MILWAUKEE – The brain is behind the confidenceProject 2025” doesn’t sweat former President Donald Trump’s rejection of his sweeping presidential transition plan and policy roadmap for a potential second Trump administration.
At recent events in Washington, D.C. and Milwaukee, after Trump took the wind out of his sails with social media posts critical of Democrats for focusing their campaign on the environment, Project 2025 supporters and allies sought to defuse tensions and turn to insults against the press and Democrats. plans.
“The lesson of the last few days and the motivation for something like Project 2025 is to make Washington less important in our lives,” Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, which is leading the project, said Monday. The think tank’s Politics Fest at the Republican National Convention hints at an assassination attempt against Trump. Saturday.
Earlier, More than a dozen leaders, consultants and contributors to Project 2025 and their allies made their case last week at the three-day National Conservative Conference in Washington. sharply rearranges civil serviceRetaliating against Democrats for Trump’s continued harassment, starting mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, and fighting “anti-white” discrimination.
Conference from 2019 has become a favorite stop For the pro-Trump intellectuals, think tank leaders and politicians who are pushing the conservative movement to continue its march in a right-wing populist and nationalist direction. Although the conference’s organizers were separate from Project 2025, activists associated with the effort had a strong presence there, and Project 2025 had a booth at NatCon.
Trump distanced himself from the project amid a flood of Democratic attacks on the project, including from President Joe Biden and his campaign. placement told the social media site earlier this month that he knew “nothing” about Project 2025 and had “no idea” who was behind it. On Thursday, he wrote, “Radical Left Democrats are having a day but trying to shut me down to any policy or anything being said.”
“I disagree with what they say and some of what they say is absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” Trump wrote. earlier this month. “I wish them luck in whatever they do, but I have nothing to do with them.”
Pointer to dozens of allies and former Trump administration officials lead or associated with the project, Democrats argue that Trump is not outright rejecting the ideas and people behind the draft, but simply to improve his electoral chances. Some insiders at NatCon seem to agree.
One person at the conservative think tank Project 2025 advisory board said, describing conversations with others involved in the conservative battle plan. people were “not overly concerned” by Trump’s comments.
The person added that during Trump’s first term, he was quite open to policy input from outside groups, including the Heritage Foundation.
“In a general sense, this is a PR gesture for him to give himself maximum maneuverability and not make any commitments at this time,” he said. “He wants to not have to answer questions about anything he doesn’t want to answer questions about. “Most of the people involved in this case that I know don’t seem too concerned that this is actually a denial and that it will mean anything on January 20.”
The conference was attended by a number of conservative leaders, including Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, who was tapped to be Trump’s running mate. It comes just days after the former president announced he was distancing himself from Project 2025 as the Republican National Committee. succinctly passed platform end week. The party’s platform has similarities to Project 2025, while differing from it on social issues, including immigration and the civil service.
Terry Schilling, president of the Project for American Principles, who is in Milwaukee to advise the platform committee on social and family policy, told NBC News that Trump’s comments about the project left him conflicted.
“I love Kevin Roberts,” said the president of the Schilling Legacy Foundation, who serves on the group’s Project 2025 advisory board. “I love Heritage, I think they’re doing a phenomenal job. And it’s like two brothers are fighting and you don’t know whose side to take. But at the end of the day, Trump should have his own platform, his own political agenda.”
“There’s a lot on the Project 2025 agenda that I’m not going to participate in or campaign for,” Schilling said. “Ultimately, what Trump is doing is making sure people know he’s independent.”
Much of Project 2025’s game plan is focused on quickly reorienting every federal agency within the first 180 days of a new GOP administration and filling key government positions with a ready-made database of conservative foot soldiers aligned to the incoming president’s vision.
He made more noise for his policy prescriptions in the Leadership Mandate. These include plans to ban pornography, dismantle the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, abolish the Department of Education, repeal policies allowing transgender Americans to serve in the military, and hand federal law enforcement agencies over to the president.
Roberts told reporters on Monday that Trump’s policy preferences and Project 2025 “have the most overlap.” “There will always be differences. We will work on them when it comes to specific legislative work. And we know that these conversations will be very positive. We may not always agree.”
