(NewsNation) —Former president Donald Trump appears to be working overtime trying to distance himself from the controversial conservative Project 2025.
Trump has disavowed the plan, posting on his social media site that he has “no idea” who is behind Project 2025 and knows “nothing” about it, but dozens of people who worked closely with him and helped shape his administration are involved in the plan.
He’s gotten more hostile to the document and the group behind it in recent weeks even going as far as issuing a warning to anyone linking him to the plan.
The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that wrote Project 2025, said it’s a guide on what the next president needs to do so they can undo the “damage” to America they claim has been caused by liberal politicians.
Democrats say Project 2025 is extremist, “authoritarian” and even dystopian, and the document has become a major point of attack as they warn voters that its policies will be implemented under a second Trump term.
What is Project 2025?
Project 2025 is a nearly 1,000-page document that lays out a multiprong blueprint to overhaul the federal government for the next Republican administration.
A main component of Project 2025 is the firing of as many as 50,000 federal workers who conservative groups say will impede the president’s agenda.
Under Project 2025, agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education would be “eliminated,” and others, like the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission, and Justice Department, would be put under the president’s control.
A so-called top-to-bottom “overhaul” of the Department of Justice would end FBI efforts to stop misinformation. The Pentagon would “abolish” diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives if Project 2025 is adopted, and service members discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine would be reinstated.
On abortion, Project 2025 calls for restricting the procedure through a limit on mail-order pills and penalizing providers. Other health care services and social services like Medicare and Social Security would be scaled back and privatized as well, and any of the Biden administration’s climate change policies would be reversed through Project 2025.
What Trump has said about Project 2025
Trump has refuted the plan, posting on his social media site that he has “no idea” who is behind Project 2025 and knows “nothing” about it.
“I disagree with some of the things they’re saying, and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” Trump wrote.
“Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
His stance quickly turned more hostile in recent days amid escalating criticism of the document.
Trump’s campaign issued an ominous threat to anyone attempting to link him to the controversial document last week.
“It will not end well for you,” the campaign said in a statement.
But Trump has also previously praised The Heritage Foundation and its “movement.”
“This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America, and that’s coming,” he said at a 2022 speech to the group.
Kevin Roberts, the director of The Heritage Foundation, said he had briefed Trump on Project 2025, saying he “personally [has] talked to President Trump about Project 2025 … because my role in the project has been to make sure that all of the candidates who have responded to our offer for a briefing on Project 2025 get one from me,” in an April interview with the Washington Post.
Trump’s campaign ties to Project 2025
Several of Trump’s top officials and political advisers who worked under his administration and some who are currently involved in his campaign have contributed to the plan.
At least 140 other people who worked in the Trump administration have also had a hand in Project 2025, CNN reported.
Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign national press secretary, is allegedly seen in a video promoting Project 2025’s “Presidential Administration Academy.”
The Heritage Foundation said they have “no specific knowledge of Karoline’s participation.”
Leavitt joined the Trump campaign in January, and since then, she’s called out the project she helped create in her official capacity as Trump’s spokesperson.
Paul Dans, who was chosen to lead the Project 2025 initiative for The Heritage Foundation, served in the Trump Administration as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management as well as the agency’s White House liaison.
Dans announced that he would be stepping down from his role last week at The Heritage Foundation.
Stephen Miller, who served as Trump’s senior adviser for policy and White House director of speechwriting, is also on the promotional video as a leader. He’s also since tried to distance himself,
At least six of Trump’s former Cabinet secretaries have either authored or advised on Project 2025.
Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, former deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn, former Justice Department senior counsel Gene Hamilton and former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller have also all worked on Project 2025.
The Daily Signal, Heritage’s online publication, described the project in 2023 as a “four-point game plan for a conservative president to dismantle the deep state that undermined Trump.”
The plan’s authors have said in a statement to NewsNation that they are “not affiliated with any candidate” and that they “do not speak for President Trump, who was not involved with the creation of the Mandate for Leadership.”
JD Vance and Project 2025
Trump’s running mate, Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance, announced in June that he wrote the foreword to Heritage Foundation director Roberts’ upcoming book, “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America.”
“I was thrilled to write the foreword for this incredible book, which contains a bold new vision for the future of conservatism in America,” Vance said.
A Vance spokesperson has said the forward has nothing to do with Project 2025 and that the senator has no involvement and “plenty of disagreements with what they’re calling for.”
The Heritage Foundation told NewsNation that Vance is “not involved” in Project 2025 in a statement to NewsNation.
In his introduction for the book, Vance says Roberts provided a “fundamentally Christian view of culture and economics,” and that the book is “an essential weapon” for “the fights that lay (sic) ahead,” reported The Guardian.
“We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets,” he wrote.