What Is Project 2025? Inside the Far-Right Plan Threatening Everything from the Word 'Gender' to Public Education
Trump's allies started Project 2025 as a blueprint for marrying church and state at the highest levels of government if he's elected
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Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on June 22, 2024A sweeping proposal for how Donald Trump should handle a second term in office has sparked concern for its implications on the role of federal government and its calls to eliminate a number of basic human rights.
The 2025 Presidential Transition Project, more commonly known as Project 2025, released a 900-page manifesto last year titled "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise." The policy guidebook — compiled by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation in partnership with more than 100 other conservative organizations — lays out a far-right, Christian nationalist vision for America that would corrode the separation of church and state, replace nonpartisan government employees with Trump loyalists and bolster the president's authority over independent agencies.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, a rumored candidate for Trump's chief of staff in a second term, promoted his group's extreme positions during a July interview, saying, "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."
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Donald Trump speaks at the Heritage Foundation's President's Club Meeting in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 17, 2017Shortly after Roberts' controversial interview, Trump attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, saying on Truth Social that he knows "nothing" about it and has "no idea who is behind it," before adding that he disagrees with some of its propositions.
While Project 2025 is not formally a part of Trump's campaign platform, it has been led and supported by several influential people in his orbit. The project's top leaders all worked in Trump's White House and a number of the manifesto's contributors also served in the Trump administration, including but not limited to former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and imprisoned former trade adviser Peter Navarro.
Related: Donald Trump Suggests He Could Be a Three-Term President at NRA Convention
Equally damaging to Trump's claim that he is unfamiliar with Project 2025 is that he worked closely with the Heritage Foundation when he was first elected president. He was provided a similar "Mandate for Leadership" back in 2016, and enacted nearly two-thirds of the group's proposals within his first year in office.
The Heritage Foundation also reportedly played a behind-the-scenes role on Trump's presidential transition team and had a significant hand in staffing the administration.
Olivia Troye, a former adviser to Mike Pence, called Trump's denial of Project 2025 "ludicrous" in a CNN interview. “I think what this is telling us is that Donald Trump knows that what is written in this plan is so extreme that it is damaging to his possibility of getting elected,” she said.
Below, a breakdown of the most noteworthy policy proposals in Project 2025's "Mandate for Leadership."
Christian nationalism
Project 2025 establishes a framework for guiding the federal government through a biblical lens. Across nearly 1,000 pages, the mandate pushes an unpopular interpretation of the Christian agenda that would target reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ people and people of color by effectively erasing mention of all related terms, protections and troublesome historical accounts.
Though the mandate accuses the "woke" left of infringing on people's religious freedoms, its policies are rooted in a singular, extremist view of how society should function based on its authors' own Christian nationalist values. It repeatedly calls for the punishment, even imprisonment, of people who do not conform to the think tank's platform.
The proposed policies in Project 2025's mandate stem from four stated goals: restoring the family as the centerpiece of American life, dismantling the administrative state, defending the nation's sovereignty and securing God-given individual rights.
Through a holistic approach to restructuring the government, it would seek to give Trump heightened authority to enact his backers' platform in every city and state — often encouraging the president to creatively subvert congressional approval.
Firing disloyal government personnel
One of the most concerning expansions of presidential authority would come if Trump found himself in a position to reinstate an executive order titled Schedule F, which is strongly endorsed by Project 2025. Trump introduced Schedule F at the end of his first term and it was quickly reversed by President Biden.
If Trump wins this time around, he could use Schedule F to transform the U.S. government into a MAGA machine by reclassifying thousands of nonpartisan federal employees into "at-will" workers who can be replaced via political appointment.
Project 2025 suggests that Schedule F be applied to discharge career civil service workers whom Trump deems "nonperforming," or those who get in the way of the administration's attempts at reform.
In practice, Schedule F could easily purge qualified subject experts from advisory positions at the first sign of disobedience and turn federal agencies into ultra-partisan arms of the Heritage Foundation's mission.
Rolling back reproductive rights
Project 2025 encourages Trump to "push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America," by targeting abortion, contraceptives and transforming the Department of Health & Human Services into the "Department of Life."
"Conservatives should gratefully celebrate the greatest pro-family win in a generation: overturning Roe v. Wade, a decision that for five decades made a mockery of our Constitution and facilitated the deaths of tens of millions of unborn children," the document reads. "But the Dobbs decision is just the beginning."
The mandate suggests that Trump should lobby Congress to pass nationwide abortion restrictions and gives him guidance on how he can use his federal agencies to limit abortions in the meantime. It also calls for the FDA to reverse its approval of abortion pills and criminalize their distribution, and directs the CDC to back anti-abortion studies.
In an effort to stop "woke culture warriors," Project 2025 demands that the terms abortion, reproductive health and reproductive rights be deleted from "every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists."
Eliminating LGBTQ+ protections
The Project 2025 mandate — which diminishes LGBTQ+ labels as a "bullying" product of "woke" politics — calls to allow discrimination on the basis of "sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, sex characteristics, etc.," by "refocusing" enforcement of sex discrimination laws so that they only apply to the "biological binary" of sex.
The document takes specific aim at the transgender community. Aside from using a variety of dehumanizing terms, the mandate signals an intent to attack trans women in sports, end gender-affirming care for minors, decrease accessibility for gender-reassignment surgeries and reinstate Trump's trans military ban. Trump has already incorporated those views into his 2024 platform.
Related: 8 Transgender Military Members Share How Trump's Ban Changes Their Lives
The following related terms would be blacklisted in legislation and on every federal document: sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, and gender-sensitive.
Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post/Getty
The Denver Pride Parade in 2019Banning broadly defined pornography
Project 2025 says that pornography should be outlawed, and that anyone who produces or consumes it should be imprisoned. That restriction, though seemingly unrelated to LGBTQ+ rights, carries larger implications based on how Project 2025 defines pornography.
The authors write that the "omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology" is a modern-day example of pornography, claiming without merit that it has caused children to suffer by invading school libraries. It also says that the "sexualization of children" — a favored Christian nationalist phrase for anything related to gay or trans people — counts as pornography.
The group's broad definition of pornography suggests that the Trump administration could seek to imprison LGBTQ+ people, drag queens, librarians, teachers and allies with little cause. Their proposed Justice Department reforms, described next, would make prosecution of that nature easier.
"[Pornography] has no claim to First Amendment protection," the manifesto reads. "Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime."
It continues: "Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered."
Politicizing the Justice Department and FBI
Project 2025 suggests that Trump take partisan control of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation to oversee a "top-to-bottom overhaul."
The DOJ is traditionally insulated from the White House, and while attorney general appointees are likely to share a number of the president's views, they are expected to act in the best interest of the U.S. government as a whole. A section of the Project 2025 mandate authored by a former Trump official calls for increased communication between the White House and DOJ, because "litigation decisions must be made consistent with the President's agenda."
Project 2025 says that the FBI is currently ineffective and should be refocused to increase federal law enforcement presence in select areas of the U.S. where the administration believes laws aren't being enforced strictly enough. It advises that the administration sue local government officials who don't prosecute crimes to the administration's liking.
The mandate adds that the Trump administration should immediately review all ongoing federal investigations and terminate the ones that the president doesn't approve of, including those related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. And it encourages Trump to work with Congress on ending the FBI director's 10-year term limit, so that the president can replace them at will if they refuse to serve the president's agenda.
Trump has already used veiled "retribution" language on the campaign trail that implied he would consider using the Justice Department to retaliate against his political rivals.
New immigration and border control practices
Project 2025 calls for a consolidation of the various border enforcement and immigration agencies, and for Trump to greatly increase their power if elected so that he can accomplish more than he did in his first term.
Under the mandate, the Mexico-U.S. border wall would receive extra funding to get completed, and Trump's administration would be urged to militarize the border.
Temporary protected status would also be stripped from nearly 700,000 individuals, many of whom settled in the U.S. decades ago, putting them at risk of deportation. And Trump would be advised to dismantle the DREAM Act, limit the DACA program, reduce visas of various kinds and try again to get a citizenship question on the national census.
American citizens would not be allowed to get federal housing subsidies if they live with any non-citizen.
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
A razor wire–covered border wall along the Arizona-Mexico border in 2019Education reform and student loans
Project 2025, which partnered with the far-right "parental rights" group Moms for Liberty, calls for the Department of Education to be eliminated, if Congress allows it, and it also calls for the elimination of every teachers union, which was likely influenced by the group's anti-union partner, the Institute for Education Reform.
It guides the president on actions they can take to dismantle the public education system and privatize education with or without congressional approval.
Related: LeVar Burton Calls Out Moms for Liberty at National Book Awards: ‘Books Are Under Attack’
Currently, federal education funding is provided to states with regulations on how it can be used, to ensure that the funds benefit a variety of vulnerable groups, including students in low-income school districts and children with special needs. It also prevents discriminatory institutions from receiving federal funding.
Project 2025 calls for removing federal oversight from that funding, allowing states to dole the money out as they see fit, including by prioritizing private and religious schools over public schools.
The mandate also suggests shuttering the Office of Federal Student Aid and ending student loan forgiveness, including income-driven repayment plans. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program — which was signed into law by George W. Bush in 2007 to make college more accessible — would also be targeted, affecting teachers, health care workers, law enforcement officers and other government and nonprofit professionals who have counted on having their remaining loans forgiven after 10 years.
Updating school curriculum and axing DEI
Along with encouraging private education, Project 2025 calls for school curriculum to be purged of anything related to "critical race theory" and "gender ideology" in public schools.
From the mandate: "These theories poison our children, who are being taught on the one hand to affirm that the color of their skin fundamentally determines their identity and even their moral status while on the other they are taught to deny the very creatureliness that inheres in being human and consists in accepting the givenness of our nature as men or women."
"States, cities and counties, school boards, union bosses, principals, and teachers who disagree should be immediately cut off from federal funds," the Project 2025 manifesto reads.
It's a similar strategy to what Gov. Ron DeSantis has done in Florida, where references to racial disparities and LGBTQ+ identities have been prohibited, educators must now teach that enslaved people benefitted from slavery, and many Black history lessons have been banned.
Project 2025 also brands diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts — which seek to mitigate discrimination and promote fair treatment of all Americans — as discriminatory and "racist."
The mandate says that in addition to squashing DEI programs around the nation, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division should spent its first year of the Trump administration "using the full force of federal prosecutorial resources to investigate and prosecute all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers" who engage in DEI efforts.
Federal rules and legislation would also be scrubbed of the term diversity, equity and inclusion.
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Rejecting climate change
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts writes in the manifesto's foreword that environmental protections are "anti-human" and part of a "pseudo-religion" that puts the "god of nature" above human activity.
Related: Supreme Court Limits EPA’s Power Again with New Water Pollution Decision
Project 2025 translated that argument into policy by suggesting that the Environmental Protection Agency be shrunk and that three offices in the Department of Energy be closed to stop investing in clean and renewable energy. Instead, the mandate suggests, the U.S. should "stop the war on oil and natural gas" by resuming oil drilling in the Arctic, expanding existing drilling projects and expanding coal mining to the western U.S.
The Trump administration would be encouraged to cut off funding of any "woke" climate change prevention efforts, pulling back from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
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