Former President Donald Trump last week frantically denied that he had any knowledge or involvement in Project 2025, the radical right-wing plan to completely dismantle the administrative state and vastly expand the power of the executive branch.
However, progressive journalist Judd Legum has written a lengthy takedown explaining why Trump's denials of all knowledge about Project 2025 are simply not believable.
"This is false," he states bluntly about Trump's denials. "The co-editors of Project 2025, Paul Dans and Steven Groves, both held high-ranking positions in the Trump administration... 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.'"
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In addition to this, writes Legum, more than two-third of Project 2025's authors "served as members of the Trump administration" and "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.'"
In addition to all this, Legum shows that Trump has openly embraced many of the ideas in the past that were pushed by the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank that is behind Project 2025.
"Prior to the 2016 election, the Heritage Foundation created a similar project called 'Mandate for Leadership,'" he writes. "The 'Mandate for Leadership' contained '334 unique policy recommendations.' One year into Trump's term, the Heritage Foundation announced that '64 percent of the policy prescriptions were included in Trump’s budget, implemented through regulatory guidance, or under consideration for action in accordance with The Heritage Foundation’s original proposals.'"
