Project 2025: Immigration to abortion ban, Trump delivers on Heritage Foundation's plan

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly denied any involvement with or knowing anything about the infamous “Project 2025”.

But you know what they say, right? "There's no smoke without fire". Let’s say - we believe him.

How is it then that many of their RADICAL RIGHT-WINGED ideas made their way into Trump 2.0’s early executive orders and policies? Furthermore, how is it that many of the people involved in its birth have ended up with key roles in Trump 2.0’s administration?

Coincidence? Maybe. Fishy? Definitely.

But… let’s dial it back a bit and first understand what exactly is Project 2025.

Chapter 1: What is Trump's Project 2025?

The 900+ page Project 2025 – aka the “Mandate for Leadership” manifesto is the brainchild of Washington-based conservative think tank - The Heritage Foundation. THF first produced policy plans for future Republican administrations, when Ronald Reagan was about to take office - all the way back in 1981! It has remained supremely influential during subsequent Republican presidencies, including when Trump first became the President in 2016.

A year into Trump’s first term, the think tank boasted that the White House had adopted nearly two-thirds of its proposals. But one shouldn’t read too much into it. Just because he listened to them once doesn’t mean he would again, right?

At a THF event, Trump called them “a great group” and declared that they’re going to lay the groundwork & detailed plans for exactly what their “movement will do” when the American people give them, the Republicans, a “colossal mandate to save America”.

As you can see, he’s not even trying to hide it.

But a lot can change in three years, right? Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s first take a closer look at what the manifesto actually has to say.

In its own words, the “Mandate for Leadership” says that “if conservatives want to save the country”, they “need a bold and courageous plan and this book is the first step in that plan”.

Now for those wondering what conservative means - think of it as people with old-school beliefs that oppose abortion and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, racial equity and the like.

In July 2024, Kevin Roberts, President of The Heritage Foundation in an interview with WSJ declared that ‘Project 2025’ is trying to be a “corrective to the liberal nonsense” that has been “insidious inside the executive branch for the last half century”.

Most though call it a federal policy agenda and blueprint for a radical restructuring of the executive branch that’s meant to usher in the most conservative era in modern American history.

Let’s dig in.

Project 2025 is built on four pillars. A federal policy plan, a personnel database, an online academy and finally - the Presidential playbook for the first 180 days in office.

Why the first 180 days you ask? It is to facilitate rapid policy implementation and maximise the President's influence on the executive branch. Simply put - it is to ensure the President's agenda is quickly and effectively enacted.

Having said that, let's now get into what each of these pillars are all about.

Pillar 1 - Federal policy plan: The DOGE mandate

This part of the policy essentially aims to purge the civil workforce of tens of thousands of federal employees and replace them with conservative picks.Basically, this isn’t just a plan for Trump’s potential four years, but for the foreseeable future.

Let’s assume they make space in the federal bureaucracy, next you’d need loyal, enterprising conservatives to fill those positions. That’s where pillars two and three come in.

Pillar 2 - Personnel database

THF has already contracted the tech behemoth, Oracle, to build this database. Essentially a kind of right-wing LinkedIn.

Paul Dans, Trump’s former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management and one of Project 2025’s chief architects writes in the forward for Project 2025 that “our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State”.

For context - The Administrative State, or as Trump and other conservatives have called - the Deep State, is a conspiracy theorists wet dream. It describes an alleged, clandestine network of individuals, typically within the bureaucracy, military, or intelligence agencies, who are believed to be operating with their own agendas. Potentially undermining the elected government or influencing policy in ways that serve their own interests.

Notably, in the buildup to the US Presidential elections, Trump in March of 2023, bellowed that “either the Deep State destroys America or we destroy the Deep State”.

Coming back to the right-wing LinkedIn, it is said to already have over 11,000 applicants.

Now as anyone who has applied for a job knows, beyond the necessary skill sets and intelligence and whatnot, recruiters look for that special something, that ‘X’ factor that really convinces them that you are what they’re looking for. For Trump, that thing is your undying loyalty.

Project 2025 liked the idea and adopted it - by crafting a questionnaire which essentially indicates if you’re loyal to Trump or not.

Pillar 3 - Online academy

Now, you may be good, but Project 2025 thinks you can be better. Once fully vetted, the applicants can move on to pillar three - the online Presidential Administration Academy.

