Topline
Project 2025 is working on a detailed policy playbook for the first 180 days of a potential Trump administration—the “fourth pillar” of its multi-pronged blueprint for the next conservative president—but unlike its 900-page policy agenda that’s garnered widespread scrutiny, secret footage revealed Thursday suggests the public is unlikely to ever find out what it says.
Russell Vought, then acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, arrives to testify … [+]
Key Facts
Project 2025 is a multi-part agenda spearheaded by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation that lays out a policy roadmap for the next conservative president—namely Trump—including wide-ranging policy suggestions proposing an entire overhaul of the executive branch.
In addition to a 900-page policy agenda laying out proposals and staffing efforts, Project 2025 says the “fourth pillar” of its plan is a “ playbook” providing more detailed policy plans for a future Trump administration’s first 180 days, which includes “a comprehensive, concrete transition plan for each federal agency.”
Unlike Project 2025’s initial policy agenda, however, that playbook has not been publicly released yet, and secretly recorded footage released Thursday by the Centre for Climate Reporting—in which undercover journalists posing as potential donors spoke directly with Project 2025 authors—underscores that’s by design.
Russell Vought, an author of Project 2025’s agenda who’s reportedly in charge of the work on the playbook, told the journalists the playbook plans are “very, very closely held” and would not be publicly released, with Project 2025 officials instead just handing the materials over directly to an incoming Trump administration.
Micah Meadowcroft, a Vought aide also working on Project 2025, told the undercover journalists the group was intentionally keeping the playbook a secret, including by ensuring staffers know the plans before Trump enters office so they won’t have to converse over government work emails—which means journalists and the public cannot request information about the playbook through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The Heritage Foundation has not yet responded to a request for comment on the footage and whether the playbook will be publicly released.
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Crucial Quote
“There are parts of the plan that we will not share with the left,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts told right-wing broadcaster Sebastian Gorka in October about Project 2025. “Just like a good football team, we wouldn’t want to tip off our playbook to the left.” Roberts also said the aim of the playbook is to have “executive orders, rules ready to go … so that when we get to the end of the first calendar year” of a second Trump presidency, “we know that what we’re doing is reclaiming this country.”
Chief Critic
House Democrats sent a letter to Roberts earlier in August asking for more details about the playbook and for it to be publicly disclosed, noting Heritage has “conspicuously declined to publish or disclose any of the prioritized early actions that we believe would obviously be the most important parts of Project 2025.” “With all due respect, if the published part of [Project 2025] is so extreme that it has alarmed millions of Americans, including many conservatives, what additional controversy are you worried about?” the lawmakers wrote regarding Roberts’ unwillingness to release the playbook. “Your secrecy invites, and perhaps concedes, the worst negative inferences.”
What We Don’t Know
How the playbook could influence a future Trump presidency. Trump has publicly disavowed Project 2025 and denied any connection to it, and he would not be under any obligation to follow its policies if elected. Vought said in the footage released Thursday he wasn’t worried about Trump’s attacks on Project 2025, however, saying the ex-president has “blessed” Vought’s work and is “very supportive of what we do.” The right-wing official, who previously served in Trump’s administration and was named as an author of the Republican National Committee’s formal 2024 platform, said he maintains a good relationship with Trump and believes his team would be able to directly hand its transition playbook to the ex-president and his aides should Trump be elected. “If a battle plan is out there that will do what he wants, there are people like me that have his trust that will be able to get it to him in whatever position we’re at,” Vought told the undercover reporters.
What Does Project 2025 Say?
Project 2025’s original policy agenda proposes sweeping changes to the executive branch that would broadly align it with conservative ideologies and give the president more power. It would eliminate some agencies entirely, like the Departments of Education and Homeland Security, and would broadly replace career civil servants with political appointees. The agenda proposes getting rid of climate change and LGBTQ rights initiatives, ending student loan forgiveness, withdrawing federal approval for abortion drug mifepristone and imposing a baseline tax rate, among other measures. While the details of the playbook are still under wraps, Vought told the undercover journalists the group authored guidance to lawyers on Trump’s authority to use law enforcement against protesters, saying it’s “important for [Trump]
to remember and for his lawyers to affirm” that the president “has the ability to, both along the border and elsewhere, to maintain law and order with the military.” Vought also said that while Trump has publicly said he would leave abortion up to the states, he’s “never seen [Trump] stand in the way of a pro-life initiative that actually is real,” and suggested the ex-president would still give power to people in his administration to take steps like defunding Planned Parenthood.
Tangent
In addition to its policy work, Project 2025 is also working on staffing a possible second Trump administration, including through a LinkedIn-style database for federal employee hopefuls and training programs for potential government staffers. ProPublica published many of those training videos, which are not otherwise publicly available, in which GOP figures urge future workers to be “on board with helping implement a dramatic course correction,” “eradicate” references to climate change in government materials, and avoid creating paper trails of their work.
Key Background
Project 2025 is part of a decades-long effort by the Heritage Foundation to advise incoming conservative presidents, with the organization saying they’ve provided policy agendas since Ronald Reagan’s presidency. The Heritage Foundation first released its initial policy proposals through Project 2025 in 2023, but the agenda only garnered widespread attention in recent months, as the Biden and Harris campaigns have pointed to the agenda to persuade voters not to elect Trump and as Trump has spoken out against the project. Trump claimed in a July Truth Social post that he has “nothing to do” with Project 2025 and thinks some of its ideas are “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” and Trump campaign advisor Chris LaCivita has denounced the project as a “pain in the ass” to the ex-president’s campaign. Project 2025 head Paul Dans stepped down from his position in August amid the criticism, and Roberts also moved back the publication of his forthcoming book proposing a “second American Revolution” until after the election, which has a foreword by Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio. The Centre for Climate Reporting’s footage of Vought and Meadowcroft is the latest in a stream of reports that have tied Trump to Project 2025 despite his attempts to distance himself from it, including noting hundreds of people from his former administration are involved with Project 2025 and a Washington Post interview with Roberts from April in which the Heritage chief said he had “personally” briefed Trump on the project.
