Despite this, Trump said on his social media platform, Truth Social, that he “knows nothing about Project 2025.”
“I have no idea who is behind this,” he wrote on Friday. “I don’t agree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are totally ridiculous and disgusting. I wish them the best of luck in whatever they do but I have no affiliation with them.”
Three days ago, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, caused controversy by claiming in a media appearance that America is in the midst of a “Second American Revolution” that could be bloodless “if the left lets it.”
“Project 2025 is an extreme policy and personnel strategy designed to secure Trump’s second term that should terrify the American people,” Biden campaign spokesman Amar Moosa said in a statement about Trump’s efforts to distance himself from the plan. “Project 2025 staff and leaders have constantly bragged about their ties to Trump’s team and are the same people who lead the project.” [Republican National Committee] “Policy platform and Trump’s debate preparations, campaign and aides.”
In a statement posted on X, Project 2025 emphasized that it is independent of the Trump campaign.
“As we have said for more than two years, Project 2025 does not represent any particular candidate or campaign,” the statement said, noting that the project represents more than 110 conservative groups working to elect the next Republican president, “but it will ultimately be up to the president, likely President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement.”
The Trump campaign last year tried to downplay Project 2025 as a “policy recommendation from an outside ally,” but the Biden team and other Democrats have been actively trying to hold Trump to account for the plan.
Last month, House Democrats created a task force to combat Project 2025. And on Friday, hours after Trump posted about it, speakers at a Biden rally in Wisconsin urged supporters to oppose the plan.
“When you go home, Google ‘Project 2025’ and tell everyone you know to do the same,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (Democrat) said.
The plan’s centerpiece is a major overhaul of the federal workforce to make it more loyal to the president, a proposal that aligns with Trump’s long-standing complaints about a “deep state” bureaucracy that he blames for undermining his first-term policies. Project 2025 also touches on other politically sensitive issues, including calling for the Food and Drug Administration to “reconsider and revoke its original approval” of the abortion drug mifepristone. Trump has recently said he does not want to block access to the drug.
Project 2025 associates include Ben Carson, Trump’s former housing secretary; Peter Navarro, a former White House trade adviser under Trump; and Russ Vought, who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump. Trump and the Republican National Committee appointed Vought earlier this year as policy director for the RNC, which is developing the party platform ahead of the party’s convention in Milwaukee this month.
Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, is a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute, one of the groups advising Project 2025. And John McEntee, Trump’s former White House director of personnel, serves as a senior adviser to Project 2025.
As president, Trump met with the Heritage Foundation in 2017, praising the organization and asking for its help in passing tax cuts through Congress.
Asked Friday about Trump’s ties to Project 2025, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Chung said in an email that the campaign “has said for months that outside groups like Project 2025 do not reflect our campaign strategy or policy.” He pointed to a statement issued last year by Trump’s top advisers seeking to quell speculation about his plans for a second term.
“To be clear, no aspect of future presidential appointments or policy announcements should be considered official unless the message comes directly from President Trump or an authorized member of his campaign team,” the statement said.
The Biden campaign also pointed out that Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt appeared in a video released in September 2023 promoting the Project 2025 training program for future candidates for political appointees. Several former Trump administration staffers came forward in the video, with Leavitt saying she was an assistant press secretary to President Trump.
Asked about the video on Friday, Leavitt said in a statement that he appeared in it “before I started working for the Trump campaign.” He previously worked for a pro-Trump super PAC in 2023. He added that Agenda 47, Trump’s reelection campaign platform, “is the only official policy agenda for President Trump and our campaign.”
The Biden campaign criticized comments about a “Second American Revolution” made by the Heritage Foundation president just two days before Independence Day.
“Tomorrow marks 248 years since America declared its independence from a tyrannical king, and now Donald Trump and his allies are trying to make him a tyrant at our expense,” Biden campaign spokesman James Singer said in a statement Wednesday.
