The US President finally admitted he’s talking to the architect of Project 2025 – a hardline, Christian-nationalist wish list for the second Trump presidency. Almost half of it has already been enacted – and he wants to the shutdown to push for even more
Donald Trump is already halfway through his plan to reshape America into a hard-right, ultra-conservative Christian nationalist state.
It might seem weird that we’re able to calculate exactly how far through his plan he is, but one thing has made that possible.
Before the last US election, a very detailed policy framework was drawn up by a coalition of right-wing think tanks, led by the Heritage Foundation.
Titled Project 2025, it was a 900-page wish list for how a second Trump presidency could radically – and possibly irreversibly – change America into an ultra-Conservative state.
And even though Donald Trump had – until today – denied it was anything to do with his White House, he’s stuffed his team full of its architects and enacted almost half of the hard-right manifesto already.
Here’s everything you need to know about Project 2025, and what happens next.
What does Project 2025 call for?
The Project 2025 document. pushes a hard-line, Christian-nationalist agenda, scrapping or rewriting progressive policies on abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, climate change, and immigration – and framing America as a “biblically based” of “traditional families” and conservative social values.
It gives the President far greater control over the civil service – replacing career officials with political appointees and hugely shrinking the government overall.
What is Trump planning to do alongside the shutdown?
He’s invited a senior figure in Project 2025 to the White House to talk about “which of the many Democrat Agencies” could be temporarily – or permanently – cut.
Meanwhile, instead of furloughing workers, as is normally done during a shutdown, Karoline Leavitt said last night that many of them would simply be fired.
Donald Trump has repeatedly denied Project 2025 was anything to do with him …until now
Donald Trump has always denied this document was a blueprint for his presidency. In fact he’s even denied having read Project 2025.
Which is weird, because according to a project set up by two Reddit users to track his policies against the document, about 48% of it has been done since he took office in January. And he’s hired loads of people who were involved with its creation to run his White House.
What is he planning to do next?
There are two reasons Project 2025 is important to know about today.
First, many people are warning that Trump and the Republicans will use the government shutdown to stealth through even more of the manifesto – like Doge on steroids.
Second? Because we think for the first time, Trump acknowledged it was a thing.
“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” Trump said.
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DJT”
What’s in the second half?
The 52% remaining in Project 2025 that Trump hasn’t got to yet includes tearing up protections for child migrants, reviving old rules to make it harder for poor immigrants to stay, slashing refugee admissions, and tightening asylum to the point where far fewer people would qualify.
It also includes even stricter abortion limits, completely cutting off funding for gender-affirming healthcare and removing anti-discrimination protections from adoption and foster-care services.
They want to scrap student loan forgiveness programmes, early childhood programmes like Head Start and use executive powers to sack thousands of public officials, replacing them with political appointees.
They want to rewrite America’s anti-discrimination laws to define “sex” as purely “male and female”.
And that’s before you get to the environmental and economic stuff – in short: more tariffs, slashed regulations.