The Trump campaign’s fierce resistance to Project 2025 amid ongoing attacks from Democrats has frustrated conservatives inside and outside the project, who worry that rejecting the project will alienate the former president’s most loyal supporters.
One thing Trump set himself apart from was the Democratic messaging, which centered on a policy blueprint from a project led by the Heritage Foundation that at times diverged from the previous president’s policies and was intended to kickstart a transition to a more conservative White House.
But the Trump campaign’s recent statements welcoming the demise of Project 2025 have raised concerns about potentially damaging relations with the conservative ecosystem that supports Trump, as well as whether it could unintentionally ignite Democratic messaging around Project 2025.
“There’s a lot of discussion in MAGAworld about whether Trump learned from the personnel mistakes of his first term. Dismissing Project 2025 is a signal to his supporters that he hasn’t learned those lessons,” one former Trump administration official told The Hill. [Steve] This will be a huge morale hit for Bannon’s war room.”
Project 2025 is perhaps best known today for its 900-plus page policy proposal, “A Mission to Leadership,” which continues a tradition that began during the Reagan administration of developing proposed roadmaps for new administrations.
But others are vetting thousands of people, with the aim of expediting the process of recommendations to fill positions in the next administration and avoiding a repeat of the chaotic 2017 Trump transition and the selection of ideologically incompatible appointees.
The Trump campaign has long said the effort does not represent a transition effort, and Project 2025 has sought to make that clear. But public rhetoric has steadily grown more intense, with Democratic attacks spilling over to social media and public comments.
When information about Project 2025 first began to trickle out last fall, Trump campaign senior advisers Suzie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement that while “the work of various nonprofits is certainly appreciated and could be very helpful,” they were merely recommendations.
In the lead up to last month’s Republican National Convention, Mr. LaCivita called Project 2025 a “troublemaker.” When news broke last week that Project 2025 director, Paul Danz, a former Trump administration official, was resigning, the campaign became openly hostile.
“The reporting of Project 2025’s demise is very welcome and should serve as a warning to individuals and groups who seek to misrepresent their influence on President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you,” Wiles and LaCivita said in a statement on Tuesday.
Republican National Committee (RNC) Co-Chair Lara TrumpWashington Times Op-edOn Thursday, he called Project 2025 an “absurd vision” with “little to no” common sense.
While these statements are intended to neutralize Democratic attacks, one contributor to Project 2025’s Leadership Mandate policy paper said the op-ed and campaign statement are “adding fuel to the fire” and come in the face of a “redoubled” effort from the left to link Project 2025 to Trump.
“This unrest is sad,” a second contributor to Project 2025’s “A Call to Leadership” book told The Hill, adding that their own policy work “hopes to bring our movement together.”
The Trump campaign statement said:numberConservativeCommentatorExpress your concerns publicly.
“It’s intriguing that Trumpworld has succumbed to the lies of the left-wing media and continues to suggest that it doesn’t want its most loyal soldiers, who stuck with Trump even when few others did, and their conservative views, in the next administration,” said Molly Hemingway, editor in chief of The Federalist Magazine.PostsIt was posted on social media site X on Tuesday.
Some believe that arguing that “Project 2025 is not a blueprint for anything resembling a second Trump administration,” as Lara Trump put it in her op-ed, is a flawed strategy.
There are some notable policy differences between the Wish List think tank and President Trump, including on the politically sensitive issue of abortion. Project 2025 has called for revoking federal approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, while President Trump has said he will not block access to the drug.
But there is a lot of overlap.2024 Republican PoliciesFor example, the incoming administration has called for “conducting the largest deportation operation in American history,” and the Project 2025 policy paper says the next administration must prioritize “border security and immigration enforcement, including detention and deportation.” The policy paper includes sections written by many former Trump administration officials.
“If you don’t want to adopt the ideas in the book, that’s fine, but there are a lot of great ideas in the book,” said the first contributor to Project 2025. “It takes creativity to come up with a lot of policy ideas that aren’t in the book.”
Another source at a conservative group outside the Heritage Foundation who supports the project said the core of the dispute isn’t actually policy but about who will lead the next Trump administration.
“The idea that, ‘Oh, Project 2025 is hurting us,’ is absurd,” the official said. “If you ask anybody who’s really honest, what’s really playing out here is kind of a power struggle over who gets to decide who will be in the next administration.”
“Obviously the president will choose whoever he chooses,” the official added, saying Project 2025 is not intended to force appointments.
If Trump wins despite public criticism, he could assemble a transition team based on the think tank’s recommendations. The Trump campaign has yet to publicly announce who will lead the transition team, running behind the timeline set by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) in 2016.AnnouncedHe was appointed head of the transition in May.
“Let’s see how this cookie crumbles. I and the people I know who worked on this project [Project 2025] “They don’t believe they were blacklisted, and they’re still working like hell to get Trump elected,” said a second Project 2025 contributor. “I don’t like seeing Republicans attacking their own people, but this is a political campaign.”
A Trump campaign official told The Hill that the campaign is focused on securing victory on Election Day and “is prepared to transition President Trump to the White House in January 2025.”
Asked about criticism from conservatives over its handling of Project 2025, the Trump campaign offered a statement from senior adviser Daniel Alvarez that reiterated Democrats’ emphasis on independence from outside policy work.
“President Trump’s 20 Promises to the Forgotten and the RNC platform are the only policies he will support for a second term,” Alvarez said in a statement. “Dangerously liberal Kamala Harris and the DNC are lying and fear-mongering because they have nothing else to offer the American people. Let’s not forget that these are the same people who lied to the American people and covered up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline for years.”
