Project 2025, which is intended to set the agenda for the next Republican president, is full of proposals for radical change in the federal government. Here’s what Harris and Trump said about it.
Trump’s Agenda 47 vs. Project 2025: What’s the difference?
Agenda 47 is a blueprint from the Trump campaign team that outlines what a second Trump administration could look like. How is it different from Project 2025?
During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris again tried to link former President Donald Trump to a controversial conservative policy plan called “Project 2025.”
With the general election looming in November, Democrats have repeatedly tried to portray Project 2025 as Trump’s political agenda. Trump, for his part, has repeatedly tried to distance himself from it.
Project 2025, an attempt to set the agenda for the next Republican presidential administration, is full of proposals for radical change in the federal government.
But Trump has his own plan, Agenda 47. The former president also claimed to be largely ignorant of the ideas outlined in Project 2025, even though the project’s leader is a former Trump administration official.
Here you can find out everything you need to know about Project 2025 and how it was discussed in the debate on Tuesday evening.
What is Project 2025?
One of the main goals of the comprehensive policy concept known as “Project 2025” is to expand the power of the president.
The Heritage Foundation and more than 100 other conservative groups collaborated on Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project. The resulting 900-page document contains policy recommendations for the next Republican president that reflect the think tank’s goal of “rescuing the country from the grip of the radical left.”
The plan, released in April 2023, calls for restructuring several federal agencies, including the FBI. Controversial proposals include eliminating the Department of Education, restricting access to abortion pills, and reinstating an executive order issued by Trump that allows the president to replace officials across the federal government with political appointees.
In addition, Project 2025 aims to repeal certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act, pressure the Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval of abortion pills, and give Immigration and Customs Enforcement further powers to deport illegal immigrants.
The plan also specifically addresses LGBTQ+ issues and attacks “radical gender ideology.”
At least 31 of 38 authors have ties to Trump.
Democrats try to link Trump to Project 2025
For this reason, Democrats, including their campaign team in the House of Representatives, are criticizing the party’s policies and trying to link Project 2025 to Trump.
During Tuesday night’s debate, Harris called Project 2025 a “detailed and dangerous plan” that she believes Trump “wants to implement if he is re-elected.”
She also called it “his 2025 project.”
“Understand that in his Project 2025, there would be a monitor that would monitor your pregnancies and miscarriages,” Harris said. “I think the American people believe that certain freedoms, particularly the freedom to make decisions about your own body, should not be made by the government.”
Trump denies involvement in Project 2025
The Trump campaign team is aggressively trying to distance itself from Project 2025. Trump claims he has “nothing to do with Project 2025.”
“I haven’t read it,” Trump said during the debate. “I intentionally don’t want to read it. I’m not going to read it. That was a group of people who got together and came up with some ideas. I guess some of them were good, some of them were bad. But it doesn’t make any difference.”
Trump had previously stated that he disagreed with some of Project 2025’s proposals, but he did not specify what those proposals were. However, the Heritage Foundation stated in a January 2018 press release that Trump had implemented nearly two-thirds of the project’s policy recommendations within his first year in office.
Project 2025 includes former Trump employees
The plan was created by former Trump administration officials, and the director of Project 2025 was Paul Dans, who served as chief of staff of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in the Trump administration.
Trump adviser Stephen Miller and Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt also appeared in a video supporting the project’s Presidential Administration Academy.
What is Agenda47?
The Trump campaign has its own plan called Agenda 47.
Many of the measures proposed in Trump’s official agenda are to be implemented by executive order and touch on issues ranging from climate change and education to the economy and immigration.
In his Agenda 47, Trump vowed to sign an executive order on “day one” eliminating automatic citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants, whom he calls “illegal aliens.”
Reflecting the former president’s tough-on-crime stance, the agenda also calls for investments in the recruitment, retention and training of police officers, while supporting policing measures such as stop-and-frisk and cooperation between local police and the Food and Drug Administration (ICE) on deportations.
When it comes to public education, Trump’s plan calls for defunding and punishing educators and institutions that do not teach conservative values.
Contributors: Rachel Barber, BrieAnna J. Frank, Mary Walrath-Holdridge, USA TODAY
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]
