During the 2024 campaign, Democrats relentlessly linked former President Trump to Project 2025, a 900-page conservative blueprint designed as a roadmap for reshaping the federal government and expanding presidential power, prompting him to repeatedly distance himself.
“I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump said during a heated debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. At a July 2024 rally, he even called it “seriously extreme” and claimed he hadn’t read it.
Harris warned throughout her presidential campaign that Project 2025 would “limit access to contraception,” “cut Social Security,” “end programs like Head Start,” and impose “a nationwide abortion ban with or without an Act of Congress.”
Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta echoed those concerns, calling the plan “radical” and noting that Republicans who ban books now appear to be “trying to shove this [plan] down our [throats].”
Actor Taraji P. Henson, speaking at the BET Awards, urged the audience to “show up and show out with them ballots” and warned that Project 2025 “is not a game,” adding: “They are attacking our most vulnerable citizens… They are trying to bring the draft back. Who do you think they’re going to draft first?”
On Thursday, Trump confirmed on Truth Social that he plans to meet with Russ Vought, the former Office of Management and Budget director who helped design the plan, to discuss agency cuts amid the ongoing government shutdown.
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump wrote in his post, calling Vought “of Project 2025 fame.”
He added that the meeting will determine “which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”
Developed by the Heritage Foundation and affiliated conservative groups, Project 2025 is a sweeping policy manual intended to expand presidential power, overhaul the federal workforce, and push hard-right positions on abortion, immigration, energy, and social programs.
It proposes cuts to agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), eliminating the Department of Education, slashing student-debt relief, deporting immigrants, and rolling back contraception access while pursuing a nationwide abortion ban.
Many of Trump’s early second-term executive orders already echo pieces of the plan, and some of his MAGA allies have openly described Project 2025 as a roadmap for his presidency.
But his new public embrace of Vought suggests the project’s ideas are no longer being kept at arm’s length.
Vought is a central figure in the initiative. A former vice president of Heritage Action for America, he authored the Project 2025 section on the executive office and now leads the Center for Renewing America. Other Trump allies, including Tom Homan, John Ratcliffe, Pete Hoekstra and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, also contributed to the plan.
Trump’s public meeting with Vought confirms fears that policies once described as “seriously extreme” are now actively shaping the White House agenda.
Pay attention, Project 2025 is well on its way.
Photo Credit: DepositPhotos.com
