Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Wednesday that former President Trump’s campaign “may never recover from Project 2025.”
“I can’t believe that the biggest scandal of the year is a policy scandal. Project 2025,” Buttigieg said on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” “Most people say the election is no longer about policy, but if you think about it, the biggest scandal, the one that scares Republicans the most, the one the president is doing damage control on, is not a criminal cover-up, although they’ve had those, too.”
“This isn’t a sex tape,” Buttigieg continued, “it’s the simple fact that they wrote the policies themselves. And that’s something they may not recover from.”
Project 2025 is a 900-page “governing agenda” prepared by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation that outlines conservative goals if Republicans take the White House in the fall. President Trump has so far tried to distance himself from the plan, saying last month that he “knows nothing about Project 2025.”
“I haven’t seen it, I don’t know who is in charge, and unlike the very well-received Republican Platform, I have nothing to do with this,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
But Project 2025’s contributors also include former Trump administration officials Ben Carson and Ken Cuccinelli. CNN It was reported last month The investigation found that at least 140 people who served in the Trump administration were involved in Project 2025.
On Thursday morning, President Trump criticized Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Waltz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, for linking him to Project 2025.
“They know I had nothing to do with it. I had no idea what it was. A group of people came together and created conservative values, very conservative values,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends.” “Maybe they overstepped the line in some cases, maybe they didn’t. I have no idea what Project 25 is.”
“Having coached high school football for a long time, I know and I trust that when someone takes the time to write a playbook, they’re going to execute it,” Walz said during a speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment on Buttigieg’s remarks.
