Trump said he had 'nothing to do' with Project 2025 - here's the proposals he's implementing anyway

As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump battled it out to take the White House towards the end of 2024, one attack line pushed by the Democrats concerned an initiative known as Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-backed policy proposals they claimed were a “blueprint” for a second Trump administration.

The Biden-Harris campaign told Newsweek in July – before Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee – that it was a “playbook for Trump to achieve his dream of being a dictator on day one, with unchecked, imperial power” and something which “should scare the hell out of the American people".

The Republican candidate, meanwhile, wrote on Truth Social in the same month that he knew “nothing about Project 2025” and had “no idea who is behind it”.

“I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them,” he said.

Trump later told a crowd in Michigan that he considered Project 25 to be “seriously extreme”.

As for Project 2025 itself, a spokesperson told The Independentlast year it “does not speak for any candidate or campaign” and is instead a “coalition” of conservative groups making policy recommendations “for the next conservative president”, which it believed “will be President Trump”.

Indeed, it is.

Nevertheless, contributors to the 900-page Mandate for Leadership manifesto include Peter Navarro (now trade adviser to the president) and Russ Vought (who returned to the position of director of the Office of Management and Budget this year).

Elsewhere, Brendan Carr is now the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Tom Homan is Trump’s ‘border czar’, Stephen Miller (who appeared in a Project 2025 training video) is deputy chief of staff for policy, and Karoline Leavitt (who has also appeared in training videos) is White House press secretary.

And so, much like how the Trump campaign once said “people working on Project 2025 are blacklisted” from working as a staffer in the new administration, only to have several individuals associated with the initiative now in senior roles, Trump is now implementing a number of policy proposals from a manifesto he once shunned.

We’ve provided a list of all of these below.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID)

What Project 2025 said: Max Primorac, researcher at the Heritage Foundation, writes: "The next conservative Administration should scale back USAID's global footprint by, at a minimum, returning to the agency's 2019 pre-COVID-19 pandemic budget level."

What Donald Trump did: The US president is moving to officially close USAID.

Department of Education

What Project 2025 said: Heritage Foundation researcher Lyndsey M. Burke writes: "Ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated."

What Donald Trump did: On 20 March, Trump signed an executive order calling for the closure of the Department of Education, arguing it would "provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them".

Gender

What Project 2025 said: "The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists."

What Donald Trump did: In a speech at his inauguration, Trump declared that the US government will adopt a policy position that "there are only two genders: male and female". He backed this up with an executive order which required federal agencies to remove and cease "all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology".

“Reduce” the size of federal government

What Project 2025 said: "Of course, the surest way to put the federal government back to work for the American people is to reduce its size and scope back to something resembling the original constitutional intent."

What Donald Trump did: Hired Tesla boss, billionaire and world's richest man Elon Musk to oversee the new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) and cut government waste. He threatened federal staff with termination if they didn't respond to a Doge email asking them to list "what they got done last week", and Doge has already fired many federal workers.

The Paris Climate Agreement

What Project 2025 said: "The next conservative Administration should withdraw the U.S. from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement."

What Donald Trump did: He signed an executive order demanding the US's ambassador to the United Nations send "formal written notification of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change".

Energy dominance

What Project 2025 said: "The next conservative Administration should prioritize energy and science dominance to ensure that Americans have abundant, affordable, and reliable energy; create good paying jobs; support domestic manufacturing and technology leadership; and strengthen national security."

What Donald Trump did: The US president set up the National Energy Dominance Council in February.

The World Health Organization (WHO)

What Project 2025 said: "The manifest failure and corruption of the World Health Organization (WHO) during the COVID-19 pandemic is an example of the danger that international organizations pose to U.S. citizens and interests. The next Administration must end blind support for international organizations ... If an international organization is ineffective or does not support American interests, the United States should not support it."

What Donald Trump did: He signed an executive order on the day of his inauguration pulling the US out of the WHO.

The death penalty

What Project 2025 said: "Enforce the death penalty where appropriate and applicable."

What Donald Trump did: Signed an executive order compelling his Attorney General to "pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use".

The military vaccine mandate

What Project 2025 said: "Reinstate service members to active duty who were discharged for not receiving the COVID vaccine, restore their appropriate rank, and provide back pay."

What Donald Trump did: The US president signed an executive order on 27 January stating the government should "make reinstatement available to all members of the military (active and reserve) who were discharged solely for refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and who request to be reinstated" and "enable those service members reinstated under this section to revert to their former rank and receive full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation".

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)

What Project 2025 said: The manifesto called for the next conservative president to "remove the DEI revolution in labour policy" and "eliminate racial classifications and critical race theory trainings".

What Donald Trump did: He signed an executive order on the day of his inauguration demanding an end to "radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing", and has signed several executive orders attacking "discriminatory equity ideology", with one of its definitions challenging the idea that "the United States is fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory".

Why not read...

• Signal ‘war plans’ scandal’s link to Project 2025 exposed
• What does the Project 2025 document actually say?

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