Project 2025: What Biden and Trump have said about the proposal for a new government
Project 2025 has been gaining attention in recent days, after actress Taraji P. Henson mentioned it during the 2024 BET Awards.
Here is what to know about the plan to dismantle the U.S. government and replace it with a new vision, and what President Joe Biden and Trump himself are saying about the movement.
What is Project 2025?
Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is a collection of conservative policy proposals and potential picks to fill positions if Donald Trump is reelected as president in November.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative nonprofit, organized the plan in 2022 which is "guided by the conservative cause to address and reform the failings of big government and an undemocratic administrative state," according to the Project 2025 website.
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This project will build on four pillars that will, collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative administration: a policy agenda, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook.
The nearly 1,000-page plan involves having civic infrastructure in place in 2025 to takeover and discard what Republicans claim is a "deep state" bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers, the Associated Press reported last year.
Trump-era conservatives are pushing to remove federal employees they consider an obstacle to a president’s agenda and want to replace them with individuals whose beliefs are aligned with a Republican president and are willing to undertake a new approach to governing.
According to the AP, if Trump is reelected as president, the plan would also restore Schedule F, an executive order during Trump's first term in office that reclassifies thousands of federal employees as at-will workers who can be fired.
The plan also calls for installing top allies in acting administrative roles to push past senators who attempt to block presidential Cabinet nominees.
What did Taraji P. Henson say about Project 2025?
During the BET Awards, Henson, who hosted the show, implored people to research the term to learn more, FOX 5 Atlanta reported.
"I'm telling y'all, you better show up and show out. I'm being serious now," Henson said as she looked directly into the camera in the middle of the show on June 30. "It's not just about the presidential election, you guys. It's time for us to play chess, not checkers," Henson said.
Does Trump Support Project 2025?
FILE - Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Historic Greenbrier Farms in Chesapeake, Virginia, on July 28, 2024. (Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Since some of the people involved in Project 2025 are former senior Trump administration officials, many are wondering if the former president himself supports the movement.
On Friday, Trump appeared to distance himself from Project 2025 by posting on his social media website that he "knows nothing" about it.
"I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them," he wrote.
The project’s director is Paul Dans, who served as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under Trump. Trump's campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt was featured in one of Project 2025's videos. John McEntee, a former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office in the Trump administration, is a senior adviser.
Project 2025 said in a statement it is not tied to a specific candidate or campaign.
"We are a coalition of more than 110 conservative groups advocating policy and personnel recommendations for the next conservative president," it said. "But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement."
Biden’s response to Project 2025
President Joe Biden's reelection campaign is working to draw more attention to the agenda, particularly as Biden tries to keep fellow Democrats on board after his disastrous debate.
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"He’s trying to hide his connections to his allies’ extreme Project 2025 agenda," Biden said of Trump in a statement released by his campaign Saturday. "The only problem? It was written for him, by those closest to him. Project 2025 should scare every single American. "
On Thursday, as the country celebrated Independence Day and Biden prepared for his television interview after his halting debate performance, the president's campaign posted on X a shot from the dystopian TV drama "The Handmaid's Tale" showing a group of women in the show's red dresses and white hats standing in formation by a reflecting pool with a cross at the far end where the Washington Monument should be. The story revolves around women who are stripped of their identities and forced to give birth to children for other couples in a totalitarian regime.
"Fourth of July under Trump’s Project 2025," the post said.
This story was reported from Detroit. Daniel Miller, FOX 5 Atlanta and The Associated Press contributed.