It should not be news to anyone that Donald Trump repeatedly lies. In the debate with President Biden, fact checkers said he lied in response to almost every question.
So it’s hardly surprising is that he is lying about his familiarity with the conservative Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project also known as Project 2025, which is MAGA’s sinister 900-page plan for an authoritarian state if Trump wins a second term.
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, said chillingly: “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Project 2025 isn’t exactly popular with voters who learn about it. As writer Rick Wilson tweeted, “it polls about like Ebola.” So, Trump posted on his megaphone Truth Social: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.”
I would love to know what parts he disagrees with, and what parts he doesn’t, particularly if he hasn’t read it.
One thing we do know. Trump, feeling jilted over his election loss in 2020, called for “termination of all [election-related] rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” He mused about becoming a dictator for a day on “day one” of his second term. Project 2025 is the blueprint to institutionalize his dictatorship.
The plan elaborates hundreds of actions occurring in a second Trump presidency that directly threaten democracy, the rule of law and U.S. security. These include naked violations of law in areas like immigration roundups and energy extraction; firing tens of thousands of civil servants whom he perceives as adversaries; ending birthright citizenship; appointing only generals whose allegiance is to him and the MAGA movement; prosecuting his political opponents; and pardoning convicted Jan. 6 rioters, whom Trump calls “hostages,” “warriors” and “great patriots.”
Project 2025 is, in the words of the Heritage president, a plan for “institutionalizing Trumpism.” Trump has returned the compliment, saying of Roberts that he’s “doing an unbelievable job, he’s bringing it back to levels we’ve never seen … thank you Kevin.”
There are multiple other Trump world connections with Project 2025. Many working on the project are former Trump administration employees or allies. Take John McEntee, a long-time Trump apparatchik who is said to be an architect of the report, or Russ Vought, another Trump satrap who was OMB director at the end of the Trump administration, said to be in line for White House Chief of Staff. Then there is Paul Dans, who, prior to joining Heritage, served Trump as chief of staff in the White House Office of Personnel Management. Then there are Rick Dearborn, a Trump deputy chief of staff at the White House; Christopher Miller, who was appointed acting secretary of Defense after the 2020 election; Spencer Chretien, a former special assistant to Trump in the White House; and Ken Cuccinelli, Trump’s de facto head of DHS during the last two years of the administration. There are many others.
Project 2025 is “undeniably a Trump-driven operation,” with Trump’s main super PAC, “Make America Great Again Inc.” running online ads promoting a website called “Trump Project 2025.”
The initiative aims to consolidate power in the executive branch, deconstruct the federal administration and strip remaining agencies of their independence. Among the most egregious morsels are completely banning abortions without exceptions; teaching Christian beliefs in public schools; essentially ending climate protections with the elimination of the EPA; cutting Social Security; banning books and curriculum about slavery; dismantling or radically overhauling the Departments of Justice and State; defunding the FBI; rubbishing the Departments of Homeland Security, Education and Commerce; and eviscerating the professional civil service.
Trump has also threatened to prosecute his adversaries. After his felony convictions in Manhattan, both he and his allies have been explicit about doing so in retaliation, despite the lack of any evidence of criminal wrongdoing by those targeted.
In fact, during the presidential debate, Trump was asked about these threats and replied that Biden “could be a convicted felon as soon as he gets out of office.” Trump pointed to his prosecution and said, “It’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them,” namely his political adversaries.
After the verdict, his former aide and current advisor Steven Miller asked, “Is every Republican DA starting every investigation they need to right now?” Steve Bannon, the now-jailed mouthpiece of the MAGA movement, said that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “should be — and will be — jailed.”
Retaliation has also been embraced by senior GOP leaders in Congress such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who sounded the call to “fight fire with fire.” John Yoo, a former Justice Department official and author of the infamous torture memos during the Bush administration, has composed a justification for retaliation prosecutions.
High on the list for prosecution could be past allies-turned-foes such as former Vice President Mike Pence and many of Trump’s cabinet officials and advisers. Those with the most experience watching him govern behind the scenes say they cannot support a second Trump term because they think Trump poses a grave danger to the country.
John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Advisor, said, “I think Trump will cause significant damage in a second term, damage that in some cases will be irreparable.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin, former Trump White House director of strategic communications, has said, “Fundamentally, a second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly.”
Mark Esper, Trump’s former defense secretary, has warned of “more … hyper-aggressive behavior” by Trump if he takes office, recounting the episode when Trump asked if Black Lives Matter demonstrators gathering around the White House following the death of George Floyd could be shot. James Mattis, another of Trump’s former defense secretaries, reportedly characterized the Trump as “a madman in a circular room screaming.”
If elected, will Trump go through with it? Project 2025 lays it all out for us. History has taught us that, if given the chance, autocrats carry out their threats.
James D. Zirin, author and legal analyst, is a former federal prosecutor in New York’s Southern District. He is also the host of the public television talk show and podcast Conversations with Jim Zirin.