Project 2025 Status
Project 2025 is also known as the “Presidential Transition Project of the US Conservative Party,” an electoral playbook for a GOP 2025 victory. Project 2025 was released as a PDF document and in book form in summer 2023 by The Heritage Foundation. The blueprint is 887 pages long, broken down into 30 chapters, each covering a department of the federal government. The chapters were written by a different author or coauthors, many of them former officials from the 2016 Trump administration, as well as 400 scholars and policy experts from across the conservative movement and US. It was edited by the leadership of The Heritage Foundation, which is guiding its promotion.
Project 2025’s overarching goal is a “top to bottom” blueprint for systematic reform of the current federal system of governance to “destroy the Administrative State.” That includes a sweeping and targeted goal of removing, or rolling back, federal policies deemed to be examples of “leftist wokeism”: programs to support gender and LGBTQ+ civil rights, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), and Biden policies in energy, environmental policy, defense, and international aid – among key sectors.
Our chapter-by-chapter breakdown, below, mirrors the editorial content of the Project 2025 blueprint: one chapter per department of the federal government. Our summary was produced by a small editorial team of the Stop the Coup 2025 campaign.
Our goal here is to provide a straightforward, non-editorialized, brief overview of the main ideas presented in each chapter, followed by a bulleted list of key recommendations for restructuring the department, and our editorial commentary about the proposed reforms.
This Summary (as well as the 30 individual chapter summaries), and a condensed 10-page Key Points” document of key proposals, are available for free download at our website: www.stopthecoup2025.org. We have posted the full Project 2025 blueprint there, too, as well as materials, reports, and news related to the conservative agenda, including resources for community education and mobilization.
“Project 2025” marks the second major vision document, or Mandate for Leadership, by Christian right groups; the first was in 1981, the year Ronald Reagan became president. By the end of that year, sixty percent of their proposed reforms had become policy, they claim. After Trump was elected in 2016, conservatives pushed through two-thirds of their fifth Mandate for Leadership agenda.
As the newest vision paper, Project 2025 carries forward the unfinished proposals of 2016 and 2022, but represents a major departure in both the scope and the granular detail of its ambition to recapture the White House and overhaul our system of government and power structure.
Project 2025 backs a vision of a smaller federal government, shifting decision-making power to the state level of government and, where possible, shifting government functions and responsibilities to the private sector. That’s not a surprise. But in what marks a radical departure, it backs a “unitary executive theory” of power, giving special, unprecedented, “supreme” powers to the Executive branch to carry out these reforms. Such a step would radically alter our present US democratic system of checks and balances. Many of the reforms proposed for various agencies are aimed at reducing or delaying the oversight power of Congress and the courts to oppose the rapid implementation of Project 2025’s agenda.
Project 2025 also calls for aligning federal domestic and foreign policy with conservative Christian religious values. It would replace secular public education with Christian-based education, and shift public education dollars to private and Christian schools. Project 2025’s vision is not only an embrace of authoritarianism, but envisions a future Christian-led theocracy.
Project 2025 seeks to eliminate or merge key government regulatory departments and agencies, and drastically reverse current Biden domestic and foreign policy in every critical sector. Some proposals call for the creation of novel “parallel” advisory bodies from the private sector, to be given new authority to advise, create, or revise federal policy, with a direct line of access to the next GOP president.
Recruits include private lawyers and legal firms who are among a projected “army” of some 5,000 loyalist lawyers being vetted to join the next administration and defend its radical proposals. Project 2025 highlights the critical role of the Office of the General Counsel and lawyers in various departments who are positioned as key players in the takedown of the leftist “deep state.”
While many conservatives favor Donald Trump for the top job, Project 2025 makes clear that its proposals are not about who becomes president, but who agrees to carry out its extreme big-picture agenda. Put simply, Project 2025 represents the Republican Party’s vision: it is the GOP’s platform. What was once deemed extreme and unimaginable – a Christian theocracy for America, supplanting democracy – has become a unifying mandate.
Project 2025 includes a 180-day “playbook” of key implementation steps to be taken in the first six months of 2025 under a new Republican president. As the current GOP front-runner, Donald Trump has indicated his willingness to implement this radical GOP vision.
To execute their ambitious plan, Project 2025’s architects aim to recruit and train 20,000 conservative Christian loyalists to replace career civil servants, starting with high-level positions. They are relying on presidential Executive Orders to enact overnight personnel and policy changes. On “Day One” loyalists will be placed in “acting” high-level positions, authorized by Executive Order to carry out decisions for the department. Some will be “acting” nominees that require Senate confirmation hearings; others do not.
