Democrats visited the heart of Trump world Tuesday at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to raise more warnings about the conservative Project 2025 agenda.
Democrats keep clamoring about the conservative Heritage Foundation’s transition blueprint for the next Republican president that seeks to reshape the federal government and install loyalists across the workforce to “pave the way for an effective conservative administration.”
Sen. Cory A. Booker, New Jersey Democrat, called the agenda “frightening.” He said it aims to gut popular entitlements such as the Affordable Care Act and Social Security.
“When you see what this president did when he was in office, let me make some things clear. Donald Trump is trying to end the Affordable Care Act, [which is] wildly popular amongst Republicans, independents and Democrats,” Mr. Booker said at a press conference organized by the Biden campaign.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said the agenda will discourage Republican lawmakers from working with Democrats on pro-union legislation like the infrastructure bill signed by President Biden.
“But Trump and [running mate] J.D. Vance’s agenda, this Project 2025 agenda, does the exact opposite,” she said. “It is not ’make America wealthy again,’ it is make the richest people in this country even richer.”
Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley told The Washington Times it smacks of desperation.
“The fact that they’re trying to engineer a story where one doesn’t exist just shows you that right now they literally have nothing else that they can try and talk about,” Mr. Whatley said.
Mr. Trump has said Project 2025 is not part of his platform but Democrats have presented it as his agenda.
Project 2025’s main policy goals are restoring the family as the foundation of American life, dismantling the administrative state, protecting the nation’s borders and ensuring individual rights. It calls for eliminating civil-service protections for some government employees and aims to overhaul federal agencies such as the FBI. It would eliminate the federal Department of Education.
The blueprint also includes longtime conservative priorities such as slashing federal regulations and boosting defense spending. It seeks to outlaw pornography.
The Heritage Foundation has made it clear the road map they drafted is not tied to any specific candidate or campaign.
“But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement,” the group said.
Democrats have been casting the document in a horrific light, sounding the alarm on highway billboards, fundraising pitches and in the halls of Congress that it is a dangerous “Trump manifesto” that “could usher in the end of American democracy.”
“Project 2025 will destroy America — look it up,” Mr. Biden said in a recent video on social media that included a link to a trumpsproject2025.com full of additional warnings.
“Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins,” the website says. “Trump’s campaign advisors and close allies wrote it – and are doing everything they can to elect him so he can execute their playbook immediately.”
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, speaking on the floor of the Senate last week, said, “The hard right is done speaking in euphemisms – they’re saying it straight to our faces: if you disagree with Donald Trump, watch your back.”
“To see this happen in America is bone-chilling,” the New York Democrat said.
The focus on Project 2025 has intensified since Mr. Biden’s feeble debate performance on June 27 sent Democrats into panic mode and convinced many party officials to endorse giving Mr. Biden the hook.
Democrats have seized on certain aspects of the 900-page report, including calls for the “next conservative president should work with Congress to enact the most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support,” and press the FDA to “reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs.”
Still, Democrats insist the document is effectively a scary second-term Trump playbook.
The liberal group United We Dream blasted out a fundraising email calling the document the “MAGA Republicans white supremacist playbook.”
“Our future is one where immigrants, LGBTQIA+ people, and people of color are free to live our lives in peace and joy,” the email said.
• Dave Boyer contributed to this story.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.