Project 2025, which was convened by the Heritage Foundation during the Trump interregnum, was not just one thing: It was a policy white paper, an implementation plan, a recruitment database, and a worldview, all rolled into one. As I wrote in my book this past spring, the authors sought to create an agenda for the next right-wing president that would allow him to empower the executive branch, sideline Congress, and attack the civil service.
President Donald Trump's administration has been embroiled in scandal and sloppiness. His own party has defied his political pressure. His senior staff has been beset by infighting. He has sparred with reporters and offered over-the-top praise to an authoritarian with a dire human-rights record. A signature hard-line immigration policy has polled poorly. And Republicans have begun to brace themselves for a disastrous midterm election.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) bluntly told Bolton, No, when asked if she supports Trump's threats to cut major projects like the $16 billion rail tunnel under the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey. The Trump administration has been putting pressure on Democrats during the ongoing shutdown by stripping their states of major projects and defunding programs, something that critics long warned was part of the Project 2025 playbook.
In Independent, out Tuesday from Legacy Lit, the former White House press secretary offers a candid, unsparing view of what she calls a "five-alarm fire" threatening American democracy. Through a blend of memoir and political analysis, Jean-Pierre chronicles how she rose inside government, why she left the Democratic Party, and what she believes must change if the country is to survive the authoritarian turn ushered in by President Donald Trump's return to power.
Today's layoffs are the work of White House Budget Director Russell Vought, a lead creator of the Project 2025 playbook, which planned a massive reduction in the federal workforce. In a post on X earlier today, Vought announced that the terminations "have begun." But as The Washington Post has previously reported, senior government officials have warned that Vought's layoffs amid a shutdown are likely illegal, running afoul of the Antideficiency Act.
Zoom in: Trump said he met Thursday with White House budget chief Russ Vought to discuss what "Democrat agencies" should get cuts, casting the shutdown as a chance to shrink a federal workforce Trump has long viewed as hostile. Goading Democrats, Trump flaunted Vought's role in Project 2025 ("he of PROJECT 2025 Fame") - the hard-right blueprint for expanding executive power that Trump disavowed on the campaign trail after it became a political liability.
Project 2025, never an official Trump platform, was built by some Trump allies and echoes moves from the early days of Trump's second presidency. Some of Trump's MAGA allies called Project 2025 the next-term agenda after Trump's win. Driving the news: Trump said Tuesday he planned to meet with Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, to discuss agency cuts amid the government shutdown.
So the question is, how did we get here? We have to look at Project 2025. There was a chapter called The Federal Communications Commission, and it was authored by Brendan Carr. He enacted some of this idea of the unitary executive theory. It takes away a lot of the checks and balances that the federal government has long had.
On Thursday evening, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported that the FBI is developing tools to identify transgender suspects and classify them as "nihilistic violent extremists." Within hours, the Oversight Project at the Heritage Foundation - the same outfit driving Project 2025's blueprint now being implemented inside the federal government - released a four-page memo urging the bureau to go even further. Its proposal: formally designate all transgender activism as "Trans Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism," a new category of domestic terror threat.
➡️ The creators of Project 2025 have jumped at the chance to use Charlie Kirk's murder to attack the transgender community. Meanwhile, a man in Phoenix was arrested after threatening to shoot up a queer bar in retaliation. We also got more insight into Pope Leo's stance on same-sex weddings, and heard from Pete Buttigieg after Kamala Harris's upcoming book revealed that she didn't think America was ready for a gay VP candidate.
Artists from all over the city are joining with those all over the world for "We Got the Power," the inaugural action of "The People vs Project 2025." Besides a flash performance of SNAP's eternal dance hit, "We Got The Power" features performances and poetry readings by two dozen ensembles, individual artists and poets including Amos White, Antoinette Payne, Audrey Williams, Basma Edrees, Bellamy Ackrell, Christine Kammler, Dance Brigade, Extinction Rebellion, and Genny Lim. 10am-1pm, Civic Center Plaza, SF.
For the left, there is little more terrifying than an emboldened Donald Trump. Deep into the first year of his second term, he has behaved like an imperial president, thriving off new precedents set by the Supreme Court to shred democratic norms. He has gutted the federal bureaucracy, wantonly dispatched the National Guard to Democrat-run cities, unilaterally imposed tariffs, unilaterally launched a missile strike on Iran, and wrongfully deported an immigrant to El Salvador.
