(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail but has since nominated several authors or contributors from the controversial conservative presidential wish list to his administration.
Trump called the Project 2025 policy proposals — which include restrictions on abortion pills, birth control pills and Medicare access, as well as eliminating a couple of federal agencies — “extreme, seriously extreme” in a July 20 rally.
“I don’t know anything about it. I don’t want to know anything about it,” he previously said, despite having many connections to its authors and contributors.
Democrats pounced on Trump for Project 2025 during the election season, calling it a warning of what is to come under a second Trump term.
“Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins,” the Biden campaign stated.
Project 2025 is an over 900-page playbook of policy proposals created by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation intended to guide the next conservative administration. The organization behind the document told ABC News in a past statement that it was not intended to speak for any candidate during the election.
Project 2025 and Trump’s Agenda47 share similarities — including proposals to eliminate the Department of Education, increase fossil fuel energy production, and begin mass deportations.
At the ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump reiterated his earlier sentiment on the project. “This was a group of people that got together, they came up with some ideas, I guess some good, some bad, but it makes no difference. I have nothing to do [with it].”
Now, several Project 2025 authors and contributors are not just connected to Trump, but also nominated for roles in his administration.
Here’s a look at which Project 2025 contributors may have a place in the incoming Trump administration:
Russ Vought
Russ Vought, who is cited as authoring a chapter on “Executive Office of the President” for Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” has been nominated to head the Office of Management and Budget. He was also the RNC platform committee’s policy director.
During Trump’s first term, Vought led the Office of Management and Budget, a department meant to oversee the president’s vision across the executive branch for everything from budgeting to managing certain agencies.
He could return to the post after authoring an entire chapter of Project 2025, where he argues federal regulatory agencies that aren’t under the control of the White House should have less autonomy: “A President today assumes office to find a sprawling federal bureaucracy that all too often is carrying out its own policy plans and preferences — or, worse yet, the policy plans and preferences of a radical, supposedly ‘woke’ faction of the country,” the chapter read.
In the chapter, he outlined ways his office could help consolidate executive power by using existing tools to impose a crackdown on federal spending and work with Congress to pass policy and reforms that would rein in what he calls the “administrative state.”
In a November interview on the “Tucker Carlson Show,” Vought claimed he helped the president-elect to exert executive power during his first term: “The president wanted to fund the wall. We at OMB gave him a plan to be able to go and fund the wall through money that was Department of Defense and to use that because Congress wouldn’t give him the ordinary money at the Department of Homeland Security.”
Pete Hoekstra
Pete Hoekstra, who is listed as a contributor to Project 2025, has been tapped to be the ambassador to Canada.
Most recently, Hoekstra served as chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. He previously served as the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands during Trump’s first term.
Stephen Miller
Stephen Miller, the former Trump aide, led an interest group that advised Project 2025 on policy. Trump has named Miller as his Deputy Chief of Staff for his second term.
Miller told ABC News in July that he has “zero involvement” with Project 2025, only making an advice video for students.
America First Legal, founded by Miller, was previously listed as an advisory board member for the project.
Brendan Carr
Brendan Carr, Trump’s nomination for chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is credited as the author of Project 2025’s FCC recommendations which include: a ban on TikTok, restrictions on social media moderation, and more.
Carr would be tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband. Trump has suggested that he would expand the White House’s influence over the FCC and potentially punish TV networks that cover him in a way he doesn’t like.
Carr is a longtime member of the commission and served previously as the FCC’s general counsel and as the senior Republican for the FCC. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Trump and President Joe Biden to the commission.
John Ratcliffe
Ratcliffe, listed as a contributor who assisted “in the development and writing” of Project 2025, has been nominated to serve as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Ratcliffe is a three-term Republican congressman from Texas and served as the director of national intelligence from mid-2020 until the end of Trump’s first term.
Project 2025’s Intelligence Community chapter, credited to The Heritage Foundation’s intelligence research fellow Dustin J. Carmack, notes that the “CIA’s success depends on firm direction from the President and solid internal CIA Director–appointed leadership. Decisive senior leaders must commit to carrying out the President’s agenda and be willing to take calculated risks.”
Tom Homan
Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan has been designated as Trump’s “border czar” — which is not an official Cabinet position.
Homan, who is expected to be in charge of the mass deportations promised by the Trump campaign, is listed as a contributor to Project 2025 who assisted in its “development and writing.”
Project 2025’s Department of Homeland Security chapter, credited to Trump’s former Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli, calls for full use of ICE’s “expedited removal” authority and further development of immigrant detention spaces. This all aligns with Trump’s immigration proposals on mass deportations and funds for the construction of detention centers.
Other links to Project 2025
Christopher Miller is credited with the project’s Department of Defense recommendations. Miller served as Acting Secretary of Defense and Special Assistant to the President under Trump from November 2020 to January 2021.
Ben Carson is credited with the project’s Housing and Urban Development recommendations. He served as the Secretary of HUD under Trump’s first administration.
Adam Candeub is credited with the project’s Federal Trade Commission recommendations. He served under the Trump administration as Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Telecommunications and Information.
Bernard L. McNamee is credited with recommendations on the Department of Energy and Related Commissions. He was nominated to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by Trump in October 2018.
Cuccinelli — who wrote the Department of Homeland Security section — was also part of Trump’s former administration as the Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security.
The RNC platform committee’s Deputy Policy Director Ed Martin is also president of the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, which is listed on the project’s advisory board.
Others connected to Trump, including Trump’s United Nations Commission on the Status of Women appointee Lisa Correnti, are listed among the contributors.
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