Former president Donald Trump is distancing himself from a high-profile conservative policy initiative that Democrats have turned into fodder for attack ads throughout the 2024 election cycle.
Trump posted a message on Truth Social on Friday morning disavowing Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s initiative to develop personnel and craft policy proposals for a potential second Trump term.
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump said.
“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. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
His comments come after Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts said earlier this week that conservatives will need a second American revolution to defeat the Left.
“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts said on Trump ally Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. During his time leading the Heritage Foundation, Roberts has shifted its policy agenda and political activism in a populist, pro-Trump direction.
Project 2025’s policy proposals on a range of subjects have featured prominently in Democratic attack ads seeking to paint Trump as an authoritarian strongman. President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign against Trump often claims that he would govern like a dictator if given another presidential term.
Since its inception, Project 2025 has received significant media attention because of its bold policy proposals and the widespread belief among liberals that Trump poses a unique threat to American democracy. The Biden campaign’s website features an entire page dedicated to sounding the alarm about Project 2025’s goals.
“Donald Trump and Project 2025 are one big MAGA operation, coordinating on an extreme blueprint to rip away freedoms and undermine democracy — and they’ve made it clear themselves. Many of Trump’s closest former White House aides are leading the project and his campaign’s own press secretary starred in one of their recruitment videos,” DNC spokeswoman Aida Ross said in a statement, reflecting Democrats’ efforts to link Trump directly to Project 2025.
Numerous conservative organizations are involved in Project 2025, and the initiative is overseen by multiple former Trump administration officials. The groups participating in Project 2025 span the conservative movement and its various ideological factions.
“As we’ve been saying for more than two years now, Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign. We are a coalition of more than 110 conservative groups advocating policy and personnel recommendations for the next conservative president. But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement,” a Project 2025 spokesperson told NR in a statement.
“Rather than obsessing over Project 2025, the Biden campaign should be addressing the 25th Amendment.”
Last year, the Heritage Foundation released Project 2025’s mandate for leadership, a roughly 900-page policy book for the next administration to follow. Dozens of conservative policy experts contributed to the book.
The book’s policy proposals include plans to break up the Department of Education, overhaul the Justice Department, strongly crack down on illegal immigration, replace longtime federal employees with pro-Trump personnel, and pass a slate of socially conservative legislation.
Trump and his supporters often criticize the perceived disloyalty of Trump’s political appointments throughout his first term. The former president’s personnel issues last time around formed the basis for Project 2025 to begin preparing ahead of time for another Trump term.