You’ve likely heard of Project 2025.

It’s a set of conservative policy recommendations written by a right-wing policy group for the next U.S. Republican President.

Democrats have attacked Trump’s ties to the plan as some advisers from his first term have been involved. However, Trump has publicly distanced himself from it.

Here’s what you need to know.

Context

Project 2025 is organised by a right-wing policy group, The Heritage Foundation. It’s helped shape the policies of Republican Presidents since Ronald Reagan won in 1981. They claim two-thirds of its recommendations have been implemented.

The Heritage Foundation says Project 2025 will undo “the damage the Left has wrought” through immigration, abortion, defence, tax, and education policies.

It has four main pillars: a policy agenda, a personnel database, a “Presidential Administration Academy”, and a 180-Day Playbook.

1. The Policy Agenda is the 900-page document that contains a series of policy proposals to “rescue [the U.S.] from the grip of the radical left” and to dismantle the “woke left”.

On immigration, the group wants to dismantle the current Department of Homeland Security and reorganise most national security agencies to strengthen the country’s border policing operation.

It wants to increase funding for a wall on the U.S-Mexico border, saying the border should be “sealed.”

On healthcare, Project 2025 says it prioritises “protecting life, conscience, and bodily integrity.” It wants to see the abortion pill mifepristone pulled from the market and greater restrictions imposed. It states: “Abortion and euthanasia are not health care.”

On climate change, the group says while it supports “creating a better environmental tomorrow”, the Government needs to “stop the war on oil and natural gas.” It wants to slash funding for renewable energy completely.

2. The Personnel Database registry allows supporters of the movement to build professional profiles to create a streamlined hiring process.

3. A “Presidential Administration Academy” would provide future political employees with the education and skillset to advance the movement once in the White House.

4. The 180-Day Playbook details a concrete plan for Trump’s first six months and proposes instructions for federal agencies on their first course of action, if he wins.

Trump

Trump claims he “knows nothing” about Project 2025, and has called some of the policies “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal”. However, many of his closest policy advisers are involved.

Russell T. Vought, Trump’s former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, authored one of the plan’s chapters.

Stephen Miller, a former Trump adviser who’s expected to return to the White House if Trump wins, has been associated with a legal team on Project 2025’s advisory board.

Although Trump has set his own agenda clear in a 16-page document on his website, critics have spotted similarities between Project 2025 and his policies.

For example, one of Trump’s immigration policies is to “seal the border and stop the migrant invasion”.

Trump says he also “proudly stands for families and life.” He is against “late-term abortion”, but says he endorses birth control and IVF.

Trump wants the U.S. to be “the Number One Producer” of oil and natural gas.

Biden

Democratic President Joe Biden continues to accuse Trump of having deep ties with Project 2025, saying it’s “run and paid for by Trump people”.

At a campaign rally in Michigan over the weekend, Biden warned American voters that Project 2025 is the

“biggest attack on our system of government and our personal freedom that has ever been proposed in
the history of this country.”