Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic allies have turned Project 2025 into one of their most consistent tools against the campaign of former President Donald Trump. Now, they have taken the fight over the conservative-written handbook to a bigger new scale.
Mallory McMorrow, a 37-year-old state senator from Michigan, brought out a giant copy of the roughly 900-page “Mandate for Leadership” on August 19, the first evening of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. She slammed it on the lectern, then made an expression to signal how heavy it was as she opened to start reading.
“They went ahead and wrote down all the extreme things that Donald Trump wants to do in the next four years,” McMorrow said from the stage. “We read it.”
Trump says Project 2025 is not related to his campaign and has denied knowing about the Heritage Foundation, which is overseeing its own transition effort with the help of dozens of his allies and former aides. Democrats have for months tried to pin Trump to Project 2025’s most sweeping proposals.
DNC officials plan to talk about Project 2025 every night of the convention. McMorrow said in an interview on August 20 that there is a “keeper of the book” and that the book would be handed off to a new speaker each night.
On August 20, Pennsylvania state Representative Malcolm Kenyatta trotted the book back out. “Usually Republicans want to ban books, but now they are trying to shove this down our throats,” he said.
WHAT IS PROJECT 2025 ABOUT?
Project 2025 was created by the Heritage Foundation as a handbook for the next Republican administration, and has caught a lot of attention because it was drafted by longtime allies and former officials of the Trump administration.
The document outlines a dramatic expansion of presidential power and a plan to fire as many as 50,000 government workers to replace them with presidential loyalists. It calls for the U.S. Education Department to be shuttered, and the Homeland Security Department dismantled, with its various parts absorbed by other federal offices.
The plan says the Department of Health and Human Services should “pursue a robust agenda” to protect “the fundamental right to life.”
Democrats have falsely claimed that it also proposes to “gut Social Security.” The document contains no proposals to cut Social Security, even though the Heritage Foundation that oversaw it has long pushed for changes to the entitlement.
WHERE IS THAT GIANT BOOK FROM?
The idea to create an oversized version of Project 2025 first came about several weeks ago when Harris’ campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, contacted McMorrow about speaking about Project 2025 at the convention, McMorrow said.
McMorrow said that she had never spoken to an arena full of people before and wanted to create a moment that would “play well both at home and in the arena.”
In an interview, she joked the book weighs as much as her 3-year-old daughter and is filled entirely with the actual text from Project 2025.
“Dropping the book on the podium played a big part in what we wanted to do,” said McMorrow.
On August 21, Colorado Governor Jared Polis is expected to haul the book out, followed by U.S. Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, according to a person familiar with the plans who disclosed them on condition of anonymity.
WHO IS BEHIND PROJECT 2025?
Some of the people involved in Project 2025 are former senior administration officials with deep GOP ties. The project’s former director, Paul Dans, served as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under Trump.
Trump’s former White House budget chief, Russell Vought, was a key architect of the plan and was also appointed to the Republican National Committee’s platform writing committee.
John McEntee, a former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office in the Trump administration, was a senior adviser. McEntee told the conservative news site The Daily Wire earlier this year that Project 2025’s team would integrate a lot of its work with the campaign after the summer when Trump would announce his transition team.
WHAT DOES TRUMP SAY ABOUT PROJECT 2025?
Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025 and has denied knowing who is behind the authoritarian plan that outlines the basic dismantling of America’s democratic government.
However, critics have pointed out that Trump’s disavowal of Project 2025 might be politically motivated, designed to placate different factions within the GOP or to avoid being tied to some of the more controversial proposals outlined in the project. That has led to skepticism about whether Trump genuinely opposes the project or if his stance is merely a strategic move to distance himself from potential backlash.
Some experts and observers believe that many of the policy ideas within Project 2025 could still influence a potential second Trump administration, particularly if Republicans gain control of Congress. Despite the public disavowal, there are connections between Trump’s previous administration and individuals involved in the project, leading to speculation that its proposals might still find a place in future Republican policies.
The decision to make Ohio Sen. JD Vance his running mate was taken by some as one more connection to Project 2025. Heritage’s President Kevin Roberts has said he’s good friends with Vance and that the Heritage Foundation had been privately rooting for him to be the VP pick.
Vance penned the foreword to Roberts’ own new book, which was set to be out in September but has now been postponed as Project 2025 hits turmoil. Roberts is holding off the release of his potentially fiery new book until after the November presidential election.
