Trump Hires Project 2025 Loyalists After Lying About Ties
So far, Trump has picked 11 Project 2025 authors, contributors, and advisory board members for top jobs, and the Trump Transition is reportedly using its personnel database to staff his second admin.
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This article was updated on Monday, December 9 at 1:25 pm EST to reflect more Project 2025 appointees, bringing the total to eleven.
Donald Trump spent the closing months of his campaign lying about his Project 2025 ties. Now, he’s selecting multiple Project 2025 authors, contributors, and advisory board members for top roles in his future administration. New reporting indicates that Trump’s Transition team is also relying on Project 2025’s personnel database to recruit trained loyalists.
After researchers and journalists, including myself, spent the past year warning about the Heritage Foundation-led project to reshape the federal government into a tool of the far-right, attention on Project 2025 finally hit critical mass this past Summer. Once Project 2025 became publicly toxic, Trump falsely distanced himself from the effort, in spite of the fact dozens of former Trump officials organized it and Trump's official agenda directly aligns with it.
I made multiple appearances on MSNBC over the past year, including my most recent one last month, where I explained how Project 2025 was very much still alive. In spite of Trump’s claims that Project 2025 had met its demise, I warned that the project was still recruiting and training loyalists to build out its database of potential hires for a second Trump term. As predicted, Trump is now actively recruiting from that database.
NBC News published a report on November 22 that revealed Trump’s Transition team is leaning on Project 2025’s database to recruit political appointees for the incoming administration:
Individuals helping to fill out the personnel teams for the Trump transition operation have sought and used information from the Project 2025 database because of the enormity of the task of filling out the more than 4,000 political appointee jobs that will become vacant in 2025, this person said.
“There’s a lot of positions to fill and we continue to send names over, including ones from the database as they are conservative, qualified and vetted,” the person, who worked on Project 2025, said. “Hard to find 4,000 solid people, so we are happy to help.”
The receptiveness to using the Project 2025 database for potential hires comes as the transition has already shown it is open to tapping contributors to the effort for administration jobs, including Tom Homan as border czar, Brendan Carr as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and John Ratcliffe as CIA director. Both Homan and Ratcliffe were listed as contributors to Project 2025, while Carr wrote a chapter on the FCC.
This is very important. As we warned, Trump was distancing himself from Project 2025 during his campaign as a political tactic and had every intention of pursuing its agenda and relying on Project 2025’s personnel database.
At the moment, the Trump Transition team is reportedly using Project 2025’s database for the 4,000 political appointees all presidents traditionally hire. But as I’ve written about extensively, both Trump’s official Agenda 47 and Project 2025 call for the firing of tens of thousands of nonpartisan civil servants. The plan is to replace them with Trump loyalists. You can bet that if Trump does follow through with this planned purge, the Trump Administration will also use Project 2025’s personnel database.
Hiring rank-and-file loyalists associated with Project 2025 isn’t all Trump is doing. The future Trump Administration’s top roles are quickly filling up with Project 2025 authors, contributors, and advisory board members.
Trump’s Project 2025 Team
There are now eleven Project 2025-connected people being selected for top jobs in the Trump administration. You can find their affiliations plainly listed on Project 2025’s 922-page policy playbook.
Trump’s pick for FCC Chairman, Brendan Carr, wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the FCC. Carr responded to me on Twitter at 2 am after I called out his ties. He wasn’t very happy about it. Trump’s Border Czar, Tom Homan, is listed as a contributor to Project 2025. Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s incoming White House press secretary, appeared in a Project 2025 training video. Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra is a Project 2025 contributor who Trump has selected as Ambassador to Canada.
Trump’s pick for CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, was a contributor to Project 2025 and is quoted multiple times in the policy playbook. Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff pick, Stephen Miller, runs a nonprofit organization, America First Legal, that was a member of Project 2025’s advisory board. Trump’s pick for senior counselor for trade and manufacturing is former Trump trade advisor and convicted criminal Peter Navarro. Navarro wrote a full section on Trade in Project 2025’s policy playbook.
