Since President Donald Trump began his second term, a number of the ideas he’s implemented mirror Project 2025, while some go against it. News4 Investigative Reporter Ted Oberg breaks it down.
More than half the executive actions President Donald Trump signed in the early days of his second term mirror Project 2025, the conservative playbook outlined by The Heritage Foundation.
The group published the 900-plus-page document in 2023 as a blueprint for an incoming conservative president to overhaul the government.
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During the campaign, Trump repeatedly distanced himself from Project 2025 and said he had not read the document.
But even this week, we’re seeing actions with similarities to Project 2025.
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In the document, Chapter 9 is about the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID is now closed to employees and brought under Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s control. The playbook says a new conservative administration should align U.S. foreign aid to U.S. foreign policy.
Discussing the decision to shutter USAID on Monday, Rubio told reporters U.S. foreign aid “has to be aligned with American foreign policy.”
NBC News analyzed and found more than a dozen of Trump’s actions in the first days of his presidency are similar to suggestions from Project 2025, including:
- bringing back the “Remain in Mexico” policy
- removing the term “gender identity” from any federal agency
- banning transgender troops in the military
- implementing a foreign aid freeze
- increasing school choice
- abolishing DEI programs
- restoring the Hyde Amendment
Trump has appointed some of Project 2025’s writers to his administration, including “border czar” Tom Homan, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr and White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, who was once listed as a Project 2025 advisory board member.
Here are some of Trump’s actions that go against Project 2025 recommendations
The document called for an end to all economic agreements with China and specifically named banning TikTok, neither of which Trump has done.
Project 2025 also called for dismantling the Department of Homeland Security, calling it ineffective. Trump is instead working to bolster the agency as a major part of his mass deportation effort.
In response to all of this, the White House told us: “As President Trump has said many times, he had nothing to do with Project 2025. In his first few days in office, President Trump has delivered on the promises that earned him a resounding mandate from the American people."
The document is nearly 1,000 pages long. We’re just over two weeks into the new administration.
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