There has been a lot of discussion about Trump’s connection to Project 2025, a 922-page document, written by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. Is the Democrat’s assertion that Trump is connected to the effort, correct? What does Project 2025 actually say? Project 2025 contains a multitude of items, more than we can cover in this article.
Harris, Trump, and Project 2025
Is Trump connected to Project 2025? According to the slightly left leaning newspaper USA Today, this is a false assertion (read more here). The slightly right leaning NY Post also refutes the notion that Trump is connected to it. CNN has gone on record to say that Harris has made false claims about Trump and Project 2025. She said Trump, if elected, would cut Social Security. While the document says very little about Social Security, it does not propose cuts in the program (read more here).
Why then are Democrats claiming a Trump connection to Project 2025? In this hotly contested political race, each party is looking for ways to attack the credibility of the other and instill fear in the electorate to garner votes. To accomplish this, each party has made assertions about their opponent with the hope that it will resonate in the minds of undecided voters. While there may be several reasons to be hesitant about a second Trump presidency, his connection to Project 2025 or lack thereof, isn’t one of them. What is true about Project 2025? Here’s what I found after reading much of the 922-page document.
Inside Project 2025
The Heritage Foundation published Project 2025 in 2023. There were 34 authors, 276 contributors, and 2 editors. Among the contributors, about 71% of them worked for the federal government during the first Trump administration. Some worked closely with Trump himself.
What prompted the creation of Project 2025? The premise behind it is that the federal government is far too powerful and too inefficient. This is a widely held belief among Americans. However, there are a few items in the document that run contrary to the Democrats agenda. For example, Project 2025 would restore the definition of “sex” as “biological sex at birth” instead of “sexual orientation and gender identity.” According to a Pew research poll from May 2022, 60% of those polled believe gender is determined by the sex assigned at birth. Yet, Democrats continue to define sex as ones “sexual orientation and gender identity.” Thus, the document states, “The CDC should immediately end its collection of data on gender identity, which legitimizes the unscientific notion that men can become women (and vice versa)…”
Another example involves abortion. Liberals promote abortion as health care. The Project 2025 document (page 455) states, “It should fund studies into the risks and complications of abortion and ensure that it corrects and does not promote misinformation regarding the comparative health
and psychological benefits of childbirth versus the health and psychological risks of intentionally taking a human life through abortion.” Conservatives see the issue as more than a woman’s right to choose. They see abortion as the taking of life. In general, conservatives are against abortion but do believe exceptions to protect the life of the mother, rape, incest are appropriate.
Project 2025 also exposes some conflicts of interest in the federal government. One such conflict is found in the National Institute of Health (NIH). It states, “In 2018, it was revealed that a $100 million NIH study on the benefits of moderate drinking was funded by the beer and liquor industry.” It also points out how the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) owns half of the patent for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, among thousands of other pharma patents. It goes on to say that several NIH employees personally receive up to $150,000 per year from Moderna vaccine sales.
Project 2025 does have some controversial items within the document, but its overarching theme is that government has become too large, too inefficient, and there are too many agencies whose actions go well beyond their charter. In short, the document makes suggestions that would reorganize the federal bureaucracy, returning agencies to their original mandates.
Democrats have suggested Trump will enact its provisions if elected in November. While Trump may indeed implement some of the provisions of Project 2025, many of them are standard conservative ideals and not something from a horror movie as Democrats have suggested.