FIRST ON FOX: In the heat of the 2024 election cycle, the name Project 2025 was on the lips of Democrats and mainstream media figures everywhere, until it was not.
President Donald Trump’s win ushered in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its de-facto leader, Elon Musk. At the same time, Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, launched DOGE committees in Congress, and Project 2025 appeared to fall to the political wayside.
Trump himself repeatedly dispelled allegations he and Project 2025 – a thousand-page policy proposal product of the conservative Heritage Foundation – were joined at the political hip.
Meanwhile, Heritage leaders past and present, like Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese and Heritage President Kevin Roberts, rejected claims there has been anything radical about Project 2025. The quadrennial work has been published under various titles and compositions since the 1980 presidential cycle, with some exceptions.
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Roberts, who wrote the foreword to Project 2025, said voters’ collective voices ushered in Trump and DOGE’s current work, not necessarily the policy proposals of Washington’s conservative “do-tank” or scholars inside-the-beltway writ-large.
“The American people delivered a clear mandate in November: dismantle the bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy that is the Deep State. And the latest polling – a 53% approval rating – confirms overwhelming support for President Trump’s efforts to do just that,” he said.
When asked about liberals’ panic over Project 2025 and how it has been muted with the rise of DOGE, Roberts suggested the left will latch onto anything to make an issue out of it if they believe they can make gains.
“The Left has no new ideas—just unpopular ones. When they fail to win on substance, they simply choose to attack. First, it was Project 2025. Now, it’s DOGE. Different name, same baseless fearmongering,” Roberts said in a Monday interview. “But make no mistake: the American people are ready for real change, and we’re not backing down.”
Nonetheless, Project 2025 became styled as a “right-wing boogeyman” talking point on the left.
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Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., founded the “Stop Project 2025 Task Force” last year, comparing the project to a “Blitzkrieg” and saying that lawmakers must understand it and “prepare ourselves accordingly.”
At the Democratic National Convention, both Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., and Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia, held up copies of Project 2025 on stage.
“It is a radical plan to drag us backwards, bankrupt the middle class, and raise prices on working class families like yours and mine,” said Kenyatta, who has since been elected DNC vice chairman along with gun control activist David Hogg.
The Project’s rumored reputation became fodder for constituents at town halls as well, including in one swing-seat congressional race where a Republican’s incredulous response led to a viral moment, according to Politico.
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New Jersey Rep. Tom Kean Jr. was asked about Project 2025 at such an event and responded he had never read the document.
“The first time I’ve ever heard of being supportive of it was when I was accused of supporting it,” Kean reportedly replied.
One of Trump and Musk’s more recent major endeavors – taking an ax to USAID – is more a project of DOGE, while Project 2025 suggests a more measured approach to rein in the agency’s expenditures and politicization.
That project section, authored by former agency COO Max Primorac, describes USAID as having been “deformed” by the Biden administration to pursue a “divisive political and cultural agenda.”
Primorac suggests the next administration “scale back” USAID’s global footprint and return it to pre-COVID budget levels while “deradicalizing” its programs and cutting its international affairs accounts.
Additionally, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli wrote in Project 2025 that the president should “pursue legislation to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security” and that it has not “gelled into one DHS” as was its goal when founded after 9/11.
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DOGE Chair Elon Musk. (Getty)
Cuccinelli had argued that breaking up DHS along “mission[-related] lines” would lead to a more effective government apparatus.
Instead, Trump and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem have expanded DHS’ role versus the Biden administration, including the addition of former ICE acting Director Tom Homan as border czar.
DOGE’s ruminations about reforming or trimming the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – which have enraged the likes of its proverbial “founder” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. – were, however, mirrored in the policy proposal anthology.
“Elon Musk and the guy who wrote Project 2025, Russ Vought, are trying to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” Warren said Monday. “If they succeed, CEOs and Wall Street will once again be free to trick, trap and cheat you.”
Vought did not write Project 2025. He was credited as the author for Chapter 2, which analyzes the executive office of the president.
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Former Chase-Manhattan Bank Vice President Robert Bowes called CFPB “highly politicized, damaging, and utterly unaccountable” in a section of the project he authored.
“It is unconstitutional. Congress should abolish the CFPB and reverse Dodd–Frank Section 1061, thus returning the consumer protection function of the CFPB to banking regulators,” Bowes wrote.
Recent media headlines have tried to tie DOGE to the project, with critical stories headlined “Project 2025 Architect” in reference to people like Vought.
Roberts said Trump’s team should be the beneficiary of such headlines, in that “he and his team deserve the credit” – and that it is a welcome sight that people who embody Heritage’s guiding principles are being tapped for top positions in the new administration.
“Heritage is thrilled to see President Trump appoint so many hardworking patriots who put America First. Russ is one of the great statesmen of our age—a brilliant, principled leader with the vision and intellect to take on ‘The Swamp’ and win.”
“Between Russ at the helm of OMB and Elon at the helm of DOGE, they will rein in wasteful spending, restore fiscal discipline, and ensure that our government serves the people—not the other way around.”
Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital.
He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant.
Charles covers media, politics and culture for Fox News Digital.
Charles is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Temple University with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. Story tips can be sent to [email protected].
