Photo: Composite image: Donald Trump Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP. JD Vance AFP / Alex Wong
- Project 2025 is a planning document by a conservative American organisation
- It outlines sweeping changes to the US government
- Trump has claimed he knows nothing about it
- However, many people closely linked to Trump and the Republican Party were involved in drafting the plan
- The report's key author Kevin Roberts celebrated Trump's victory in the presidential election
Explainer - A controversial document called "Project 2025" has been making waves in US politics. But what does it really say? RNZ is here to explain it all.
So what is Project 2025?
Project 2025 is a proposed "presidential transition project" crafted by the conservative American think tank the Heritage Foundation which they describe as "the conservative movement's unified effort to be ready for the next conservative Administration to govern at 12:00 noon, January 20, 2025".
The "Mandate for Leadership" document, which was first released in early 2023, is a whopping 922-page manifesto available online here which lays out a plan for radically overhauling the US federal government. More than 100 authors and contributors crafted the plan.
In the introduction, Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts writes, "If conservatives want to save the country, we need a bold and courageous plan. This book is the first step in that plan".
Roberts says the four fronts of the plan are to "Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children"; "Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people"; "Defend our nation's sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats", and to "secure our God-given individual rights to live freely".
After Trump claimed victory in the presidential election, Roberts celebrated the win in a statement: “President Trump has achieved a historic and hard-fought victory: overcoming four sham indictments, surviving two assassination attempts, and overcoming an unprecedented mid-race candidate swap to become the first president since Grover Cleveland to win two nonconsecutive terms.”
And conservative commentator Matt Walsh suggested the project had been revived in a post on X: “Now that the election is over I think we can finally say that yeah actually Project 2025 is the agenda.”
An exterior view of The Heritage Foundation building on 30 July 2024 in Washington, DC. Photo: ANDREW HARNIK / AFP / GETTY
What exactly does it propose?
The 900-page plan is too big for most to digest in one sitting, but there are several proposals that stick out and have been heavily publicised.
Among them, Project 2025 calls for criminalising pornography, disbanding the US Education and Homeland Security departments, rejecting abortion as healthcare and ending climate protections.
There are four pillars to Project 2025: The 922-page book that outlines how federal agencies should change; a database of conservative-friendly personnel; a training "Presidential Administration Academy," and a playbook of actions for the next president's first 180 days in office.
Among specifics listed in the document:
- An overall massive expansion of presidential power, citing the "need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch".
- The return of "Schedule F," an executive order signed by Trump at the end of his term and then repealed by President Joe Biden. It would allow civil servants perceived as disloyal to the president to be fired - theoretically tens of thousands of them. The foundation's Roberts has said, "We want Schedule F."
- The plan calls for the elimination of the US Department of Education, a longtime conservative goal.
- It also proposes dismantling the Department of Homeland Security, created after the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001, saying it "suffers from the Left's wokeness".
- The plan states, "Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned". Tech companies sharing it could also be held accountable or closed.
- It also compares "transgender ideology" to pornography and calls for an end to transgender care for minors, calling it "child abuse".
- The plan calls to reverse approval of and withdraw the abortion pill mifepristone. It would also exclude the morning-after pill and men's contraceptives from coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The plan does not call for the outright banning of abortion nationwide but many of its proposals would strongly curtail access.
- On the environment, a demand to roll back efforts on climate change and various environmental regulations and further unleash oil and natural gas production.
- Breaking up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the regulatory agency that forecasts weather, calling it "drivers of the climate change alarm industry and harmful to future US prosperity".
- On immigration, using active military personnel to police the border and proposing mass deportations.
- Deleting from all federal rules and legislation "the terms sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity, equity, and inclusion ("DEI"), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health and reproductive rights".
The Heritage Foundation has been highly influential since Ronald Reagan's presidency. Photo: DON RYPKA
Who exactly are the Heritage Foundation?
The Heritage Foundation, formed in 1973, has been heavily involved in influencing Republican policies since the Reagan administration in the 1980s.
