Donald Trump’s campaign is still working to distance itself from the Heritage Foundation’s extremist blueprint to uproot American democracy, Project 2025.
Speaking at the CNN-Politico Grill on Thursday, senior Trump adviser and co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita suggested that any reported link between Project 2025 and Trump’s plans for a potential second administration would be “complete and utter bullshit.”
“The president has made it clear, these people do not speak for him, they do not speak for the campaign,” LaCivita told Politico’s politics bureau chief, Jonathan Martin, calling the project a “pain in the ass.”
LaCivita added that it’s “pure speculation” to suggest that the former Trump staffers currently building Project 2025 have a future in Trump’s potential next presidency.
Trump’s campaign has grown increasingly frustrated by reporting on the affiliation between the campaign and Project 2025’s agenda, despite their apparent ties, and the program’s intention to serve as a de facto policy agenda for the Trump campaign. Project 2025 includes policies ranging from the dismantling of government agencies, such as the Department of Education, to the implementation of national abortion bans and contraception restrictions.
The campaign and the project share political philosophies and key allies, including former Trump advisors Stephen Miller and John McEntee. Project 2025 employs more than 100 people who previously worked under Trump. And, as much as Trump wants to distance himself from the apparatus, Project 2025 has been thoroughly involved in staffing a future Trump presidency: Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts has claimed the project has already “trained and vetted” more than 10,000 people to replace executive branch employees should the presumptive GOP presidential candidate win in November.
But they may have more on the way—in November 2023, Trump allies claimed they were looking to install as many as 54,000 pre-vetted Trump loyalists to the executive branch via a “Schedule F” executive order.
Trump only recently began to drive a wedge between himself and the plan he once called a “colossal mandate to save America.” Earlier this month, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Project 2025 had “nothing to do” with his run for president.
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump posted. “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.”
The public split came two days after Roberts issued an ominous warning for leftists ahead of what he called a “second American Revolution.”
“[W]e are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts said on Steve Bannon’s podcast War Room, celebrating the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.
But Trump’s sudden pushback didn’t rattle people involved with Project 2025—instead, they felt confident that his turn of favor wouldn’t stand in the way of their ability to implement the far-right agenda come inauguration day.
“The general sense is this is a PR gesture for him to provide himself maximum room to maneuver and avoid making any commitments at this point,” one source on Project 2025’s advisory board told NBC News. “He wants to avoid having to answer questions about anything he doesn’t want to answer questions about. Most people I know who are involved with it don’t seem overly worried that this actually constitutes a repudiation and is going to mean anything on Jan. 20.”
