens the ‘equal protection of the laws’ by refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions. This holds true particularly for jurisdictions that refuse to enforce the law against criminals based on the Left’s favored defining characteristics of the would-be offender (race, so-called gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) or other political considerations (e.g., immigration status).” – “Department of Justice,” in Mandate for Leadership (2023)
  • President Trump’s Agenda 47 promises to go after “radical Marxist prosecutors.” “Third, we will go after the radical Marxist prosecutors who are abolishing cash bail, refusing to charge crimes, and surrendering our cities to violent criminals. They have surrendered like never before. I will direct the DOJ to open civil rights investigations into radical left prosecutor’s offices, such as those in Chicago, L.A., and San Francisco to determine whether they have illegally engaged in race-based enforcement of the law.” ­– DonaldJTrump.com, February 20, 2023

Education

Eliminate the U.S. Department of Education

• Project 2025: “The federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” “Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated. When power is exercised, it should empower students and families, not government.” – “Department of Education,” in Mandate for Leadership (2023)
  • President Trump tried to merge the Education and Labor departments after promising to eliminate the Education Department. “Last month, the Trump administration released a proposal to reform the federal government. One of President Trump’s proposals is to merge the Department of Education with the Department of Labor. What motivates Trump to reduce the status of the federal Department of Education? Republicans have opposed the Department of Education’s existence since its establishment in 1979. Recently, Republican voters’ backlash against the Common Core State Standards has reignited the Republican Party’s efforts to reduce the federal government’s role in education. In the 2016 presidential election, then-candidate Trump campaigned to terminate Common Core and the Department of Education to restore local control in education.” – Brookings, July 16, 2018
  • President Trump’s Agenda 47 promises to close the Department of Education, sending educational decisions back to the states. “And one other thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington D.C. and sending all education and education work and needs back to the States. … We’re going to end education coming out of Washington D.C. We’re going to close it up — all those buildings all over the place and yet people that in many cases hate our children. We’re going to send it all back to the States.” – DonaldJTrump.com, September 13, 2023

Climate, energy, and infrastructure

Scrap clean energy tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act

• Project 2025 proposes to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law. “Support repeal of massive spending bills like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which established new programs and are providing hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to renewable energy developers, their investors, and special interests, and support the rescinding of all funds not already spent by these programs.” – Mandate for Leadership, p. 365 (2023)
• Project 2025: The next administration should push for legislation to fully repeal subsidies in the tax code, including dozens of tax credits and breaks for green companies in Subtitle D of the IRA. “The next Administration should also push for legislation to fully repeal recently passed subsidies in the tax code, including the dozens of credits and tax breaks for green energy companies in Subtitle D of the Inflation Reduction Act.” – “Department of the Treasury,” in Mandate for Leadership (2023)
  • President Trump’s advisers said the IRA would be in his crosshairs. “Donald Trump is planning to gut US President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law, increase investment in fossil fuels and roll back regulations aimed at accelerating the transition to electric vehicles if he is elected next year. Senior campaign officials and advisers to the former president said he would seek to radically overhaul US climate and energy policy to ‘maximize fossil fuel production’ during a second term. They added that the Inflation Reduction Act — the centerpiece of Biden’s economic strategy, with $369bn in tax breaks and subsidies for clean energy — would be in Trump’s crosshairs. ‘Some of the price tags involved with some of these credits seem to be wildly understated,’ a senior Trump campaign official told the Financial Times. ‘We’d be looking to cut a lot of that spending.’ … Trump has made no secret of his opposition to the IRA, which he has described as the ‘biggest tax hike in history’, or his antipathy towards green energy. … [Trump adviser Carla Sands] said Trump would work with congressional leaders to curtail what she called the ‘socialist, big government IRA’, scrap fuel-economy standards for cars and ‘end the war on American energy’ that she linked to higher energy and gas prices.” – The Financial Times, November 23, 2023

