07/08/2024
Project 2025[a] is a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should the Republican nominee win the 2024 presidential election.[3][4] It proposes reclassifying tens of thousands of federal civil service workers as political appointees in order to replace them with people more willing to enact the next Republican president's proposals.[4] It asserts that the president has absolute power over the executive branch.[3][5] Project 2025's critics have characterized it as an authoritarian, Christian nationalist plan to transform the U.S. into an autocracy.[6][7] Many legal experts have said it would undermine the rule of law, the separation of powers, the separation of church and state,[4][8] and civil liberties.[9]
In July 2024, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts said, "we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."[10] In April 2023, Project 2025 director Paul Dans said that it is "systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army [of] aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state."[11][12] The Project proposes deploying the military for domestic law enforcement.[13][14]
Project 2025 envisions widespread changes to the government, particularly economic and social policies and the role of the federal government and its agencies. The plan proposes taking partisan control of the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Commerce, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), dismantling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and sharply reducing environmental and climate change regulations to favor fossil fuel production.[8][15] The blueprint seeks to institute tax cuts,[16] though its writers disagree on the wisdom of protectionism.[17] Project 2025 recommends abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be either transferred to other agencies or terminated.[18][19] Funding for climate research would be cut while the National Institutes of Health (NIH) would be reformed according to conservative principles.[20][21] The Project seeks to cut funding for Medicare and Medicaid,[22][23] and urges the government to explicitly reject abortion as health care.[24][25] The Project states that life begins at conception[22] and seeks to eliminate coverage of emergency contraception under the Affordable Care Act[22] and enforce the Comstock Act to prosecute those who send and receive contraceptives and abortion pills nationwide.[25][26] The Project seeks to infuse the government with elements of Christianity.[7] It proposes criminalizing pornography,[27] removing legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,[27][28] and terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs[4][28] and affirmative action[29] by having the DOJ prosecute "anti-white racism."[30] The Project recommends the arrest, detention, and deportation of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. by using the military to capture and place them in internment camps.[31][32] The Insurrection Act of 1807 would be used to allow the military to engage in domestic policing and capturing undocumented immigrants.[33][34] It promotes capital punishment and the speedy "finality" of those sentences.[35]
Some conservatives and Republicans have criticized the plan for its stance on climate change[36] and foreign trade.[17] Other critics believe Project 2025 is rhetorical "window-dressing" for what would be four years of personal vengeance at any cost.[37] The project's authors acknowledge that most of the proposals would require the Republican Party to control both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.[37] Some aspects of the plan have recently been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and would face court challenges, while others are norm-breaking proposals that might survive court challenges.[38] Although the project cannot, by law, promote a specific presidential candidate, many contributors have close ties to Donald Trump and his 2024 presidential campaign.[39][40] The Washington Post called the project "the most detailed articulation of what a second Trump term would look like."[41] In April 2024, John McEntee said that the Trump campaign and Project 2025 planned to "integrate a lot of our work" by summer.[42]
While the Trump campaign initially said the project aligned well with its Agenda 47 proposals,[37] the project has increasingly caused friction with the Trump campaign, which has generally avoided specific policy proposals that can be used to criticize him.[41] The Trump campaign has attempted to distance itself from the effort and in July 2024, Trump denied knowledge of the project and disavowed it, even though many of his advisors and former administration officials worked on and endorsed it,[42] some of whom helped draft it.[14]
