FTA:

The truth is Project 2025 was enabled by a raft of former Trump administration officials, including Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management; John McEntee, former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office; Rick Dearborn, former White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, intergovernmental affairs and implementation; Ben Carson, former Housing and Urban Development secretary; Ken Cuccinelli, former deputy secretary of homeland security; Peter Navarro, former director of the White House National Trade Council and director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy; Christopher Miller, former acting secretary of defense; Stephen Moore, an adviser to Trump's 2016 campaign; Russell Vought, former director of the Office of Management and Budget; William Pendley, former acting director of the Bureau of Land Management; Paul Winfree, former director of budget policy; Brooks Tucker, former chief of staff for the Department of Veterans Affairs; Roger Severino, former director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services; Kiron Skinner, former director of policy planning at the State Department; and Bernard McNamee, former commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

In fact, Project 2025 is staffed by more than 200 former officials of the Trump administration.

Here are some connections between Trump's proposed policies and the policies proposed by Project 2025 along with detailed plans on how to execute them:

(I)n reality, Trump and Project 2025 share the same vision for where the US should go in a conservative presidency. His platform, dubbed Agenda 47, overlaps with Project 2025 on most major policy issues. Project 2025 often includes more details on how some key conservative goals could be carried out, offering the meat for Trumpian policy ideas often delivered as soundbites.

As the Guardian has reported, Project 2025 wants to gut civil service, putting far more roles in federal government in the hands of a president as political appointees, which would erode checks and balances. Trump, for his part, tried to do the same in 2020 shortly before losing the election, an idea known as "Schedule F".

Project 2025 proposes mass deportations of more than 11 million undocumented immigrants and stringent rules on migrants. So does Trump, and so does the Republican National Committee's platform.

Trump wants to get rid of the federal education department, as does Project 2025, echoing a long-held policy wish on the right. The project details how this could happen and other ways to give states more control over education, at the potential expense of students. Both Trump and the project share goals of limiting LGBTQ+ rights and diversity initiatives in schools.

Trump often rails against cities run by Democrats, especially Washington DC, and talks about ways to crack down on them, renewing the idea he attempted in his first term to withhold federal funds as a way to enforce immigration policies. Project 2025 has some ideas on how he could do that more forcefully next time.

Any questions? (emphasis mine):

The co-editors of Project 2025, Paul Dans and Steven Groves, both held high-ranking positions in the Trump administration. Under Trump, Dans served as Chief of Staff at the Office of Personnel Management, the agency responsible for staffing the federal government, and was a senior advisor at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Groves served Trump in the White House as Deputy Press Secretary and Assistant Special Counsel.

Project 2025's two associate directors, Spencer Chretien and Troup Hemenway, are also tightly connected with Trump. Chretien was Special Assistant to President Donald J. Trump and Associate Director of Presidential Personnel, "helping to identify, recruit, and place hundreds of political appointees at all levels of government." Previously, Trump appointed Chretien to a position at HUD. Hemenway also served as an Associate Director of Presidential Personnel and previously worked on Trump's 2016 campaign and Trump's 2016 transition team.

Project 2025's 922-page policy agenda has 30 chapters and 34 authors. Twenty-five of Project 2025's authors served as members of the Trump administration. Another Project 2025 author, Stephen Moore, was nominated by Trump to the Federal Reserve but forced to withdraw "over his past inflammatory writings about women." Further, William Walton, the co-author of the chapter on the Department of the Treasury, was a key member of Trump's transition team.

All told, of the 38 people responsible for writing and editing Project 2025, 31 were appointed or nominated to positions in the Trump administration and transition. In other words, while Trump claims he has "nothing to do" with the people who created Project 2025, over 81% had formal roles in his first administration.