Maggie Haberman, a senior political reporter at The New York Times, suggested Monday that aides to former President Trump had long been concerned that the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” would pose problems for the Trump campaign.
She noted that this has been made more difficult by Trump’s recent attempts to distance himself from lengthy policy platforms from conservative think tanks, saying last week that he has “nothing to do with them” and doesn’t support many of their priorities.
Haberman said in an interview with CNN’s “The Source” that while it’s true that the Biden team is misinterpreting conservative policies as a Trump-backed effort, many of the people who wrote those policies came from the former president’s administration, and that those people could potentially join Trump for a second term if he’s re-elected in November.
“So by answering this question and making this statement, on the one hand, yes, this statement is going to be reflected in most coverage going forward. It’s going to say, ‘Trump says he had nothing to do with this,’ but then everyone fact-checks the statement and this becomes a bigger issue,” Haberman told host Caitlin Collins on Monday.
“This is exactly what Trump’s advisers have been concerned about for a long time,” she added in the interview. Mediaite highlights“Does this statement solve the issue? I don’t think so.”
The 900-page 2025 Presidential Transition Project is a “governing agenda” filled with conservative priorities and insights from scholars and policy experts. It is divided into sections based on five main topics: “Taking Control of Government,” “The Common Defense,” “The General Welfare,” “The Economy,” and “Independent Regulatory Institutions.”
The project makes a wide range of policy proposals, perhaps most notably a restructuring of executive branch powers. It also calls for strikes of various smaller government agencies, cuts to abortion funding, and scaling back approval of the abortion drug mifepristone.
Another proposal would reintroduce Schedule F, a classification of federal employees that would make them easier to fire and replace with loyal employees. Associated Press Estimated This could affect 50,000 workers.
President Trump initially signed an executive order implementing Schedule F in October 2020, but President Biden rescinded the order after taking office and approved new rules that make it harder to fire career civil servants.
Asked for comment, a Trump spokesperson referred The Hill to a December 2023 election statement denying media speculation about the staffing of a hypothetical next administration.
“My policy priorities and personnel decisions for my second term will not be swayed by anonymity and unsubstantiated speculation in mainstream media news articles,” the campaign said at the time.
