President-elect Donald Trump stepped aside 2025 project during the campaign but he has done it ever since named several authors or contributors from the controversial conservative presidential wish list to his administration.
Trump called the policy proposals of Project 2025 — including restrictions on access to abortion pills, birth control pills and Medicare, as well as eliminating a couple of federal agencies — “extreme, seriously extreme” at a July 20 rally.
“I don’t know anything about it. I don’t want to know anything,” he previously said, despite many connections with his authors and collaborators.
Democrats attacked Trump for Project 2025 during the election season, calling it a warning that Trump is coming under a second term.
“Project 2025 is a plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power in your daily life, eliminate democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins,” the Biden campaign said.
Project 2025 is a 900+ page booklet of policy proposals created by The Heritage Foundation to guide the next Conservative administration. The organization behind the document told ABC News in a past statement that it did not intend to speak for any candidate in the election.
Project 2025 and Trump’s Agenda47 have similarities, including proposals to eliminate the Department of Education, increase fossil fuel energy production, and begin mass deportations.
In an ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump reiterated his earlier sentiments about the project. “This was a group of people that came together, some ideas came up, some good, some bad I guess, but it doesn’t matter. I have nothing to do (with it).”
Now, several authors and contributors to Project 2025 are not only connected to Trump, but also appointed to roles in his administration.
Russ Vought, who wrote a chapter on the “Executive Office of the President” for Project 2025, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” is also being considered for a cabinet-level position in the next administration and has been vetted by Trump’s transition team. , sources said ABC News. He was also the policy director of the RNC platform committee.
Here’s where Project 2025 contributors might find a place in the Trump administration:
Brendan Carr
Brendan Carr, Trump’s nominee to chair the Federal Communications Commission, is the author of Project 2025’s FCC recommendations, including: a ban on TikTok, restrictions on social media moderation, and more.
Carr would be responsible for regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband. Trump has suggested that he would open The White House’s influence over the FCC and punishing TV networks that cover it in ways it doesn’t like.
Carr is a longtime member of the commission and previously served as the FCC’s general counsel and as the FCC’s top Republican. It has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was appointed to the committee by Presidents Trump and Joe Biden.
In this June 24, 2020, file photo, Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Brendan Carr answers questions during an oversight hearing to examine the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, DC.
Jonathan Newton/POOL/AFP via Getty Images, FILE
John Ratcliffe
Ratcliffe, listed as a contributor who helped “develop and draft” Project 2025, has been nominated to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Ratcliffe He is a three-term Republican congressman He is from Texas and served as Director of National Intelligence from the mid-2020s until the end of Trump’s first term.
In the Intelligence Community chapter of Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s intelligence research fellow, Dustin J. Carmack, states, “The success of the CIA depends on firm direction from strong leadership appointed by the President and the CIA Director. Decisive senior leaders must be committed to carry it out. The President’s agenda and being ready to take calculated risks”.
In this Dec. 12, 2020, file photo, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe waits to board Marine One with President Donald Trump on the South Floor of the White House in Washington.
Patrick Semansky/AP, FILE
Tom Homan
Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Tom Homan has been named Trump’s “border czar,” which is not an official Cabinet position.
Homan, expect everything being responsible for mass deportations Commissioned by the Trump campaign, he is listed as a contributor to the 2025 Project that helped in its “development and writing.”
The Department of Homeland Security chapter of Project 2025, credited to Trump’s former Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, calls for full use of ICE’s “fast-track” authority and the development of immigration detention spaces. All of this is in line with Trump’s immigration proposals regarding mass deportations and funds construction of detention centers.
Former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan speaks on stage during day three of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum, July 17, 2024, in Milwaukee.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, FILE
Other links to the 2025 Project
Christopher Miller is acknowledged for his Department of Defense recommendations on the project. Miller served as Secretary of Defense and Special Assistant to the President under Trump from November 2020 to January 2021.
Ben Carson is responsible for the project’s Housing and Urban Development recommendations. He served as Secretary of HUD in the first Trump administration.
Adam Candeub is given the Federal Trade Commission recommendations for the project. He served in the Trump administration as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Telecommunications and Information.
Recommendations are made to Bernard L. McNamee on the Department of Energy and Related Committees. He was appointed by Trump to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2018.
Cuccinelli — who wrote the Department of Homeland Security episode — was part of the former Trump administration as acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security.
RNC Platform Committee Deputy Policy Director Ed Martin is also the Chair of the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, which is listed on the project’s advisory board.
Others associated with Trump, including Lisa Correnti of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, are listed among the contributors.
