During their presidential debate on September 10th, 2024, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump referenced Project 2025.
Harris claimed that Trump has been involved, stating “the former president intends on implementing [Project 2025] if he were elected again.” Trump refuted Harris’ claims, stating “I have nothing to do with Project 2025” and adding “I have not read it, I don’t want to read it […] I’m not going to read it.”
Before this, many Americans had not yet heard of the plan that was written and created by and for conservative voices.
What is Project 2025?
Created by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a 900-page “playbook” that was written by the president of the foundation, Kevin Roberts. The main idea of the project is to bring more conservative views into the United States federal government.
Shortly after the debate, the New York Times summarized the Project as “a buffet of options for the Trump administration or any other Republican presidency” to essentially guide the first months of presidency.
The article continues to identify the project’s main goals “for criminalizing pornography, disbanding the Commerce and Education departments, rejecting the idea of abortion as health care and shredding climate protections.”
Fox News wrote that the Heritage foundation “has released similar frameworks in election years dating back to the 1980s.” Basically, this movement has been in the works for years, but this exact write up has only been underway since 2022.
The article also expresses that “the makers of Project 2025 will attempt to point to multiple fact checks confirming Trump is not behind it.”
Is Former President Trump Involved?
Although Trump’s name is nowhere on the Project itself, an article published by CNN states that “six of his former Cabinet secretaries helped” in some way with the writing and/or creation of the plan.
The article focuses on the amount of people that have once been linked to Trump that have contributed towards the project, including ‘nearly 240 people with ties to both Project 2025 and to Trump.” Listing specific names and providing their resources, CNN suspects he knows more than he has come to admit.
With this being said, CNN’s article briefly references Trump’s social media posts stating he knows little about the project and he disagrees “with some of the things they’re saying.”
A more conservative news source, The Federalist, reported in July that the Democratic party has been providing information about “policies nowhere to be found in the project and falsely linking them to former President Donald Trump.”
The article references a statement that Trump released on Truth Social where he posted “I know nothing about Project 2025. […] Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them” and a Project 2025 post on X that counters several examples of misinformation.
Moving Forward
Whether or not former President Trump has truly aligned himself and his proposed policies into this plan remains unknown. If he gets elected, his first 180 days in office will demonstrate his priorities.
After all of Trump’s recent attempts to pull himself apart from the headline of Project 2025, it will be interesting to see how Project 2025 will affect the election and potential debates throughout the United States.
Vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz debate this evening at 8:00 pm.
