
Talk about a project hiding in plain sight! The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 spent its first year as a wallflower, only noticed by the political geeks. Then, boom! Suddenly, it’s a so-called dystopian blueprint for a Trump presidency. How convenient for Biden and Harris to spotlight it in nearly every speech.
“And you, I’m sure, have seen their agenda, Project 2025,” Harris declared to a chorus of boos. “Can you believe they put this thing in writing? Nine hundred pages in writing.”
She said, “Project 2025 is a plan to return America to a dark past. Donald Trump and his extreme allies want to take our nation back to failed economic policies, back to union busting, back to tax breaks for billionaires. Donald Trump and his allies want to cut Medicare and Social Security, to stop student loan forgiveness for teachers and other public servants.”
Hold on a second. Project 2025 isn’t new. The Heritage Foundation has always crafted policy suggestions for Republican leaders since Ronald Reagan. Sure, it includes a book, “Mandate for Leadership – the Conservative Promise,” but critics focus on it like it’s the devil’s playbook.
Steven Groves, a co-editor of the book, chatted with the Washington Examiner about the backlash. He encouraged folks to heed Biden’s advice: read the 900-page document.
“Well, the part everyone’s been talking about, and the Left has been lying about, is our book. It’s very forward. The book is available online. Every word of it can be downloaded for free,” Groves explained. “Every recommendation Project 2025 has ever made on any topic is in those 900 pages. The Left and Biden and Harris criticized plenty of conservative things in there. Still, they’ve decided to go a different route, which is to lie.”
Groves argues that Biden and Harris aren’t interested in honestly addressing a conservative think tank project. Their goal is to twist it into a monster and blame it on Trump. The book, published in April 2023, was worked on long before any candidate threw their hat in the ring. Media coverage was neutral at best before the debate drama.
“It wasn’t until it was crystal clear to everyone that Biden was going to lose and lose big that the Left, Biden, and Kamala decided to make a target out of the project and then, by lying about it, try to tie it to President Trump,” Groves said. “President Trump doesn’t have anything to do with this project.”
According to Groves, most of the criticisms from Democrats are fabricated. He highlighted a viral graphic shared by actor Mark Hamill listing Project 2025’s supposed agenda, like a complete abortion ban, banning contraceptives, ending no-fault divorce, eliminating labor protections, raising taxes on the working class, cutting Social Security and Medicare, condemning single mothers, banning gay marriage, increasing prescription drug prices, banning books and curriculum about slavery, and ending civil rights protections in government.
Out of 31 items listed, Project 2025 said only five were accurate or partially true—eliminating the Department of Education, using taxpayer money for religious schools, increasing Arctic drilling, deregulating big businesses and big oil, and expediting capital punishment. The rest were labeled false, mostly false, or misleading.
“It’s easy enough to go to our online book,” Groves said. “Do Control F… if you want to put in Control F: abortion; Control F: marriage, you can find everything we’ve written about those topics.”
Despite the repeated denials, Democrats persist in portraying Project 2025 as radical and tied to Trump. Emilia Rowland, DNC National press secretary, recently claimed Trump is desperate to distance himself from Project 2025, implying a hidden agenda.
Project 2025 doesn’t serve as a rigid manifesto. It includes contradictory policy proposals, reflecting diverse views among contributing authors, with about two-thirds not even being part of the Heritage Foundation.
Groves emphasized sticking to their principles and urged Republicans to ignore Democratic criticisms.
“We’re all on the same team,” he said. “Don’t listen to the Left’s lies about Project 2025; don’t listen to Biden and Harris’s lies about Project 2025. If the Left and Harris are lying about it, then you have to realize that we’re over the target. We all have the same goal: to support the next conservative president.”
Project 2025 is more than a policy list; it’s a vision for America’s future. But Democrats will distort it to suit their narrative. Republicans must stay focused on the facts and the real agenda at hand.