Project 2025 calls for “agency teams” of experienced department heads to train and advise recruits for key positions. Recruits are to be ready to step into power on January 20, 2025. Recruitment is under way. As of November 2023, over 5000 candidates had submitted resumes to The Heritage Foundation for consideration to join the next GOP government. The main task of new recruits is “rulemaking” – to write or revise policy – that adheres to conservative Christian values, ideology, and political goals. Recruits are being asked to prove their fealty to Project 2025’s agenda.
It’s not only conservatives whose loyalty is sought. Project 2025 plans a “Day One” step of using Schedule F, a legal instrument, to begin reassigning – removing – some 50,000 career civil service employees. These federal employees can lose their pensions as a result. Those who stay will have to prove they are ready to carry out the president’s agenda.
Project 2025 calls for creating an online training institute, the “Presidential Administration Academy,” taught by Project 2025 coalition members, to teach conservative recruits “how the government functions and how to function in government,” with a focus on rewriting rules aligned with Christian conservative values and ideals. Training has already begun, via online courses that Project 2025 has created for candidate hires.
Project 2025 has a cultural, ideological agenda heavily focused on immediate and complete reversal of many policies designed to tackle systemic inequities, as well as the negative impacts of climate change on our planet, including in the agricultural and energy sectors.
As stated in the foreword: _“This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” Step One is eliminating the current Gender Policy Council, which is responsible for assuring implementation of gender reforms across government.
Project 2025 calls for rolling back recent LGTBQ+ gains in civil rights, including gay marriage and protection from discrimination. It criminalizes transgender identity as predatory and a threat to children, and on a par with pornography. The authors call for imprisoning anyone who produces or distributes pornography, for registering educators and librarians who purvey it as sex offenders, and shuttering telecommunications and technology firms who facilitate its spread.
Project 2025 similarly takes aim at racial justice, “progressive wokeness,” DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion – and racial equality, firmly opposing the concept of affirmative action. It calls for erasure and reversal of reforms related to DEI as well as accessibility and racial equality. States Project 2045: “The noxious tenets of ‘critical race theory’ and ‘gender ideology’ should be excised from curricula in every public school in the country.” The entire Mandate for Leadership document takes the extraordinary position that to recognize race as a category is in itself racist; thus any DEI attempts to promote better understanding of how racial inequality functions in the present day are racist. It calls for replacing public school and secular education with Christian education, redirecting federal education money to private, Christian-led institutions, and aligning policy with Christian religious values.
Project 2025 espouses a nativist ideology and divisive rhetoric, pushing a priority conservative goal of “sealing America’s border.” It criminalizes asylum seekers and immigrants, pitting citizens against aliens out to threaten their jobs and cities. It seeks to militarize the border, detain 100,000 non-US citizens in mass camps, and deport millions, including unaccompanied children, back to home countries in conflict.
Project 2025 takes aim at America’s role abroad, too. In foreign policy, Project 2025 reflects a traditional GOP isolationist position, pushing an “America First” international trade policy. It views China and its Communist government as a key enemy and economic threat. In the arena of defense and national security, Project 2025 calls for a historic policy departure, away from deterrence in areas of missile, space, and nuclear defense – an alarming position. It also calls for realigning US foreign policy at USAID and foreign assistance with conservative ideology and Christian values, and eliminating aid to groups or projects abroad that are not aligned with these principles. If enacted, the plan would have a major global impact.
Project 2025 calls for a complete reversal of policies and funding for programs that support environmental protection and counter the negative impacts of climate change. It seeks to open up protected natural areas to private commercial activity, and limit regulations on businesses. Regarding Labor, Project 2025 sides with corporate interests, and calls for reducing the role of public sector unions, and transferring many government jobs to the private sector. The use of Schedule F to mass-fire many career federal employees is a staunch anti-labor move.
Project 2025 details its tacit embrace of authoritarianism, via the call to invest a president with unprecedented powers, eliminate or reshuffle Cabinet and other high-level positions, stock the government with loyalists, and fire career professionals who might resist the GOP takeover. While arguing for transparency, it calls for giving private groups unprecedented access and decision-making authority to help govern the country.
Going further, Project 2025 call for using the US military to assist the FBI and domestic law enforcement in conducting domestic surveillance. It calls for clamping down on groups who dissent with the president’s agenda, in the name of fighting domestic terrorism.
Taken together, these reforms advance a vision for autocracy and Christian theocracy – a combination never seen in US history.