Former President Donald Trump’s campaign distanced itself even further from Project 2025 following the initiative’s director stepping down on Tuesday.
Project 2025 is a 922-page policy agenda led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Though Trump has repeatedly denied being aware of the initiative, Vice President Kamala Harris has referred to “Trump’s Project 2025” as a plan to “roll back our progress on Medicaid.”
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump wrote in a July 5 post on Truth Social. “I have 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.”
On Tuesday, Paul Dans, the director of the Heritage Foundation's Presidential Transition Project, announced he will step down from his position next month.
“Friends and patriots: to every thing there is a season. We completed what we set out to do, which was to create a unified conservative vision, bringing together over 110 leading organizations united behind the cause of deconstructing the administrative state,” Dans wrote in an email cited by POLITICO.
“This tool was built for any administration dedicated to conservative ideals to utilize,” he added. “The work of the project was due to wrap with the nominating conventions of the political parties. Our work is presently winding down, and I planned later in August to leave Heritage. Electoral season is upon us, and I want to direct all my efforts to winning bigly.”
Trump’s campaign issued a statement further distancing itself from the initiative.
“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” wrote advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita. “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”
The Trump campaign’s response was met with criticism by several conservative commentators on X.
“Trumpworld bows down to left-wing media lies, and keeps signaling he doesn’t want his most loyal foot soldiers — who kept with him even when very few others did — or their conservative ideas in his next administration. Interesting,” wrote Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of the Federalist. Trumpworld bows down to left-wing media lies, and keeps signaling he doesn’t want his most loyal foot soldiers — who kept with him even when very few others did — or their conservative ideas in his next administration. Interesting. pic.twitter.com/Ne38h9vI7z
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) July 30, 2024
“Wtf is that? A threat?” replied Julie Kelly, author of January 6: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protest to Launch a War on Terror Against the Political Right.
“I’m having flashbacks to Trump denouncing white supremacy approximately 6,789 times during his presidency,” wrote broadcaster Jesse Kelly. “You already said you’re out on Project 2025. The communists do not care. They lie.”
He added: “You’re out on it. Fine. Move on. This reeks of ‘Stop picking on me!’ at this point.” I’m having flashbacks to Trump denouncing white supremacy approximately 6,789 times during his presidency.
You already said you’re out on Project 2025. The communists do not care. They lie.
You’re out on it. Fine. Move on. This reeks of “Stop picking on me!” at this point. pic.twitter.com/MyLfU81IWB
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) July 30, 2024
“I'm hoping this is all just misdirection,” another X user wrote. “If Trump intends to follow through & sift the bureaucracy, he'll need the personnel & ideas of Project 2025.”
Earlier today, CNN published a fact check claiming that Harris’ campaign falsely stated a video clip of Trump’s vice presidential nominee J. D. Vance proved he endorsed Project 2025.
“The Harris campaign’s claim that the video shows Vance endorsing Project 2025 is false,” the outlet reported. “The video does not show Vance talking about Project 2025 at all. In fact, Project 2025 had not even been created at the time Vance made these comments in May 2021. The initiative was launched by The Heritage Foundation in April 2022, and its policy recommendations were released in April 2023.”
CNN said that, while the campaign declined to issue a comment for their article, a campaign official had previously told the outlet that they had “made a deliberate decision to brand all of Trump’s policies [as] Project 2025 [because] it has stuck with voters.”
Though Trump has denied awareness of the initiative, commentators and corporate press outlets have claimed the project’s authors have ties to Trump’s previous administration.
“Many Trump allies and former top aides contributed to the project,” reports AP News. “Dans formerly worked as a personnel official for the Trump administration. And Trump regularly campaigns on many of the same proposals in the Project 2025 book — from mass deportations to upending the Justice Department — though some of its other proposals, including further taxes on tips, conflict with some of what Trump has pledged on the campaign trail.”
AP News reports that Vance wrote a forward to a forthcoming book by Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts praising the organization.
“The Heritage Foundation isn’t some random outpost on Capitol Hill; it is and has been the most influential engine of ideas for Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump,” wrote Vance.
“Hiding the 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real — in fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding,” said Harris’ Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, per the outlet.
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh warned that Trump’s “disavowels are just seen as blood in the water, a sign that he perceives it as a vulnerability.”
“The absolute worst thing you can do is disavow something to your Right because the Left is attacking it,” he wrote in a Monday X post. “That strategy never works. Never. It only leads to this. Every time.” Trump disavowing Project 2025 has not stopped the Left from connecting him to it. Instead his repeated disavowals are just seen as blood in the water, a sign that he perceives it as a vulnerability. He should have just said “Project 2025 isn’t my specific agenda but there’s… https://t.co/dDrNmu3z3k
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) July 29, 2024