The academy is meant to train future bureaucrats in conservative values and governing. Think of this as right-wing LinkedIn certification courses which will help individuals understand how the government functions and how to function IN government.

To be considered, one must access a passcode-protected questionnaire that asks applicants about their political philosophy. Such as their opinions on gender, immigrants, unions, “censorship by Big Tech,” the “education industry,” “permanent institutions of family and religion” and whether “Life has a right to legal protection from conception to natural death”.

You may ask - what are some examples of the stuff that’s being taught? Well, in Roberts’ own words - they “cover literally every public policy issue in project 2025”.

Project 2025 outlines detailed policy plans, for example, creating de facto abortion bans, eliminating the Department of Education, dismantling the Department of Homeland Security as well as consolidating US immigration agencies and expanding their power.

Notably, it also contains stuff like slashing federal investment in renewable energy, while rolling back environmental regulations.

Pillar 4 - Presidential playbook

The final pillar involves a transition plan outlining steps to be taken once a new administration assumes office. A key tenet being reinstating the Trump 1.0 policy called ‘Schedule F’.

If the name seems a little ominous, you’re not far off.

Using ‘Schedule F’, they aim to create a government more beholden to its executive. In the manifesto, in chapters on each agency, there are suggestions for how more non-partisan, civic employees in the federal government could be turned into political appointees. Such appointees would be duty-bound to the conservative President’s agenda, and thus be less likely to push back on policy changes.

Legal experts warn that, with ‘Schedule F’, there is no real limitation to the number of people who could be converted. Which is why one shouldn’t think of Project 2025 as solely aimed at Trump. This is a plan by conservatives for Trump and far beyond – a rightwing wishlist aimed at generational change in how the government operates and the President’s role within it.

Furthermore, underpinning this plan is a highly controversial legal principle called the ‘Unitary Executive Theory’. It is based on a clause in the Constitution Of The United States that says the executive power is vested in the President and that this gives him enormous untested powers to essentially do whatever he wants whilst simultaneously reducing Congress’ powers to check them.

Now that we have a sense of what Project 2025 aims to do, the next big question then is – can it actually happen?

Chapter 2 - Project 2025 explained: Can it legally reshape the US government?

Legal experts contend that the ‘Unitary Executive Theory’ – as well as some of the other radical proposals – simply aren't realistic. They’d inevitably draw a litany of lawsuits if implemented. Importantly, the US Congress stands as a major roadblock for conservatives looking to make Project 2025 a reality.

For example, to eliminate an agency you need Congressional approval as only Congress has the power to create agencies and to eliminate them. Period.

Unless the Supreme Court suddenly grants new powers to the President.

And here’s where it gets scary.

The current US Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett were all appointed by Republican Presidents. Whereas Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson were appointed by Democratic Presidents.

Justice Alito has already signaled support for the unitary theory as well as skepticism of federal agencies.

Should Trump try to push through some of the radical proposals, the US Supreme Court could be quite sympathetic to his cause. They might actually allow him to do things that previous Supreme Courts would have stopped with other Presidents.

Chapter 3: How Trump 2.0's tariffs, other policies echo Project 2025

We are now in July, well within Trump’s first 180 days in office. So, the FINAL and most important question then is - do Trump 2.0’s policies echo those proposed by Project 2025?

The short answer is yes.

Trump didn’t waste any time in rolling out several Project 2025-aligned policies. Below is the proof.

In April, the White House in a statement said that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) proposed a rule reclassifying tens of thousands of career civil servants as "at-will" employees.

For your understanding “at-will “ removes civil service protections that make it easier to fire such individuals. Way easier!

The effort to strip civil service protections from some workers began on Trump's first day back in office, with an executive order creating a new category of political appointees in the federal workforce. Though called Schedule Policy/Career, it is essentially just a repackaged version of the aforementioned Schedule F.

Predictably, Trump took to Truth Social to let the world know that "if these government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the President, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job".

Let’s now move on to his former BFF - billionaire and ‘Special Government Employee’ - Elon Musk. Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency” slashed government programs and let go of thousands of federal workers, fitting the spirit of Project 2025.

Trump then solidified the project’s role in his second term by appointing prominent Project 2025 authors and contributors to key federal agencies. People like Russel Vought.

Vought was appointed as Director of the Office of Management and Budget or OMB and is meant to lead the implementation and enforcement of Presidential policy across the federal government.

Vought authored a chapter for Project 2025 about consolidating power in the executive branch and advances a theory that allows the President to withhold funds from agencies, even if Congress has allocated them.