Paul Dance, director of Project 2025, called the recent response to the effort “overwhelming” in a speech before NatCon. He continued to mock Democrats for the agitation, joking that the bill advocated “deporting any citizen or non-citizen wearing cargo shorts” and “requiring that preschool education include dual handguns as a core skill.”
“We are sure that the people we put in these positions are actively helping [move] Dance, a former Trump administration official, said the policy agenda included in the 922-page plan is “unapologetically conservative” because “we want to drop the marker and say, ‘You’re looking.’ where to go down and if you’re looking for politics, this will be the best place’”.
But, Dans added, the policy book was a “wish list.”
“We don’t expect anyone to knock this thing out,” he said.
One Republican strategist told NBC News that anything close to the 2025 Project could be used against Vance because “the Biden campaign is going to take advantage of that.” The person pointed to Vance’s closeness to American Compass, which is at the forefront of conservative efforts to reorient the right-wing economic agenda around working-class interests and sits on the Project 2025 advisory board. Its chief economist, Oren Cass, also spoke at NatCon praised Vance was named Trump’s running mate on Monday.
In his NatCon address, Vance said the conservative movement was “very affected by what’s going on here,” describing it as “the seat of intellectual leadership” on the right.
Project 2025 has become a centerpiece of the Democratic campaign in recent weeks, with Biden in particular facing intense pressure from within his own party to drop out of the race after a disastrous debate performance against Trump last month. Since Trump first said he was abandoning Project 2025 this month, the Biden campaign has sent out at least 45 press emails touting the plan by Saturday.
“Nations, Project 2025 is the biggest attack on our system of government and personal freedom ever in the history of this country” Biden said at a rally in Michigan on Fridayadding that it’s “a blueprint for a second Trump.”
Project 2025 launched a fight against Democratic attacks, placement often on social media.
“As we’ve said for more than two years, Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign,” a spokesperson for the effort said, adding: “Instead of Project 2025 being concerned, the Biden campaign is the 25th Amendment.”
Now, most voters say they’re aware of the effort — and many aren’t fans. NPR/PBS/Marist survey was released on Friday 16% of voters said they viewed Project 2025 positively, and 42% negatively. Another 42% had not heard of it or were not sure.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. address deliverer Laying out at NatCon his vision of an America underpinned by Christian nationalism — an ideology he says is incompatible with the “authoritarian ideology of blood and soil” or the “hardline, ethnic nationalism of the ancient world” — it’s the future Trump administration of “Project 2025.” It’s ridiculous to think that it will serve as a blueprint for” he said the focus on Project 2025 is simply a distraction from Biden’s stumbling on the national stage.
“If I were him, I would do the same thing,” Hawley said of Trump’s denial. “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I’d say. If the president is elected, he will speak his word. His Cabinet of Ministers, their appointees, they will prepare the policy. It’s not a think tank, no matter who it is.”
Some Trump allies tried to distance themselves from the project after Trump’s broad stance. America First Legal, the organization of former Trump administration adviser Stephen Miller, recently served on Project 2025’s advisory board. Not anymore.
Speaking at the conference, Miller told NBC News that “the AFL has no involvement in the 2025 Draft,” adding that the Trump campaign is the only legitimate source in the former president’s plans.
West Virginia state treasurer and GOP candidate for one of the state’s congressional districts, Riley Moore, told NBC News at NatCon that the Republican Party has undergone such a transformation since 2016 that the key to the 2025 project is Trump’s immediate and more fully staffing his administration—is inherently controversial.
“It’s 2024, not 2016,” Moore said. “And the idea that we’re going to have these massive vacancies everywhere – there’s total unity in what the president is doing right now in this party. And there will be plenty of people to choose from.”
Finally, Schilling was now confident that any disputes could be resolved in the future.
“There will be a lot of people who are involved in Project 2025 and who will come into this next administration,” he said. “I just think there will be differences of opinion. … We have to win. And [Trump’s] will be sure to win. Then we manage from there.”