What you need to know about the plans for a second Trump presidency
[Last revised January 1, 2025] Project 2025 is a comprehensive presidential transition plan organized by The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, with support from no fewer than 34 authors, 54 Advisory institutions, and 275 individual contributors. This 900-plus page document spells out what Trump should do and how during the first 180 days of a second presidency. These recommendations will guide him as he attempts to dismantle American democracy, establish an authoritarian regime, and change virtually every aspect of our own public and private lives.
The willingness to publish Project 2025 prior to the election and to speak so openly about plans to take over the government reflect a confidence that goes beyond a mere sense of entitlement. These folks are saying the quiet part with a megaphone, presumably to normalize their extremism. Their overconfidence is a gift. It helps us anticipate what might be coming, and gain insight into the thinking within this administration.
Trump’s connections to Project 2025
During the campaign, Trump attempted to disassociate himself from Project 2025, claiming at the same time that he agreed with some of its recommendations and also that he knew nothing about them. His campaign insisted that he would follow his campaign website’s “Agenda 47” rather than Project 2025, but it became apparent that Agenda 47 was more or less a subset of Project 2025, worded to be less alarming to voters.
Trump’s advisors who contributed to Project 2025:
Project 2025 people appointed or nominated already:
All in all, CNN found 140 people who worked in the first Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025, and 240 people with ties to both Trump and Project 2025. Associated Press has described some of the Project 2025 contributors who have been appointed to a serve in the second Trump presidency, and the effect that these appointments might have.
Project 2025’s keys to dismantling the democracy
While Project 2025 recommends a seemingly endless list of changes to our government, some of these changes are worth calling out first. Combined with the Supreme Court’s assurance that the President has virtually unlimited power and immunity, these three recommendations represent a fundamental change in the structure of our government and enable the implementation of all of the other changes.
1. Purge the civil service and replace it with Trump loyalists
Project 2025 calls for a decrease in the size of the federal workforce. Even more disturbingly, the plan aims to reinstate Schedule F, a Trump-era executive order that changes the status of nonpartisan federal employees to make them fireable at will. While it is typical for a new administration to replace about 4,000 employees, a second Trump presidency promises to replace as many as 50,000. Finding replacements would be no problem because the authors of Project 2025 have been hard at work administering online training and loyalty tests, gathering a list of party loyalists to present to Trump so that he can populate the civil service with people who are prepared to execute his agenda promptly and without question.
2. Weaponize the police and military
The authors of Project 2025 advocate reviving the Insurrection Act of 1807 to use the military to participate in domestic policing. This should alarm anyone who has protested, held signs for an opponent of Donald Trump, or assisted a woman entering or exiting a Planned Parenthood clinic. The authors also recommend deploying active military personnel and the National Guard to our southern border on a permanent basis, and to round up undocumented residents and detain them. At the same time, federal oversight of state and local policing would be reduced by design, introducing inconsistencies and confusion in policing.
According to the authors of Project 2025, the Department of Justice must fall under the direct supervision and control of the President. Whom to investigate and prosecute is a decision to be made by the President, or to be made consistent with the President’s agenda. The scope of the FBI is to be refocused along similar lines. Here is Steve Bannon describing his close ties to Donald Trump as well as their plans for retribution against opponents.
How Project 2025 affects the issues you care about
Click on any topic to find out more.
Abortion, pregnancy, and birth control
Restrict access to abortion.
Eliminate federal funding to healthcare providers who perform abortions.
Defund Planned Parenthood and similar organizations, and disqualify Planned Parenthood from Medicaid and federal grant programs.
Limit access to Plan B, and prohibit pharmacies from distributing abortion medication.
Limit access to contraception.
Allow more employers to opt out of birth control coverage as part of insurance plans.
Use the Comstock Act to criminalize the sending or receiving of Mifepristone through the U.S. Mail.
Climate change
Cut federal support for renewable energy projects and dismantle the Inflation Reduction Act.
Reduce regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Withdraw from international climate agreements.
Reduce environmental regulations on businesses.
Promote carbon-based energy production on federal lands.
Seek to establish the US as a global leader in oil production.
Science and technology
Reduce funding for federal research programs. In particular, eliminate funding for any research related to climate science.