Did he?

Yeah, he did.

The OMB froze trillions of dollars in federal funding allocated by Congress. Vought also prompted mass government layoffs by ordering federal agencies to “focus on the maximum elimination of functions that are not statutorily mandated”.

Next up - Peter Navarro.

Navarro, in his Project 2025 chapter on trade, called on the next US President to bring about a domestic manufacturing “renaissance” by adopting reciprocal tariffs against trading partners and taking a particularly hard line on China.

Sounds familiar?

That’s because that’s pretty much what Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs and subsequent trade war, especially with China, are. And yeah, it happened after Navarro was appointed as his senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.

But if we look deeper we come to know there is much more at stake.

Immigration is another key area where the Trump administration is heavily aligned with Project 2025. The playbook said prioritising “border security and immigration enforcement, including detention and deportation,” was crucial. It calls for targeting immigrant communities through mass deportations and raids, ending birthright citizenship, separating families and dismantling the asylum system.

And what did Trump do?

Pretty much exactly that.

The Trump administration ordered the biggest mass deportation program in US history, called for billions to be invested in massive new immigration detention facilities, and promptly did away with ICE policies barring raids at sensitive places. And along the way, he also made Tom Homan, a key contributor to Project 2025 his "Border Czar".

And there are more, many more.

Like CIA director John Ratcliffe, credited as a Project contributor. Or Karoline Leavitt, his press secretary – she appeared in Project 2025 training videos. Or Brendan Carr, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, - HE wrote the chapter on the FCC.

Trump has also moved to end diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI programs, and decreed that government departments would recognise only two genders. Those moves are broadly in line with Project 2025, which took aim at DEI and gender terminology as part of what it describes as a wider crackdown on "woke" ideology.

Project 2025 called for an all-out attack on transgender people’s rights, proposing that all federal regulations that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity be rescinded. Furthermore it calls for transgender service members to be ousted from the military and that gender-affirming care be strictly limited.

The manifesto suggested transgender athletes were endangering girls’ sports, and called for the total erasure of transgender people in federal regulations, policies and materials. Trump agrees, I guess, because his administration announced a ban on transgender service members, erased LGBTQ+ related materials across the government, threatened local schools that allow transgender athletes to compete, and threatened hospitals that provide gender-affirming care.

It's still very early in Trump's second term. Given Trump’s whimsical nature, we can’t be sure how far the President would stick to a playbook. But, he’s got a lot more to do if he wants to reshape the American political machinery in line with Project 2025 goals.

Experts warn of a plan to bring many federal agencies like the Department of Justice under more direct Presidential control. Potentially meaning that the President would be immune from investigation and oversight. He could even weaponise the DoJ to attack his political enemies. Reports suggest that Trump may go after the National Health System, and tighten the eligibility criteria for social programs.

One prominent community tracking project says Trump has already implemented more than 40% of Project 2025’s recommendations.

There has been pushback of course.

Paul Dans – remember him from earlier? Trump’s former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management and one of Project 2025’s chief architects – he was made the sacrificial lamb and was pressured to resign from Heritage when the Trump administration tried to distance itself from Project 2025.

Democrats have vowed to continue to oppose the proposals and highlight Project 2025's influence. They even launched a "Stop Project 2025 Task Force" and set up a tip line to collect insider information on Heritage's activities. Notably, a number of federal courts have seen various suits against Trump 2.0’s orders and policies. Some Trump won, some he has vowed to appeal.

But the clock is ticking and Trump is growing ever more confident.

In February, Trump stirred controversy when he called himself a king in a post to Truth Social. What made it worse is that soon after, the official White House Instagram account shared a fake Time magazine cover, depicting Trump wearing a crown and the words, "Long live the king”.

Experts further warn that Trump’s moves could have long-lasting consequences. They point to Europe – to countries like Poland, Slovakia and Hungary – and how they are finding it very difficult to roll back changes to institutional structures, especially those to oversight mechanisms. If Trump does succeed, it could lead to a domino effect that changes not just American lives but that of the world.

Back in August 2024, in the run-up to the elections, comedian Kenan Thompson held up a giant-size replica of the 900+ paged Project 2025 and jokingly asked the crowd if they’d “ever seen a document that could kill a small animal and democracy at the same time”. Pointing to the book he declared -”here it is.”

No one is laughing now.