What Is Project 2025?
If you were on Twitter or TikTok over the weekend, you might have seen people talking about Project 2025.
Led by the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a presidential transition operation—basically a government-in-waiting if former President Donald Trump returns to office on Jan. 20, 2025. The $22 million effort does not say it is specifically intended for Trump, but that it wants a conservative as the next commander-in-chief.
Summary:
Project 2025 is a $22 million presidential transition operation led by the right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation. The project aims to prepare a conservative agenda and personnel for the next conservative president, with the goal of “saving the republic” from the “radical Left.”
The project’s nearly 1,000-page handbook, published in 2023, outlines a conservative agenda for the next administration. This includes firing federal employees believed to be preventing right-wing policies from being implemented, overhauling the Department of Justice, ending the FBI’s efforts to curb misinformation, cracking down on abortion pills, and limiting press access to the White House.
Critics have labeled the project as “authoritarian,” arguing that it relies on the unitary executive theory, which dismisses the idea of checks and balances between three separate branches of government. Instead, proponents of the theory argue that the president has total authority over the executive branch.
While Project 2025 does not explicitly state that it is intended for former President Donald Trump, it is aimed at supporting a conservative president in the 2025 election.