Dismantle NOAA

• Project 2025 wants to cut off weather, ocean, and climate data by disbanding the NOAA, ending free weather reports. “The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.” – “Department of Commerce,” in Mandate for Leadership, June 24, 2024; The Atlantic, July 16, 2024
  • Trump’s nomination to lead NOAA was the CEO of AccuWeather and previously supported a bill prohibiting NOAA from offering products that could be provided by the private sector. “But in 2005, [AccuWeather CEO Barry] Myers supported Santorum’s widely panned bill, which would have prohibited the weather service from offering a product or service ‘that is or could be provided by the private sector’ — a provision that would have benefited companies like AccuWeather…Myers told The Palm Beach Post at the time that he wanted the weather service to return to its ‘core mission … which is protecting other people’s lives and property,’ rather than spending ‘hundreds of millions of dollars a year, every day, producing forecasts of ‘warm and sunny.’” – Politico, October 12, 2017

Maximize drilling, mining, and logging on public lands

• The authors of Project 2025 state that there should be “robust oil and gas leases on- and offshore, boosting drilling across northern Alaska” and call for cutting the royalties fossil fuel companies pay to drill on public lands and quickening oil and gas permitting, among other measures. “Pendley’s blueprint for Trump, if he should win in November, includes holding robust oil and gas lease sales on- and offshore, boosting drilling across northern Alaska, slashing the royalties that fossil fuel companies pay to drill on federal lands, expediting oil and gas permitting, and rescinding Biden-era rules aimed at protecting endangered species and limiting methane pollution from oil and gas operations.” – HuffPost, April 6, 2024
  • The Trump administration took a “meat cleaver” to public lands. “Under Donald Trump, the government has auctioned off millions of acres of public lands to the fossil fuel industry, the Guardian can reveal, in the most comprehensive accounting to date of how much public land the administration has handed over to oil and gas drillers over the past four years. … ‘The lobbyist-filled Trump administration didn’t just carve and cut corners for these oil-funded front groups,’ says Jayson O’Neill, of the Western Values Project, a conservation group, ‘it gleefully took a meat cleaver to our national monuments and land protections.’” – The Guardian, October 26, 2020

Abortion

Allowing providers to refuse care for abortion and contraception

• Project 2025 pushed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights to withdraw their pharmacy abortion mandate guidance. “OCR should withdraw its pharmacy abortion mandate guidance. OCR should withdraw its ‘Obligations Under Federal Civil Rights Laws to Ensure Access to Comprehensive Reproductive Health Care Services’ guidance for retail pharmacies, which purports to address nondiscrimination obligations of pharmacies under federal civil rights laws and in fact orders them to stock and dispense first-trimester abortion drugs. The guidance invents this so-called requirement and fails to acknowledge that pharmacies and pharmacists have the right not to participate in abortions, including pill-induced abortions, if doing so would violate their sincere moral or religious objections. Moreover, no federal civil rights laws preempt state pro-life statutes.” –
  “Department of Health and Human Services,” in Mandate for Leadership (2023)
  • President Trump pushed and partially succeeded in carving exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate when he was president. “In Trump’s first year in office, federal agencies weakened the ACA’s contraceptive mandate, allowing employers to deny birth control coverage if they had a religious or moral objection. Though the rollback was quickly tied up in the courts, dozens of employers signed separate settlements with the administration allowing them to refuse to cover birth control. Meanwhile, the Trump administration took aim at other federal programs designed to promote reproductive health and access to birth control, including Title X, which funds services like contraceptive counseling and cervical cancer screenings for low-income Americans. … Then, in the midst of the pandemic, the Supreme Court dealt another blow to birth control access: The justices upheld the administration’s rollback of the ACA contraceptive mandate in July, a ruling that could mean the loss of contraceptive coverage for 126,000 American workers.” – Center for Public Integrity, September 24, 2020
  • In his first term, President Trump swiftly passed regulations to allow any employer to request an exemption to covering birth control. “Regulations released by the Trump administration on Friday could jeopardize access to a medication that millions of Americans take every day and that saves countless lives every year…By allowing any employer to request a religious or moral exemption to the birth control coverage mandate established under President Barack Obama, the Trump administration is limiting access to one of the most common forms of life-saving medication available today.” – Vox, October 6, 2017

