Donald Trump spent his presidential campaign pushing Project 2025. Now he’s using it to supply his White House and his administration.
In recent days, Trump has tapped nearly a half-dozen Project 2025 authors and contributors, including Brendan Carr, whom Trump tapped this week to lead the FCC; former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, who got the nod for ambassador to Canada; and John Ratcliffe, elected director of the CIA. One of Trump’s early picks, Tom Homan as “border czar,” also contributed to Project 2025.
The next Project 2025 alum to join the administration could be Russ Vought, former director of the president-elect’s Office of Management and Budget, who is being closely considered to return to the position, POLITICO reported this week. That’s despite Trump once calling the group’s work product “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” and his transition team leader Howard Lutnick saying the group had gone “nuclear.”
Not anymore.
“I don’t think the Trump administration views Project 2025 as toxic,” said Michael Cannon, health policy director at the CATO Institute, who advised the Heritage Foundation project but declined to be listed as one of its authors. “So it should come as no surprise that the administration is picking up some of the people who contributed to that effort.”
Project 2025 alumni are now slated to play key roles in its administration, particularly in economics, immigration, and dismantling the administrative state.
And with the latest round of controversial Cabinet nominees, Cannon joked, the Trump transition is “doing everything it can to make Project 2025 look reasonable.”
Still, there are limits. Roger Severino, an anti-abortion stalwart who held a prominent role at HHS during the first Trump administration and was the lead author of the health care chapter of Project 2025, was snubbed by Trump’s transition team for the agency’s No. 2 job. during their participation in the project. Anti-abortion groups had pushed hard for her nomination., But Trump’s team is trying to distance itself from the strict federal restrictions on abortion that Severino called for in Project 2025, after promising to leave the issue in the hands of the states.
In some cases, like Vought, it is unclear whether the influence of Project 2025 alumni ever truly ceased, even as Trump repeatedly rejected the project during the campaign. Despite those pronouncements, Vought has played a key role behind the scenes, informally advising the Trump campaign on trade and economic policy alongside Trump loyalists such as Vince Haley, the campaign’s political leader, and Robert Lighthizer, former head of Trump trade.
Vought wrote a section of the Heritage report on federal spending reductions and regulations, as well as Project 2025. 180 Day Transition Pay Book. In an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show on complete.
Officials at The Heritage Foundation, in the midst of a difficult summer in which some prominent Republicans criticized the group (namely, senior Trump campaign officials such as senior adviser Chris LaCivita) were already anticipating that its position would improve greatly after the elections. For much of 2024, the think tank took the position of “let’s slide down a little bit and stay quiet,” said a Heritage official who requested anonymity to speak freely.
But by October, the official said, there were already signs that “there was less caution about Project 2025 and Heritage,” leading to rapid nominations of Heritage fellows and Project 2025 contributors to the new Trump administration.
At a book launch party last week for Heritage President Kevin Roberts, whose September publication date was delayed until after the election amid concerns about Project 2025 branding, Rep. Ralph Norman (RS.C.) was among several members of Congress who were there to provide support to the organization.
“I told Kevin, I think it helps,” Norman told POLITICO of all the backlash and hand-wringing over Heritage and Project 2025 in recent months, arguing that publicity would ultimately serve to be helpful to the organization. who implements his agenda.
However, that was certainly not how Trump’s team saw things for months.
Democrats were successful in raising awareness of the group’s plans, an effort that began in February and gained momentum in early summer. Voters began mentioning Project 2025 organically in focus groups held for President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. Google searches began to increase and peaked in July.
It was around the time that Trump himself issued a statement on Truth Social, writing that “some of the things they are saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal” and claiming that he “had no idea who is behind this.”
Sensing a threat, MAGA Inc., the main super PAC supporting Trump, launchedyour own Project 2025 website this summer, calling it a “hoax” and trying to capture search traffic from concerned voters.
But those close to Project 2025 emphasize that Trump is not likely to adopt its recommendations in their entirety.
“It was never accurate to say that Project 2025 was Trump’s agenda,” Cannon said. “But it’s certainly friendly to parts of Project 2025, particularly the more concerning and repressive parts, like the immigration restrictions.”
The report’s trade chapter, for example, included separate arguments in favor of free trade and protectionist policies, reflecting a deep division within Trump’s world over tariffs.
“Remember that Heritage gave 30 pages defending free trade,” Cannon added. “So there are also things in there that Trump doesn’t like and would never do.”
For Democrats, the hiring avalanche marks a deflating, if not unexpected, development in the transition. During the presidential campaign, Democrats attempted to link Trump to the controversial plan, a controversial, hard-line conservative agenda. President Joe Biden’s rapid response team decided in February to begin addressing the issue, according to a person with direct knowledge of the strategy, and finally saw the effort take off before Biden’s collapse at the June debate. Kamala Harris, after replacing Biden atop the Democratic ticket, spent at least $5 million to link Trump to Project 2025, according to AdImpact.
In response, Trump distanced himself from the project, only now tapping some of its authors to serve in his administration.
“It’s the least surprising revelation we’ve seen in this administration,” said Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, a potential Democratic National Committee chair candidate who held up an oversized version of the 900-page policy plan at the Democratic National Convention. and criticized this during prime time. “You can’t look at something that 140 members of the previous Trump administration were involved in writing this and believe for a second that you had no idea what it was. So, yeah, it’s, ‘I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.'”