Trump’s pick for SEC Chairman, Paul Atkins, is a Project 2025 contributor and is mentioned in the SEC chapter among people who “deserve special mention.” Trump's pick for Ambassador, Assistant Secretary of State, and Chief of Protocol of the U.S. is Monica Crowley. Crowley is listed as a Project 2025 contributor. Trump has also announced James Braid as the White House director of legislative affairs. Braid appeared in a Project 2025 training video.
Vice President-elect J.D. Vance wrote the foreword to Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ book and has openly echoed several of Project 2025’s policy proposals.
We’re only a little over one month since the election, and Trump has already appointed eleven people with direct ties to Project 2025, not including Vance.
Perhaps most significantly, Donald Trump has selected Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Vought was formerly Trump’s Acting OMB director, so the role wouldn’t be new for him. What’s new, and makes this choice particularly significant, is what Vought has been up to since Trump’s first term.
Vought is a self-proclaimed Christian Nationalist and a key connective point between Project 2025 and Donald Trump. Vought was in charge of crafting Project 2025’s first 180-day plan and authored the chapter on executive power. Vought’s Center for Renewing America is also a partner organization of Project 2025. This is where the connection gets undeniable. In May of this year, the Republican National Committee and the Trump Campaign released a joint press release that announced the appointment of Vought as the policy director of the RNC’s platform writing committee. So, Vought helped lead policy at both Project 2025 and the RNC.
In August, CNN published a secret recording of Vought, which showcased him discussing his work preparing for a second Trump Administration and the fact that Trump was supportive of that work. From CNN:
Vought said his group, the Center for Renewing America, was secretly drafting hundreds of executive orders, regulations, and memos that would lay the groundwork for rapid action on Trump’s plans if he wins, describing his work as creating “shadow” agencies. He claimed that Trump has “blessed” his organization and “he’s very supportive of what we do.”
In that same video obtained by CNN, Vought went on to basically say that Trump was distancing himself from Project 2025 as a political tactic. “I see what he’s doing is just very, very conscious distancing himself from a brand,” Vought said. “It’s interesting; he’s, in fact, not even opposing himself to a particular policy.”
Of course, that was true, as we can see. Trump strategically distanced himself from Project 2025 but didn’t oppose any particular policy because his official agenda directly aligns with it.
In August, CBS News published a fantastic analysis piece that examined Project 2025’s 922-page policy playbook line-by-line. CBS found that at least 270 proposals in Project 2025's playbook “match Trump's past policies and current campaign promises.”
CBS News is correct. As I’ve written in my articles over the past year, Project 2025 and Agenda 47 directly outline the same key agenda items. For example, Trump also explicitly outlines a plan to re-implement his previously attempted Schedule F executive order, which will purge tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with trained GOP loyalists. The plan to consolidate power in the executive branch by weakening multiple departments, like the Education Department, and bringing independent agencies under direct White House control is also on both agendas.
Both Project 2025 and Trump’s official agenda also list plans to roll back environmental regulations, weaponize the DOJ, execute mass deportations, build detention camps for migrants, use the military against civilians, end federal protections for LGBTQ+ people, push “Christian Nationalist” ideals, and undo all progress made in diversity, equity, and inclusion within the federal government under the guise of religious freedom.
The day after the election, right-wing commentator Matt Walsh posted, “Now that the election is over I think we can finally say that yeah actually Project 2025 is the agenda. Lol.” Steve Bannon praised and amplified Walsh’s comment.
While not openly admitting it, the Trump Transition team is proving through their actions that they share that same sentiment. Yeah, actually, Project 2025 is the agenda, just like we warned all along.
But this overreach will backfire. Americans voted for lower prices, not far-right extremism.
Thank you, Ahmed, for giving me time to digest all this information after lunch and before teatime today. I appreciated the link to your MSNBC appearance as well. Let’s hope more of his picks go down in flames.