They have regularly issued proposals and studies over the years but none of them have quite got the publicity Project 2025 has.
Their website says their "mission is to formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense".
Some say that in recent years, the foundation has turned away from its former focus on economic issues and foreign policy to wade into "culture war" social issues such as abortion, education and vaccines.
Paul Dans, former director of The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. Photo: DOMINIC GWINN / AFP
So, is this Donald Trump's plan?
That depends on who you ask. Trump vocally distanced himself from the plan in the lead-up to the election.
In July 2024, Project 2025 announced it was winding down its future policy operations but that does not mean the effort has been abandoned or the plan's ideas tossed in the bin.
In a post on his social network Truth Social on 6 July, Trump claimed, "I know 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 did add, "anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them".
Trump has also called Project 2025 "seriously extreme" while on the campaign trail and his advisers have said it "should not be associated with the campaign or the president in any way".
Trump on Project 2025: "Some on the right -- severe right -- came up with this Project 25. And I don't even know ... they're sorta the opposite of the radical left ... I don't know what the hell it is ... some of the things -- they're seriously extreme." pic.twitter.com/bH1JYqSIAg
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 20, 2024
Still, there is plenty to tie Trump officials to the initiative's creation.
Trump is mentioned by name dozens of times in the full Project 2025 document, a search shows. A CNN review found that at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration took part in Project 2025.
Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, right, was listed on the Project 2025 advisory board. Photo: AFP
Project 2025 director Paul Dans was chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management while Trump was president. Dans left the project in July after backlash began to build against it. Among authors of chapters in the Project 2025 plan are Russ Vought, who led the Office of Management and Budget; former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller; and Roger Severino, who was director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services. Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller has also distanced himself from it after being listed on the advisory board.
Trump's own running mate JD Vance also has ties to the foundation. The foundation's Kevin Roberts wrote an upcoming book, Dawn's Early Light, which according to the blurb "outlines a peaceful 'Second American Revolution'". The book's foreword was written by Vance. After negative publicity over Project 2025, the book's publication has been delayed until after the 5 November election.
The Washington Post also revealed recently that Trump flew on a private plane with Roberts in 2022 to speak at a Heritage event, where the Post reported Trump said, "They're going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do".
But Project 2025 is not actually Trump's official policy platform, which is called Agenda 47 (Trump would technically be the 47th US president if re-elected).
Wait, what's Agenda 47?
Agenda 47 is listed on the Trump campaign website as "20 core promises to make America great again!" It lists plans such as carrying out "the largest deportation operation in American history", "prevent World War Three", "keep men out of women's sports" and making America "the dominant energy producer in the world, by far!"
However, it does not include many of Project 2025's more specific proposals and does not mention abortion at all. Trump's position on abortion has shifted many times over the years.
So is Trump for or against Project 2025?
These days, who can tell? Basically, a lot of people who are closely aligned to Trump's policies and previous administration helped put Project 2025 together.
While Trump has vocally distanced himself from it all, it is difficult to say for certain at this point how much of Project 2025's plans would come to pass if he is re-elected, especially considering the vocal backlash against much of it.
Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has made Project 2025 a big issue in her campaign. Photo: KYLE MAZZA / AFP
How did it affect the US presidential election?
Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris blasted the "extreme" agenda on the campaign trail, asking, "Can you believe they put that in writing?"
Vice President Harris: Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda... Can you believe they put that thing in writing? Read it. It’s 900 pages. When you read it, you will see Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare, give tax breaks to billionaires, end the… pic.twitter.com/msliYcmLuh
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 23, 2024
Harris' running mate Tim Walz also said at rallies, "don't believe Donald Trump when he plays dumb about Project 2025".
Democrats in Congress also launched a "Stop Project 2025 Task Force".
The more Project 2025 is being talked about, the less popular it seems with US voters according to polls.
But it is clear there are some deep concerns about what it might mean for America's future and neither candidate appeared very eager to embrace its ideas in public.
