Project 2025 is a policy plan created by the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation, and was created to outline possible policy for the Trump administration before the presidential election of 2024. The project aims to restructure much of the federal government and increase the scope of power of the executive branch. It seeks to fundamentally change the functioning of the federal government and the country socially, economically and politically.
While many people may feel that the president has been using it as a blueprint through the first year of his presidency, it’s actually unclear where he stands.
While the president has continuously distanced himself from the project, stating that he “has nothing to do with it” and that it is not a plan for his presidency, many of his policies enacted through his first year of presidency do resemble initiatives from the plan.
A large portion of Project 2025 calls for swift action within the federal government by the president. Within the first 100 days of his second term, Trump passed 142 executive orders, replacing a record of 99 previously held by FDR. These orders included establishing DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), ending birthright citizenship, imposing sanctions on the international court, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and revoking several Biden-era orders. His policy decisions follow the project’s plans on social issues, gender rights, education, and the military.
The current and previous Trump administrations also include many people tied to Heritage and Project 2025, including Steven Miller (Homeland Security Advisor), Karoline Levitt (Press Secretary), Brendan Carr (FCC chair), and Tom Homan (“border czar”). CNN found that over 140 people in the administration have connections.
President Trump has followed many of the mandates and plans for the country, but he has also directly defied them. Project 2025’s largest publication, the 900-page “Mandate for Leadership” manual outlines various directives for the government to follow to return power to the people. The mandate explains a need to dismantle federal agencies that Congress ceded much of its power and responsibility to, as it accuses them of rampant corruption, and that they are too far outside of the “President’s desires.”
The Trump administration has instead taken many measures to expand the scope of the executive branch’s power, including the use of DOGE to dismantle “wasteful” government agencies. This directly opposes Project 2025’s desire for the government to not only follow the constitution (saying that “If a conservative Administration does not respect the Constitution, no Administration will,”) but also to not proclaim new law unilaterally (as one may argue the current administration has attempted by revoking birthright citizenship and making burning of the U.S. flag illegal.)
Project 2025 positioned itself against a big “woke” government run by “elites,” calling back to the foundation of the country in liberty and for small government, but we have seen that the government’s power has expanded under President Trump. So while the administration is following Project 2025’s plans to revoke powers from civil servants, the power is not going to the people, as Project 2025 desires, but instead to the president.