Limit federal involvement in technology standards.
Repeal net neutrality regulations.
Taxes, economy, wealth gap, and consumer protection
Repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulations.
Create more Trump-appointed positions, Senate approved or not, at the IRS.
Abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Eliminate the Department of Commerce.
Reduce business regulations.
Lower corporate tax rates.
Abolish the Federal Reserve and FDIC.
Labor
Reduce federal oversight of labor standards.
Decertify unions in numerous government agencies and push to eliminate unions in the government sector altogether.
Introduce non-union “employee involvement organizations” to compete with unions in the workplace.
Allow states and municipalities to apply for waivers from federal labor laws.
Social security and safety nets
Privatize Social Security.
Cut Medicaid and Medicare.
Healthcare and vaccines
Decrease regulations in healthcare.
Reduce funding for public health programs.
Repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Promote free-market healthcare.
Reshape the National Institutes of Health (NIH) according to conservative principles.
Allow military personnel to refuse vaccines. Reinstate those who have refused before to their previous rank and salary and with back pay.
Infrastructure, transportation, and disaster relief
Privatize infrastructure projects.
Privatize the Federal Aviation Administration.
Reduce federal disaster relief programs.
Dismantle the Inflation Reduction Act.
LGBTQIA+
Remove legal protections against discrimination claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Criminalize gender-affirming care for teenagers or adults.
Forbid the changing of names, pronouns, or ID cards to match one’s gender.
Criminalize the promotion of LGBTQIA+ books or issues by teachers or librarians.
Allow faith-based agencies to refuse adoptions for LGBTQIA+ families.
Support court rulings allowing anti-LGBTQIA+ discrimination on religious grounds.
Allow workplace discrimination on the grounds of religious exemptions.
Ban anyone who is HIV+ or who has gender dysphoria from the Armed Forces.
Ban U.S. aid to any group providing services to LGBTQIA+ people.
Diversity, DEI, Affirmative Action
Terminate DEI programs as well as Affirmative Action.
Scrub terminology related to DEI from government documents.
Prosecute “anti-white” racism.
Education, history, and “Critical Race Theory”
Dismantle the Department of Education.
Reduce federal student aid.
Increase the role of the private sector in public education.
Prohibit the federal government from using taxpayer dollars to fund “Critical Race Theory” training.
Immigration
Restructure the Department of Homeland Security.
Enact the most extensive campaign of mass deportations ever seen in our history.
Engage the Insurrection Act of 1807 to enable the military to assist in the capture and detention of undocumented immigrants.
Deploy active duty military personnel and the National Guard to the border.
The military, military personnel, and veterans
Privatize veterans’ healthcare.
Eliminate coverage of abortions or gender-affirming healthcare for military personnel and veterans.
Increase our nuclear arsenal and stockpile weapons in preparation for warfare with China.
Eliminate “Marxist indoctrination” in the military.
Freedom of speech and the media
Introduce partisan control over the Federal Communications Commission.
Realign Voice of America broadcasts to align more closely with the Project 2025 world view.
Defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The police, use of force, and protests
Limit federal involvement in local policing.
Through the Insurrection Act of 1807, use the military to participate in domestic policing.
Increase the use of capital punishment. “Obtain finality” for prisoners currently on federal death row.
Read Project 2025
The document is over 900 pages long and it rambles. However, it is searchable so that you can look up topics that interest you.
Read the budget policy proposals
This is the Heritage Foundation’s Budget Blueprint for Fiscal Year 2023. These 229 policy recommendations can be mapped to Project 2025.
Also view the 2024 documentary
Bad Faith
Reveals how Christian Nationalist leaders have spread fear and anger for decades, ultimately taking over the Republican Party and turning it into a powerful weapon to demolish democracy from within.
Available on Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Google Play, and YouTube.
Photo: Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Additional resources
- Biden-Harris campaign page describing Project 2025
- The People’s Guide to Project 2025
- Project 2025 Toolkit
- A guide to Project 2025, the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration
- Gen Z’s Guide to Project 2025
This page was prepared as a resource for those who are concerned about Project 2025 and wish to spread the word about it. Enhancements and corrections are welcome; please contact Chair@HopkintonDemocrats.org