An update on Project 2025 and why it matters

Trump claimed during the election that he had no connection to Project 2025. His administration has already implemented 47% of the playbook.

Donald J. Trump has long claimed that he did not know about Project 2025 and had nothing to do with it. Last July, he wrote in a Truth Social Post that he had “no idea who is behind Project 2025” and that “some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” He added that “anything they do, I wish them luck, but have nothing to do with them.”

That is a gutsy statement considering CNN’s reporting that “at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025.”

Even if we believe that he had no idea about the 900-page manifesto for destroying the government before he took office, he certainly knows about it now. We’re only about six months into his second term, and 47 percent of the Project 2025 agenda has already been implemented. We should expect the rest to happen in due course.

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According to the website, Project 2025 Tracker, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan, first unveiled in 2023, contains a total of 317 proposals. According to the website (which I encourage everyone to peruse), 115 of those “are complete.” There are 64 proposals “in progress,” and the remaining 138 are on the Trump administration’s “to do” list.

In a recent article for The Hill, I summarized the “highlights” of what’s been done, what’s in progress, and what’s in store. The column is not (just) another speech about a constitutional crisis or fascism. It’s about the actual policies laid out in Project 2025 and being carried out now. It’s all in one place. No more scrolling and clicking and wondering what to pay attention to and what not to. It’s worth a few minutes of everyone’s time.

In the old days, people voted based on competing policy platforms. The Project 2025 Tracker spells out the Trump Administration’s policy agenda in great detail. There’s something in it for everyone—meaning, even if the headlines don’t affect all of us equally, I can pretty much guarantee that something in Project 2025 does or will affect each of us or someone else that we care deeply about. We owe it to them, if not to ourselves, to take a look at what’s coming, at the very least.

As readers probably know by now, I am passionate about people becoming informed about what’s going on, as hard as it is. Once we acknowledge that this is not just a normal political cycle, we can come together and start doing something about it—before 100 percent of Project 2025 is carried out.

So thank you again for reading. The feedback and support from all of you is what keeps me going with this newsletter, which I do because I feel in my heart that it is important and valuable, even if it’s only a drop in the ocean of information.

What is Project 2025?

Project 2025 is a plan for the government spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, which describes itself as “much more than a think tank,” for use by “the next conservative president.” A lot of voters foolishly believed Trump when he said he had nothing to do with it during the campaign, while others—including non-MAGA voters—ignored the document or shrugged it off as just another distraction.

Many still choose to believe that the Project 2025 plan could never actually happen in the United States. And they’re not totally wrong for thinking that.

In theory, we’re supposed to have guardrails to keep outlandish and anti-constitutional polices from being put in place. But the Republican-led Congress has abandoned its constitutional duties in submission to Trump. And the far-right majority on the Supreme Court has consistently flouted bedrock legal principles with little to no explanation in furtherance of Trump’s agenda.

What aspects of the plan have been completed so far?

Although Trump claims to have no connections to Project 2025, the language in a lot of his executive orders matches the language found in the manifesto.

Politico has also created a side-by-side comparison of the document’s tenets with some of Trump’s orders.