MILWAUKEE – The brains behind “Project 2025”Is not concerned about former President Donald Trump’s rejections of his broad presidential transition plan and political roadmap for a potential second Trump administration.
In recent events in Washington, DC and Milwaukee, Project 2025 proponents and allies sought to calm tensions and go on the offensive against the press and Democrats, after Trump took the wind out of their sails with critical posts on social media, while Democrats oriented their campaign around the plans.
“The lesson of the last few days and the motivation for something like Project 2025 is to make Washington much less important in our lives,” Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, which is leading the project, said Monday during the think tank’s Policy Fest. tank at the Republican National Convention, pointing to the assassination attempt on Trump on Saturday.
Earlier, At the three-day National Conservatism Conference in Washington last week, more than a dozen leaders, advisers, contributors to Project 2025 and their allies advocated a drastic reconstitution of the civil service, retaliating against Democrats for the ongoing lawsuits against Trump, launching mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and combating “anti-white” discrimination.
Since its launch in 2019, the conference has become a favored stop for pro-Trump intelligentsia, think tank leaders and politicians who are pushing the conservative movement to keep marching in a right-wing populist and nationalist direction. Although the conference organizers are separate from Project 2025, activists linked to the effort had a strong presence there, while Project 2025 had a booth at NatCon.
Amid a series of Democratic attacks on the project, including from President Joe Biden and his campaign, Trump distanced himself from it, post earlier this month to his social media site that he knows “nothing” about Project 2025 and has “no idea” who is behind it. On Thursday, he wrote that “radical left Democrats are having fun trying to get me involved in whatever policies are stated or said.”
“I disagree with some of the things they say and some of the things they say are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” Trump wrote. earlier this month. “Whatever they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
Pointing out to dozens of allies and former Trump administration officials leading or connected to the project, Democrats have argued that Trump is deviating only to increase his electoral chances, not to categorically reject the ideas promoted in the project and the individuals behind them. At NatCon, it appeared some members agreed.
Describing conversations with others connected to the conservative battle plan, a person from a conservative think tank on Project 2025’s advisory board said that people “weren’t too concerned” about Trump’s comments.
This person added that in Trump’s first term, he was quite open to political contributions from outside groups, including the Heritage Foundation.
“The general sense is that this is a public relations gesture to give him maximum wiggle room and avoid making any commitments at this time,” this person said. “He wants to avoid having to answer questions about anything he doesn’t want to answer about. Most people I know who are involved with this don’t seem too concerned that this actually constitutes a repudiation and means anything on January 20th.”
The conference featured a range of conservative leaders – including Senator JD Vance, Republican of Ohio, recently chosen to be Trump’s running mate – and occurred just days after the former president’s statement distancing himself from Project 2025 and shortly after the Republican National Committee spent his concise platform last week. The party’s platform had similarities to Project 2025 on issues including immigration and the civil service, while differing from it on social issues.
Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, who was in Milwaukee to advise the platform’s committee on social and family policy, told NBC News that Trump’s comments on the project left him conflicted.
“I love Kevin Roberts,” Schilling, whose group sits on the Project 2025 advisory board, said of the Heritage Foundation president. “I love Heritage, I think they do a phenomenal job. And it’s like you have two brothers fighting and you don’t know who to side with. But at the end of the day, Trump has to have his own platform, his own political agenda.”
“There are many things on the Project 2025 agenda that I would not defend or campaign for,” Schilling added. “Ultimately, what Trump is doing is just making sure people know he is independent.”
Much of Project 2025’s game plan focuses on rapidly reorienting all federal agencies within the first 180 days of a new Republican administration and filling key positions across government through a ready-to-use database of soldiers. conservatives aligned with the new president’s vision.
However, it generated even more agitation regarding the policy prescriptions in its Mandate for Leadership. These include plans to ban pornography, dismantle the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, eliminate the Department of Education, reverse policies that allow transgender Americans to serve in the military, and place federal law enforcement agencies under the control of the president.
“Most of all, there is overlap,” Roberts told reporters Monday of Trump’s policy preferences and Project 2025. “There will always be differences. And we’ll work on that when we’re talking about specific legislative work. And we know that these conversations will be very positive. We can’t always agree.”