Ban abortion

• Project 2025 urged the Food and Drug Administration to “Stop promoting or approving mail-order abortions in violation of long-standing federal laws that prohibit the mailing and interstate carriage of abortion drugs,” an effective ban on medication abortion. This statement’s citation is to “18 U.S.C. 1461, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1461 (accessed March 16, 2023), and 18 U.S.C. 1462, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1462 (accessed March 16, 2023).” These statutes make up the Comstock Act, an anti-obscenity law passed in 1873 that has never been used to prosecute anyone over abortion, but the mandate aims “misapply the law to criminalize the mailing of items related to abortion in the mail.” –“Department of Health and Human Services ,” in Mandate for Leadership(2023); Center for American Progress, June 17, 2024
  • President Trump told advisers and allies he liked the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions. “Former President Donald J. Trump has told advisers and allies that he likes the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother, according to two people with direct knowledge of Mr. Trump’s deliberations.” – The New York Times, February 16, 2024
  • President Trump said as a candidate that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who get abortions. “The statement came as Mr. Trump appeared at a town-hall-style forum with Chris Matthews of MSNBC, recorded for broadcast on Wednesday night. Mr. Matthews pressed Mr. Trump, who once supported abortion rights, on his calls to ban the procedure, asking how he might enforce such a restriction. ‘You go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places,’ Mr. Trump said, after initially deflecting questions. ‘But you have to ban it.’ He added, after a bit more prodding, ‘There has to be some form of punishment.’” – The New York Times, March 30, 2016
  • President Trump appointed justices to the Supreme Court who overturned Roe after explicitly promising this would be a criterion for their appointments. “President Trump, who nominated Gorsuch to the court, had vowed during the campaign to nominate a judge who would help overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 abortion-rights decision. During the final presidential debate, Trump was asked if he wanted to see the Supreme Court overturn that decision. ‘Well, if we put another two or perhaps three justices on, that’s really what’s going to be — that will happen,’ Trump said during that October debate. ‘And that’ll happen automatically, in my opinion, because I am putting pro-life justices on the court. I will say this: It will go back to the states, and the states will then make a determination.’” – The Washington Post, March 21, 2017

Punish states and health insurance customers that have plans that cover abortions

• Project 2025 called for the withdrawal of up to 10 percent of Medicaid funds for states that require insurance for abortion in private insurance plans. “Withdraw Medicaid funds for states that require abortion insurance or that discriminate in violation of the Weldon Amendment. The Weldon Amendment declares that no HHS funding may go to a state or local government that discriminates against pro-life health entities or insurers. In blatant violation of this law, seven states require abortion coverage in private health insurance plans, and HHS continues to fund those states. HHS under President Trump disallowed $200 million in Medicaid funding from California because of the state’s flouting of the law, but the Biden Administration restored it. HHS/CMS should withdraw appropriated funding, up to and including 10 percent of Medicaid funds, from states that require abortion insurance coverage. DOJ should commit to litigating the defense of those funding decisions promptly to the Supreme Court in order to maximize HHS’s ability to withdraw funds from entities that violate the Weldon Amendment.” – “Department of Health and Human Services,” in Mandate for Leadership (2023)
• The Trump administration threatened to strip federal funding from California over its requirement for private insurers cover abortions. “The Trump administration on Friday threatened to withhold federal funding from California over its requirement that private insurers cover abortions — a move California officials immediately denounced as a ‘cheap political’ shot on the day the president was addressing the annual March for Life rally. Top Trump health officials said California had 30 days to stop the alleged violation but did not specify what funds it would withhold or on what timeline it would act. They said their announcement serves as warning to other states with similar requirements but declined to identify which, if any, of those states might be targeted.” – The Washington Post, January 24, 2020
• President Trump’s first administration tried to force insurance companies to separate bill coverage of abortion services, which means two separate transactions for customers. “In late December 2019, the [Trump] administration released the new rule that would force insurance companies that sell plans in the Affordable Care Act individual marketplaces to separately bill — and instruct customers to separately pay – for coverage of abortion services. This means insurance companies will have to send two separate bills to each customer — one for the coverage of abortion care, and another for coverage of all other health care. They will also have to instruct their customers to pay the bills using two separate transactions. In other words, each consumer will have to send two checks or two money orders, or complete two separate online transactions.” – ACLU, February 11, 2020

Make it harder to access mifepristone

• Project 2025 would reverse the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of chemical abortion drugs. “FDA should therefore: Reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs because the politicized approval process was illegal from the start.” – Mandate for Leadership, p. 458 (2023)
  • President Trump’s FDA required people seeking mifepristone to pick up medicine or sign a form in person, even after they had been evaluated by a clinician. “In its first ruling on abortion with Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the bench, the Supreme Court today reinstated a federal policy that requires patients seeking a medication used for early abortion care to incur unnecessary COVID-19 risks by traveling to a health center for the sole purpose of picking up a pill and signing a form. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy requires patients seeking mifepristone to pick up the pill in person at a hospital, clinic, or medical office, even when the patient has already been evaluated by a clinician using telehealth or at a prior in-person visit and will be receiving no medical services at the time.” – ACLU, January 12, 2021

