Former President Donald Trump is distancing himself from the Project 2025 plan that the conservative Heritage Foundation has authored for the next president.
The sweeping transition blueprint has been a rallying cry for Democrats, who say it offers Mr. Trump a road map for punishing his political foes and reshaping the federal government in an undemocratic fashion.
The Heritage Foundation has promoted the effort as a way to ensure a conservative vision is enacted to “rescue the country from the grip of the radical left.”
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Mr. Trump said Friday on Truth Social. “I have no idea who is behind it.”
He added: “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.”
Project 2025 said in a statement that the proposal “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,” it said. “But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement.”
It added, “Rather than obsessing over Project 2025, the Biden campaign should be addressing the 25th Amendment.”
Mr. Trump has made it clear he will be more prepared than in 2017 to get off to a running start if elected this fall because he has a far better understanding of the good and bad people in Washington.
Democrats have zeroed in on the Heritage blueprint. Rep. Jared Huffman, California Democrat, unveiled the Stop Project 2025 task force last month, seeking to bring more attention to the proposal ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
The Trump campaign has made it clear he didn’t craft the proposal. Former officials in the Trump administration, however, did play a role.
The plan calls for replacing thousands of civil servants with personnel deemed less likely to stand in the way of a conservative president’s agenda.
Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, scored headlines this week while promoting the plan on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast.
Mr. Roberts said Democrats are “apoplectic right now” because they’re losing the political fight, and said Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back.”
“And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” he said.
Meanwhile, Democrats and their supporters have criticized the plan.
“Pay attention. It is not a secret. Look it up!” Golden Globe Award-winning actress Taraji P. Henson said this week on the BET Awards show. “They are attacking our most vulnerable citizens. The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up!”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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