Project 2025 shakes leadership after criticism from Democrats, Trump, but says work in progress

NEW YORK — Heritage Foundation 2025 Project Director Shares Vision complete renovation federal government resigned on Tuesday following a backlash from Donald Trump’s election campaign, which tried to dissociate itself from the agenda created by many of the former president’s allies and former aides.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Paul Dans’ departure came after the project had “exactly fulfilled its mission.” Roberts, who has become a key advocate for the effort, plans to lead Project 2025 in the future.

“Our collective efforts to build a workforce for decision-makers at all levels — federal, state and local — will continue,” Roberts said.

What started as a little-known far-right wish list is now a centerpiece of the 2024 campaign. Democrats have spent the past few months turning Project 2025 into a key election-year cudgel, pointing to the ultraconservative policy agenda as a glimpse into just how extreme the next Trump administration could be.

The nearly 1,000-page handbook outlines sweeping changes to the federal government, including a change to personnel regulations to ensure that government workers they are more steadfast to the president. Heritage is building a database of potential recent hires to fill Trump’s second White House.

But Trump has repeatedly distanced himself from the document, saying on social media that he has not read it and knows nothing about it. At a rally in Michigan earlier this month, he said the 2025 Project was written by people on the “far right” and that some of the things in it are “seriously extreme.”

“President Trump’s campaign has made it clear for over a year that The 2025 Project is not affiliated with the campaign, does not speak on its behalf, and should not be associated in any way with the campaign or the president,” Trump campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement.

They said: “Reports of the demise of Project 2025 are welcomed and should serve as a warning to anyone or any group attempting to misrepresent their influence over President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”

But a senator from Ohio. JD VanceTrump’s vice presidential candidate, wrote a foreword to Roberts’ upcoming book, in which he praises the work of the Heritage Foundation. A copy of the foreword was obtained by The Associated Press.

“The Heritage Foundation is not some random outpost on Capitol Hill; it is and has been the most influential engine of ideas for Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump,” Vance wrote.

Quoting Roberts elsewhere in the book, Vance writes, “We all realize now that the time has come to turn full circle and load our muskets. In the battles to come, these ideas are essential weapons.”

Trump campaign representatives did not respond to messages asking whether the campaign asked or pressured Dans to leave the project. The Heritage Foundation said Dans left voluntarily and was not pressured by the Trump campaign. Dans did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Project 2025 has many ties to Trump’s orbit

In many ways, Project 2025 was a kind of potential far-right White House in waiting, a constellation of outside groups that would be ready to spring into action if Trump won a second term.

The project not only detailed policy proposals that Trump could implement on his first day in the White House, but Project 2025 also built a database of potential hires’ resumes, drawing Americans to Washington to staff the recent Trump administration.

Many Trump allies and former top aides contributed to the project. Dans previously worked as a human resources official in the Trump administration. And Trump regularly campaigns for many of the same proposals in Project 2025 — from mass deportations to the overthrow of the Justice Department — although some of her other proposals, including further taxes on tipscontradict some of the promises Trump made during the election campaign.

It was clear that Project 2025 was becoming a liability for Trump and the Republican Party.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign and leading Democrats have repeatedly linked Trump to the 2025 Project, advocating against a second term for the former president.

Harris campaign officials said Project 2025 is closely aligned with Trump’s agenda, which was written by his allies so he could “impose” it on the country.

“Hiding the 920-page bill from the American people doesn’t make it any less real. In fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding,” Harris and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said.

For months, the Trump campaign warned outside organizations, especially Heritage, that they did not speak on behalf of the former president.

In an interview from the Republican National Convention, first published by Politico, LaCivita said Project 2025 is a problem because “the issues that are going to win us this campaign are not the issues they want to talk about.”

As a former Heritage aide said, it is almost certain that the Trump campaign forced the change.

The Trump team was well aware that it could not risk any mistakes from Heritage in the final stages before the election.

By announcing his departure, Roberts apparently wanted to send a signal to the Trump campaign that changes were being made at Heritage to address any concerns about the 2025 Project, said another conservative familiar with the situation.

If Trump wins the U.S. presidential election, he will almost certainly have to rely on Heritage and other outside entities to support him quickly fill a recent administration, the person said.

This individual and his former assistant spoke to each other only on condition of anonymity and discussing private conversations.

Heritage says Project 2025 won’t go away

The 2025 Project website will remain energetic, the Heritage Foundation said Tuesday, and the group will continue to vet CVs for its database of nearly 20,000 potential officials eager to implement the government’s vision.

The group said Dans, who started the project from scratch more than two years ago, will leave the Heritage Foundation in August. Roberts will now lead Project 2025 operations.

Roberts has he was met with criticism in recent weeks after saying on an episode of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast that the country is in the midst of a “second American revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it.”

Earlier this month, in an interview before he began serving a prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena, Bannon mentioned Roberts as the type of leader who could land a senior position in the Trump White House.