The Heritage Foundation official leading the 2025 project is stepping down and the group is suspending policy work. continuous criticism by the former president Donald Trump and his campaign.
Trump’s campaign said in a statement Tuesday that the announcement should focus on others trying to connect with Trump, and that it “welcomes” reports of the group’s “death.”
“Reports of the demise of Project 2025 are welcome and should serve as a warning to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence on President Trump and his campaign – this will not end well for you,” campaign co-managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said.
The project is a collaboration of 2025 Over 100 conservative groups Started by the Heritage Foundation. Many of these groups are staffed by former Trump administration officials. His work has provided fodder for Democrats targeting Trump, using the group’s book of policy proposals aimed at informing the next GOP administration. The effort also includes a staffing pool aimed at recruiting the future White House team.
Democrats used Project 2025’s more than 900-page book to sound the alarm about what the incoming Trump administration could accomplish. The group’s director, Paul Dance, was a senior Trump official in the Office of Personnel Management. Other advisers to the group include former Trump administration staffer John McEntee.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign responded to the announcement by saying Trump is mistaken if he thinks he can distance himself from Project 2025, the policies the group promises to “impact” the country if he takes office.
“Proposition 2025 is on the ballot because Donald Trump is on the ballot. This is an agenda written by his allies for Donald Trump to attack our country,” said Harris’ campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez. “Hiding the 920-page plan from the American people doesn’t make it any less real — in fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding.”
Russ Vought, who was Trump’s top aide in his first term and now heads the Center for American Renewal Advisor to Project 2025, is the platform policy director of the Republican National Committee. Stephen Miller, Trump’s former White House adviser, who currently runs America First Legal, agrees also participated closely.
Miller insisted otherwise on Tuesday. “I have never been involved in any way with Project 2025. Period,” he said in a statement.
In his remarks, Trump opposed policies developed “some of them on the right – seriously on the right” and described other policies as “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal”. Wiles and LaCivita were also critical in their statements.
“This has been a battle for over a year,” a senior Trump campaign official told NBC News. Trump has been open about his efforts to distance himself from the group, calling it a “confusion operation,” the source said.
“They are 100% hunters,” he said. “It’s an irritating operation.”
Project 2025 itself is not shutting down, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, said in a statement that under Dance, Project 2025 “completes its mission: bringing together more than 110 leading conservative organizations to create a unified conservative vision motivated to transfer power from the unelected administrative state, and return it to the people. This tool was created for any future administration to use.”
“Our collective efforts to build a staffing apparatus for policymakers at all levels — federal, state and local — will continue,” Roberts said.