Project 2025 overview

What Is Project 2025?

People Magazine in its website article by Kylor Alvord dated July 11, 2024 described the document as: “The policy guidebook — compiled by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation in partnership with more than 100 other conservative organizations — lays out a far-right, Christian nationalist vision for America that would corrode the separation of church and state, replace nonpartisan government employees with Trump loyalists and bolster the president’s authority over independent agencies.”

Project 2025 will have impact on:

reproductive healthcare and the rights to an abortion
national education programs
loss of an objective and nonpartisan Federal Civil Service
weaponization of the Dept. of Justice to conduct investigations and prosecutions
changes to environmental and energy policies, including climate
change impact of fossil fuels
changes to national immigration policies

Project 2025, entitled “2025 Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise”, is the work product of a team of former Trump administration officials to provide a blueprint for executive action in the early days and weeks of a possible second term for Trump. The website states: “Building now for a conservative victory through policy, personnel, and training. It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One of the next conservative Administration. This is the goal of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. The project will build on four pillars that will, collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative Administration.” (Ref. 1).

The four pillars cited in the 925-page document are:

“Pillar I—this volume—puts in one place a consensus view of how major federal agencies must be governed and where disagreement exists brackets out these differences for the next President to choose a path.
Pillar II is a personnel database that allows candidates to build their own professional profiles and our coalition members to review and voice their recommendations. These recommendations will then be collated and shared with the President-elect’s team, greatly streamlining the appointment process.
Pillar III is the Presidential Administration Academy, an online educational system taught by experts from our coalition. For the newcomer, this will explain how the government functions and how to function in government. For the experienced, we will host in-person seminars with advanced training and set the bar for what is expected of senior leadership.
In Pillar IV—the Playbook—we are forming agency teams and drafting transition plans to move out upon the President’s utterance of “so help me God.” “ (Ref. 2, page xiv)

The sponsor of Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based, ultra-conservative think tank that has become the organizational thought-leader for Trump. Despite Trump’s denials, he does know the Heritage Foundation and he does know the key players in writing Project 2025. Some names you might recognize:

“Ken Cuccinelli served as Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2019 and then, from November 2019 through the end of the Trump Administration, as Acting Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.” (Ref. 2, page xvii)

“Rick Dearborn served as Deputy Chief of Staff for President Donald Trump and was responsible for the day-to-day operations of five separate departments of the Executive Office of the President.” (Ref. 2, page xvii)

“Christopher Miller served in several positions during the Trump Administration, including as Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism, and Senior Director for Counterterrorism and Transnational Threats at the National Security Council.” (Ref. 2, page xix)

“Peter Navarro holds a PhD in economics from Harvard and was one of only three senior White House officials to serve with Donald Trump from the 2016 campaign to the end of the President’s first term. He was the West Wing’s chief China hawk and trade czar and served as Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy and Defense Production Act Policy Coordinator. (Ref. 2, page xx)

“Roger Severino is Vice President of Domestic Policy at The Heritage Foundation. As director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from 2017 to 2021, he led a team of more than 250 staff enforcing civil rights, conscience, and health information privacy laws.” (Ref. 2, page xxi)

“Russ Vought is Founder and President of the Center for Renewing America. A longtime conservative leader on Capitol Hill, Russ served in President Trump’s Cabinet as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, where he oversaw the implementation of the presidential budget, key policies on deregulation, and a landmark effort to eliminate critical race theory and other radical ideologies in executive agencies.” (Ref. 2, page xxii)

The website for the Heritage Foundation lists “Seven challenges where our efforts are most needed and where we can do the most good:

Empower Education Choice
Secure Our Borders and Reduce Crime
Ensure Free and Fair Elections
Shrink Regulations, Spending, and Inflation
Counter Communist China
Rein In Big Tech
Protect Unborn Life and Families” (Ref. 3)

The series of articles prepared by members of IndivisibleHoCoMD are intended to educate voters about the Project 2025 policy objectives, implementation plans, and the threat it poses to American democracy and personal freedoms.

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