Child Care

Cut Head Start

• Project 2025 argued the federal Head Start program should be eliminated, along with the entire Office of Head Start. “Eliminate the Head Start program. Head Start, originally established and funded to support low-income families, is fraught with scandal and abuse. With a budget of more than $11 billion, the program should function to protect and educate minors. Sadly, it has done exactly the opposite. In fact, ‘approximately 1 in 4 grant recipients had incidents in which children were abused, left unsupervised, or released to an unauthorized person between October 2015 and May 2020.’ Research has demonstrated that federal Head Start centers, which provide preschool care to children from low-income families, have little or no long-term academic value for children. Given its unaddressed crisis of rampant abuse and lack of positive outcomes, this program should be eliminated along with the entire OHS. At the very least, the program’s COVID-19 vaccine and mask requirements should be rescinded.” – “Department of Health and Human Services,” in Mandate for Leadership (2023)
• President Trump’s first budget tried to cut and undermine Head Start. “President Trump’s FY 2018 budget claims to demonstrate ‘commitment to early childhood outcomes by continuing to fund Head Start and Child Care at historically high levels.’ In reality, it would cut funding for Head Start, child care assistance, and after-school child care. Furthermore, the budget would slash health care, nutrition assistance, and other supports that promote health, wellbeing, and economic security for poor children and families, including those enrolled in Head Start. The president’s proposed cuts would undermine Head Start’s ability to deliver on quality standards, including robust comprehensive services like preventive health services, developmental screenings, and family support. Decades of research on effective early education programs demonstrate the central role of comprehensive services in advancing poor children’s wellbeing as well as their success in adulthood. Head Start, in particular, is proven to improve early childhood and young adult outcomes.” – Center for Law and Social Policy, June 9, 2017

Taxes

Hand out tax cuts to the wealthy

• Project 2025: Capital gains and qualified dividends should be taxed at 15 percent—a cut from the current 20 percent. “Capital gains and qualified dividends should be taxed at 15 percent. Thus, the combined corporate income tax combined with the capital gains or qualified dividends tax rate would be roughly equal to the top individual income tax rate.” – “Department of the Treasury,” in Mandate for Leadership (2023)
  • The Trump administration aimed to decrease capital gains taxes to 15 percent, which would decrease federal revenues by nearly $100 billion by 2030. “Over the past year, President Trump has mentioned nonspecific intentions to reduce the tax rate on capital gains. In August, White House National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow confirmed these intentions, citing the aim of a top 15 percent rate…We estimate the plan would reduce federal revenues by $98.6 B over the budget window 2021 – 2030.” – Wharton School of Business, September 25, 2020

Immigration

Deport undocumented immigrants via large-scale raids

• Project 2025 wants to deport millions of noncitizens via large-scale raids. “During a second Trump term, executive authority would be used to deport as many people as possible: Project 2025 calls on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to expand ‘expedited removal,’ a speedy deportation process for people apprehended within 100 miles of the border, to cover the entire country. ICE would lose much of its leeway to be able to deem cases ‘administratively closed,’ as it sometimes does for people it determines aren’t a priority for removal. The agency would be required to detain most noncitizens with criminal records and almost entirely eliminate its ‘Alternatives to Detention’ program, in which people in deportation proceedings are tracked in lieu of incarceration. Legal immigration would also be curtailed: Several visa categories would be reduced or eliminated altogether, including so-called T and U visas, which are issued to victims of trafficking and other crimes who help police investigate the perpetrators of said crimes.” – The Nation, June 4, 2024
  • The Trump administration had a plan to use 100,000 National Guard troops to round up undocumented immigrants in 11 states for deportation. “The White House distanced itself Friday from a Department of Homeland Security draft proposal to use the National Guard to round up unauthorized immigrants, but lawmakers said the document offers insight into the Trump administration’s internal efforts to enact its promised crackdown on illegal immigration. Administration officials said the proposal, which called for mobilizing up to 100,000 troops in 11 states, was rejected, and would not be part of plans to carry out President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration policy.” – The Associated Press, February 17, 2017