Project 2025
Project 2025 was offered as a blueprint for a new GOP president. Many people in the current administration are authors.
Project 2025 was published by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with direct ties to Trump’s first administration. Though Trump has falsely claimed he is not connected to Project 2025, a recent report from CNN found at least 140 people who worked on Project 2025 who previously worked in Trump’s administration, and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts–who previously worked on Trump’s transition team in 2016–has described his organization’s role as “institutionalizing Trumpism.”
The administration will not adopt all of the proposals, but it serves as a blueprint for what to watch out for.
UPDATE:
Here are some of the Project 2025 policies currently being implemented by Trump.
1. Removing anti-discrimination protections
It was one of at least four executive orders Trump signed this past week that rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion programs, using language that had also appeared in Project 2025.
2. Revoking security clearances
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order revoking security clearances from former national security adviser John R. Bolton and dozens of intelligence officials who signed a letter suggesting the dissemination of information from Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020 might be part of a Russian disinformation campaign. The idea of revoking those clearances was proposed almost two years ago in Project 2025, in a section describing a “crisis of confidence” in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA.
3. Sex and gender policy
In a lengthy day one executive order on sex and gender, Trump revoked President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14020, which had established a Gender Policy Council with a mission of advancing gender equity, and rescinded a lengthy list of guidance documents related to LGBTQ+ inclusion.
4. Ending anti-misinformation efforts
Trump’s third executive order outlined a harsh criticism of the Biden administration’s work to combat misinformation, ending such efforts and planning a report on the Biden administration’s anti-misinformation work.
5. Withdrawing from international alliances
On his first day in office, Trump ordered the United States to withdraw from the World Health Organization, the Paris climate agreement, and the global corporate minimum tax deal of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Paris Climate withdrawal was explicitly recommended in Project 2025.
Here are a few ideas promoted by Project 2025
SOURCE: Forbes – Alison Durkee
Federal Agencies: It proposes a scaled-down federal government, including the abolishment of multiple agencies—including the Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—whose remaining departments would be folded into other agencies or privatized, including the Transportation Security Administration.
Abortion: While Project 2025 doesn’t explicitly call for an abortion ban, it would take many steps to restrict the procedure, including directing the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its approval of abortion drug mifepristone, using the Comstock Act to block any abortion equipment or medication from being mailed—which abortion rights advocates have said would be a “backdoor” way to ban abortion—barring federal funds being used to provide healthcare coverage for abortion and requiring states to report all abortions that take place there to the federal government.
Education: Project 2025 emphasizes a “school choice” policy that directs public funds to be used for students to attend private or religious schools, bars “critical race theory” from being taught in federally funded schools and advocates for legislation that would allow parents to sue schools they feel have acted improperly—such as by teaching controversial subjects or requiring students to disclose information about their religious beliefs.
Student Loans: Student loan relief efforts would come to an end—including the public service loan forgiveness program and income-driven repayment plans—as the proposal states “borrowers should be expected to repay their loans.”
Big Tech: TikTok would be banned, and the proposal calls for reforming Section 230—which shields tech companies and social media networks from being sued over content on their platforms—and allowing laws like those passed in Florida and Texas that seek to punish social media companies who ban or suspend users based on their “viewpoints.”
Justice Department: Project 2025 calls for a “top-to-bottom overhaul” of the DOJ and FBI that gets rid of what it calls an “unaccountable bureaucratic managerial class and radical Left ideologues,” proposing an agency that would be more focused on violent crime and filing litigation that’s “consistent with the President’s agenda” and filled with far more political appointees; it also proposes prohibiting the FBI from investigating misinformation or making “politically motivated” moves against U.S. citizens.
Taxes: Project 2025 would seek to get rid of current tax rates and most deductions and credits, instead proposing a 15% rate for anyone under the Social Security wage base ($168,000 in 2024) and 30% for taxpayers earning more than that—which means the lowest-income taxpayers will now pay more and some higher earners will pay less, and it would also lower the corporate income tax rate to 18%.
Federal Reserve: The project seeks to reform the Federal Reserve by “tak[ing] the monetary steering wheel out of [its] hands and return[ing] it to the people,” which the authors propose could be done by getting rid of the government’s control over the nation’s money entirely—instead leaving it up to banks—or returning to the gold standard, in which the dollar’s value would be tied to a specific weight of gold.
Foreign Relations: Project 2025 emphasizes opposing China, which it describes as “a totalitarian enemy of the United States,” and directs the U.S. to pull out of international organizations when they don’t serve the administration’s interests, including the World Health Organization and various United Nations agencies.
Healthcare: Project 2025 does not seek to overturn the Affordable Care Act, but would make significant cuts to Medicaid and impose work requirements to receive coverage, as well as reform Medicare—including by making Medicare Advantage, a paid supplement to Medicare, the default option for patients.
