Far-right conspiracy theorist webcaster Alex Jones is not happy with former President Donald Trump's about-face on Project 2025.
According to Newsweek, Jones took Trump to task this week for his attempt to distance himself from the infamous Heritage Foundation-backed policy agenda, which has triggered alarm among political scientists and is being used as a wedge issue by President Joe Biden's campaign to alarm moderate voters who may be considering a vote for the former president.
"Trump gets told by his advisers and people who really just don't want competition in his new White House … 'Oh God, these are radicals, sir. You've got to come out and distance yourself,'" Jones told his listeners. "It's the Heritage Foundation, Trump. And again, Trump's really smart; he's got good instincts. He doesn't understand Republican machinery."
Project 2025 calls for the top-to-bottom restructuring of the entire federal government, with most of the civil service being dismissed and replaced with party loyalists who stand ready to implement far-right policy, from codifying Christian nationalism to harshly scaling back immigration, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, military families' benefits, public transportation, and a wide variety of other programs and investments.
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Amid the public attention on the program, Trump took to his Truth Social platform last week and proclaimed that, "I know nothing about Project 2025. 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."
This was followed up by Heritage Foundation officials also asserting that their proposals are not affiliated with the Trump campaign.
Despite these disavowals, many of the people who have helped to craft Project 2025, like John McEntee, previously served in the Trump administration, and Trump tried to implement at least some of the policies outlined in the project on his way out of office, like reclassifying federal employees to strip them of labor protections.
Jones, whose InfoWars radio program and associated dietary supplement empire has long been a staple of the far-right conspiracy theory ecosystem, entered bankruptcy after being found liable in a series of lawsuits by the families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims after he used his platform to proclaim them hoaxers and turned their lives upside down with harassment. A bankruptcy court last month approved the orderly winding down of InfoWars' parent company and the liquidation of Jones' personal assets.
His program remains on the air at least for the time being.
