During the campaign, Donald Trump swore he had “nothing to do with” a right-wing policy blueprint known as Project 2025 that would overhaul the federal government, even though many of those involved in developing the plans were his allies.
Trump even described many of the policy goals as “absolutely ridiculous.” And during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, he said he was “not going to read it.”
Now, as he plans his agenda for his return to the White House, Trump has recruited at least a half dozen architects and supporters of the plan to oversee key issues, including the federal budget, intelligence gathering and his promised plans for mass deportations.
The shift, his critics say, is not exactly a surprise. Trump disavowed the 900-page manifesto when polls showed it was extremely unpopular with voters. Now that he has won a second term, they say, he appears to be brushing those concerns aside.
“President-elect Trump has dropped all pretense and is charging ahead hand in hand with the right-wing industry players shaping an agenda he denied for the whole campaign,” said Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US, a watchdog group that has been tracking Trump’s Cabinet picks with ties to the project.
Trump’s Cabinet picks and other appointments have reaffirmed the fears of many Democrats and government watchdogs who say Trump will use Project 2025 as a road map to expand his executive power, replace civil servants with political loyalists and gut government agencies like the Department of Education.
Trump has picked Russell Vought, an author of Project 2025, to lead the powerful Office of Management and Budget. In choosing Vought, Trump will have someone who views the position as far more expansive than just overseeing the budget.
Vought wrote in Project 2025 that the person picked for the job should view themselves as an “approximation of the president’s mind,” while establishing a reputation of the keeper of “commander’s intent.”
In the report, Vought wrote that the incoming administration should overhaul executive branch institutions, such as the National Security Council and National Economic Council to align with Trump’s agenda, while abolishing White House offices for domestic climate policy and gender policy.
Trump tried to distance himself this year from former staffers like Vought, who also served as budget chief during his first term. Democrats were ramping up attacks that tied Trump to Project 2025 as voters grew unsettled by its promises to amass power in the executive branch.
“I have no idea who is behind it,” Trump said on social media in July, despite his ties to former staffers like Vought.
In a statement this week, Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, argued that Trump “never had anything to do” with Project 2025.
“All of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and appointments are wholeheartedly committed to President Trump’s agenda, not the agenda of outside groups,” Leavitt said.
Trump has also tapped Stephen Miller to be his deputy chief of staff for policy and Thomas Homan to be a “border czar,” positions that do not require Senate confirmation. Homan is listed as a contributor to Project 2025. The legal organization Miller founded during Trump’s time out of office, America First Legal, was listed at one point as an adviser group to Project 2025.
Both officials will be responsible for elements of Trump’s goals of establishing detention camps and carrying out mass deportations. The Project 2025 blueprint also recommends rescinding restrictions that prevented immigration agents from carrying out arrests in schools and churches.
Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, wrote a chapter in Project 2025 that called for reining in “Big Tech,” eliminating immunity protections for social media companies and imposing transparency rules on companies like Google, Facebook and YouTube.
“It is hard to imagine another industry in which a greater gap exists between power and accountability,” he wrote.
Other contributors to Project 2025 include Pete Hoekstra, Trump’s former ambassador to the Netherlands and his current pick to be ambassador to Canada, as well as John Ratcliffe, Trump’s pick to lead the CIA.
A former director of national intelligence, Ratcliffe was cited repeatedly in the document, including in a chapter on the intelligence community written by Dustin Carmack. Carmack was Ratcliffe’s chief of staff when he served as Trump’s director of national intelligence in his first administration.
Carmack made the case in Project 2025 for empowering the director of national intelligence, as the leader of the intelligence community. He also said the leader needed to “address the widely promoted ‘woke’ culture that has spread throughout the federal government with identity politics and ‘social justice’ advocacy replacing such traditional American values as patriotism, colorblindness, and even workplace competence.”
Alex Floyd, the rapid response director of the Democratic National Committee, said that “after months of lies to the American people, Donald Trump is taking off the mask.”
“He’s plotting a Project 2025 Cabinet to enact his dangerous vision starting on day one,” Floyd said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