Paul Dans, director of Project 2025, described the recent reaction to the effort as “overwhelming” in a speech before NatCon. He began mocking Democrats for their alarm, joking that the bill advocated “the deportation of any citizens or noncitizens who wear cargo shorts” and “requires that pre-school education include dual-wield pistols as an essential skill.”
“We are confident that the people we place in these positions are actively helping [move] the president’s agenda for the future,” said Dans, a former Trump administration official, adding that the policy agenda included in the 922-page plan was “unapologetically conservative” because “we wanted to drop the bullet and say, are you looking for Wherever you land and you’re looking for politics, this will be the sweet spot.’”
But Dans he added, the policy book amounted to “a wish list.”
“We don’t expect anyone to take this thing down,” he said.
A Republican strategist told NBC News that the proximity to anything related to Project 2025 could be used against Vance due to the possibility of “the Biden campaign taking advantage of this.” This person specifically pointed out Vance’s closeness to American Compass, a group that is at the forefront of conservative efforts to reorient the right’s economic agenda around working-class interests and that sits on the advisory board for Project 2025. His economist- boss, Oren Cass, also gave a speech at NatCon and praised Vance’s selection as Trump’s running mate on Monday.
In his NatCon speech, Vance said the conservative movement “is very influenced by what has happened here,” describing it as “the place of intellectual leadership” of the right.
In recent weeks, Project 2025 has become the centerpiece of the Democratic campaign, especially as Biden faces immense pressure within his own party to exit the race following a disastrous debate performance against Trump last month. Since Trump first said he rejected Project 2025 this month, the Biden campaign had sent at least 45 emails to the press mentioning the plan as of Saturday.
“Folks, Project 2025 is the greatest attack on our system of government and our personal freedom that has ever been proposed in the history of this country,” Biden said at a rally in Michigan on Friday, adding that it is “a model for a according to Trump.” .”
Project 2025 began fighting Democratic attacks, post often on the social networks.
“As we have said for more than two years, Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign,” said a spokesperson for the effort, adding: “Instead of obsessing over Project 2025, the Biden campaign should address the 25th Amendment.”
A majority of voters now say they are aware of the effort — and a plurality are not fans. An NPR/PBS/Marist poll released Friday found that 16% of voters said they had a favorable opinion of Project 2025, while 42% considered it unfavorable. Another 42% hadn’t heard of it or weren’t sure.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who gave an address at NatCon laying out his vision for an America underpinned by Christian nationalism — an ideology he said does not align with “the authoritarian ideology of blood and soil” or “the harsh ethnic nationalism of the ancient world” — said it was “ridiculous” to think that Project 2025 would serve as a model for a future Trump administration. He said the focus on Project 2025 was just a distraction from Biden’s stumbles on the national stage.
“If I were him, I would do the same thing,” Hawley said of Trump’s rejection. “I’d say, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute.’ The president, if he is elected, will speak for himself. His cabinet and his appointees will set policy. It’s not a think tank, no matter who it is.”
Some Trump allies sought to distance themselves from the project after Trump’s attack. Former Trump administrative advisor Stephen Miller’s organization, America First Legal, was recently listed on Project 2025’s advisory board. It is no longer.
“The AFL has no involvement in Project 2025,” Miller, who spoke at the conference, told NBC News, adding that only the Trump campaign is a legitimate source about the former president’s plans.
Riley Moore, West Virginia state treasurer and GOP nominee in one of the state’s congressional districts, told NBC News at NatCon that the Republican Party has undergone such a massive transformation since 2016 that the entire point of Project 2025 – ensuring that Trump could immediately and more fully equip his administration – it is essentially moot.
“This is not 2016, this is 2024,” Moore said. “And the idea that we’re going to have these huge vacancies everywhere — the president has total unity right now in this party in the effort that he’s making. And there will be plenty of people to choose from.”
Ultimately, Schilling felt confident that any dispute now could be clarified in the future.
“There will be a lot of people involved in Project 2025 who will come into this next administration,” he said. “I just think there will be disagreements. …We have to win. AND [Trump’s] I will make sure he wins. And then we will govern from there.”
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
