Trump Lies About Project 2025 Ties: Here Are All The Ways He's Connected

Trump falsely claims he has nothing to do with Project 2025. The truth is, dozens of former Trump officials are behind Project 2025 and Trump's official agenda directly aligns with it.

Donald Trump speaking at the Heritage Foundation in October 2017. He pursued 64% of their policy agenda in his first year in office. (C-SPAN)

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Last week, Donald Trump denied any knowledge of Project 2025 and claimed he has nothing to do with it. Of course, that is a blatant lie.

Dozens of former and current Trump officials organized Project 2025 and authored its 922-page playbook, Trump’s own campaign website lists the exact same key plans that define Project 2025, and Trump’s Super PAC has been boosting Project 2025 with ads.

In this piece, I’ll get into more detail about how deeply involved Trump’s current and former team is with Project 2025 and how closely aligned Project 2025’s agenda is with the official Trump agenda. But first, I think it’s important to discuss why Trump is trying to distance himself now.

Trump is lying about Project 2025 because his team clearly knows how unpopular his agenda is. He’s preparing for an effort to whitewash his extremism ahead of the general election. He’s doing this now because, after about a year of so many of us ringing the alarm about Project 2025, public awareness just hit an inflection point.

Last week, award-winning actress Taraji P. Henson stood on the stage of the BET Awards and called on everyone to vote. She explicitly cited the importance of the Supreme Court and talked about the GOP’s authoritarian plot to twist the federal government into a tool of the far-right.

“It’s time for us to play chess, not checkers. The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up!” Henson proclaimed.

Henson’s call went viral and sent Google search volume for Project 2025 soaring. What those who googled the project found was nothing short of dictatorial.

Project 2025 is an authoritarian effort to reshape the federal government into a tool of the far-right. It’s organized by the Heritage Foundation and over 100 right-wing organizations, who have created a 922-page playbook instructing the next Republican president on exactly how to abuse the full force of executive power. They’re also running a massive recruitment and training effort, aiming to replace tens of thousands of civil servants with Trump loyalists.

Trump’s Agenda 47 aligns closely with Project 2025, which includes the purging of civil servants, consolidating power in the White House, and executing a far-right agenda that targets our civil liberties.

I’ve written extensively about this for the past 9 months, and I’m grateful Henson placed such a powerful spotlight on this, elevating the work of countless journalists who have worked tirelessly to expose this extremism.

This moment at the BET Awards came after another recent surge of interest in Project 2025. Last month, the “Stop Project 2025 Task Force” was formed by House Democrats, and a wildly viral Project 2025 segment was run by John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts made a much-discussed appearance on MSNBC, where Project 2025’s extremism was exposed for all of America to see.

It was amid this surge of interest that Kevin Roberts made an absolutely unhinged comment. In an appearance on now-jailed Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast last week, Roberts praised the recent Supreme Court ruling, which granted Trump significant immunity from prosecution, implemented Project 2025 goals, and greenlit some of Trump’s dictatorial second-term agenda. But Roberts went beyond just praising the ruling. He issued a dangerous, violent threat:

“That Supreme Court ruling on immunity is vital… We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."

This clip went viral, causing justifiable outrage. The timing of it, after the Supreme Court ruling that would allow Trump to target his political opponents with impunity, made it even more worrying.

As the clip made waves, on Friday, Donald Trump took to Truth Social to tell a blatant lie:

Others in Trump’s inner circle also sought to distance themselves from Project 2025. Stephen Miller, Trump’s longtime advisor, sent a tweet claiming, “I have never been involved with Project 2025, not one word.” Stephen Miller’s “America First Legal” is one of the over 100 partner organizations on Project 2025’s advisory board.

Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are lying. Trump can try to distance himself from Project 2025, but the truth is they’re symbiotic.

While Project 2025 is certainly bigger than Trump and is planning to institutionalize right-wing extremism for decades to come, it is deeply tied to Trump and his team.

Trump’s Direct Praise Of The Heritage Foundation & Kevin Roberts

Trump’s “I have no idea who is behind it” claim is easily debunked. Trump is very aware of the Heritage Foundation, which, along with its 100 right-wing partner organizations that include groups run by members of Trump’s own team, is leading Project 2025.

The Heritage Foundation has been influential in Republican politics for decades. Former President Ronald Reagan implemented 60% of the Heritage Foundation’s 2,000 recommendations in their 1981 “Mandate for Leadership.” Since then, the Heritage Foundation has released playbooks exclusively for Republican Presidents to follow.

The Trump Administation, according to the Heritage Foundation’s own website, pursued 64% of the 2017 “Mandate for Leadership” in Trump’s first year in office. Trump spoke at the Heritage Foundation in 2017 and has maintained a friendly relationship with the conservative think tank.

Trump praised the Heritage Foundation on numerous occasions this year, including a January 2024 post on Truth Social specifically shouting out Kevin Roberts:

Trump is clearly familiar with the main organization behind Project 2025, as well as many of the 100+ partner organizations, which include Turning Point USA, Moms for Liberty, and organization his former administration officials started themselves.

The Dozens Of Trump Officials Behind Project 2025

Trump’s “I have nothing to do with them” claim is perhaps his most brazen lie. Multiple former Trump officials are personally involved in architecting Project 2025’s plans, recruiting and training future personnel to staff a second Trump Administration, as well as raising awareness about it.

As

Andra Watkins

noted in her recent article, 26 of 36 (72%) of the authors listed on Project 2025’s 922-page playbook have worked in or with the Trump Administration, Transition, or Campaign.

Judd Legum

also noted in his latest piece that of the 38 total people responsible for writing and editing Project 2025, 31 (81%) worked in Trump’s Administration or Transition team. All of their roles are literally listed directly in the playbook’s “Authors” section. Many of the key players in Project 2025 were high-level Trump officials and are set to return in a second administration.

Trump’s former acting OMB Director, Russell Vought, a self-proclaimed Christian Nationalist, is a key focal point between Project 2025 and Donald Trump. Vought is in charge of crafting Project 2025’s first 180-day plan and authored the chapter on executive power. 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 Russell Vought as the policy director of the RNC’s platform writing committee. Vought is also reportedly in the running to be Trump’s next Chief of Staff.

There are over two dozen other former and current Trump officials and advisors listed on Project 2025’s playbook as authors and others who run organizations on the advisory board.

Paul Dans, director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation, served as the Trump Administration’s Chief of Staff at the Office of Personnel. John McEntee, former director of the White House Personnel Office in the Trump Administration, is a senior advisor on Project 2025 and is helping their recruitment of loyalists. In an interview with The Daily Wire in April, McEntee said that Project 2025 is “gonna integrate a lot of our work” with the Trump campaign “this Summer.”

Rick Dearborn, Trump’s former Deputy Chief of Staff, authored the Project 2025 chapter on the White House. Ken Cuccinelli, Acting Deputy Secretary for Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, wrote the Project 2025 chapter on DHS. Christopher Miller, Acting Secretary of Defense in the Trump Administration, among other positions, wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the Department of Defense. Peter Navarro, the Trump Administration’s top trade advisor, who is currently in jail, wrote part of the Project 2025 chapter on trade.

Karoline Leavitt, current press secretary for Trump’s 2024 campaign, teaches a Project 2025 course and appeared in a promo video.

I could go on and list dozens of people, but you get the picture. The authors and their titles are listed right in the “Table of Contents” of Project 2025.

When it comes to Project 2025’s right-wing partner organizations, you’ll find several organizations led by former Trump officials. Conservative Partnership Institute, run by Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, is on the Project 2025 advisory board. And as I mentioned earlier, America Legal First, founded by Stephen Miller, is also a partner.

The connections between those organizing Project 2025 and Donald Trump are clear as day. What compounds this is the fact that Project 2025 and Donald Trump’s policy agenda are nearly identical in a lot of ways.

How Trump’s Agenda Aligns With Project 2025

As well as seemingly trying to condemn Kevin Roberts’ comments, Trump also tried to claim that he disagrees with Project 2025’s policy positions in this part of his post: “I disagree with some of the things they're saying.”

The truth is Trump’s own official agenda directly aligns with Project 2025. I’ve written about this extensively and spoken to PoliticsGirl about it in an in-depth conversation on the Meidas Touch Network.

Not only did the Heritage Foundation President explicitly say Project 2025 is about “Institutionalizing Trumpism,” Trump has a section of his website titled “Agenda 47,” which echoes the most important components of Project 2025’s agenda items.

In my interview with the head of the “Stop Project 2025 Task Force,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), we discussed how absurd it is to claim there is any separation between Trump and Project 2025. Rep. Huffman told me:

“Anyone who says that he hasn't endorsed it, you're being almost willfully naive to try to suggest that there's some arm's length and that Trump maybe wouldn't really follow all this. Agenda 47 is the stuff the Trump campaign will make public. It's pretty bad. It's completely consistent with everything in Project 2025.”

Both 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 dismantling multiple departments and bringing independent agencies like the FCC and FTC 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.

Not only do the policy agenda items align - Trump’s main Super PAC has been spending ad money boosting Project 2025.

There Is No Separation Between Trump & Project 2025

To claim there is any separation between Trump and Project 2025 is to claim there is a separation between Hydrogen and Oxygen in water. They’re symbiotic and need each other to exist.

Without Trump in office, Project 2025 won’t happen. If Trump loses, it’ll become Project 2029, and another extremist will take his place. But for now, this is about Trump and his second term.

Trump’s dishonest attempts to distance himself from Project 2025 are a signal that all our efforts to raise awareness about his authoritarian second-term agenda are paying off. Trump and his campaign are shaken by the public backlash to his shamelessly radical agenda.

Let’s keep up the pressure and continue informing voters of what’s truly at stake in this election: our civil liberties and democracy itself.