MILWAUKEE — Although former President Donald Trump has denied any connection to the conservative presidential transition plan known as Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, which sponsors the initiative, promoted the program just blocks from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, attracting officials and figures from the party’s most conservative wing.
The project has come under fire from Democrats in recent weeks, who warn of the plan’s ambitions – which include passing the strictest abortion ban that the next Republican administration can push through Congress and cutting corporate taxes. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, is also trying to distance himself from the proposal.
The multifaceted project includes a 922-page policy regulation and a training academy, received praise from conservatives who traveled to attend the RNC and side events.
In hundreds of pages, Heritage promises to overhaul government agencies and “restore the American family as the center of American life and protect our children.”
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, described the comprehensive policy plan as a unification of the conservative movement at the organization’s daylong policy fest on Monday as part of the convention.
“For the first time in modern American history, we have a plan, as part of a unified movement, to speak on behalf of the ordinary American, the forgotten American,” Roberts said.
“The reason progressive Democrats hate these ideas so much is because they pose a threat to their power,” Roberts continued from the stage of the Bradley Symphony Center in downtown Milwaukee, five blocks from the Fiserv Forum, where the RNC was just beginning.
The foundation’s event on the first day of the convention featured numerous conservative speakers, including Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and well-known journalist Tucker Carlson.
Expectation of a Trump presidency
Those who had traveled to Milwaukee for the RNC filled the hall in collective anticipation of the possibility of a second Trump presidency and the promise of traditionalist priorities that would emanate from the Oval Office.
“I think President Trump has learned a lot over the last few years about where the movement is, where the country is and also about some real flashpoints in the world that didn’t exist when he left office,” Roberts told reporters. “I was very impressed during the campaign by the signs that President Trump is engaging many voices. I think this is going to be a very effective administration.”
Stitt told the audience during the afternoon session, “We are here this week to fight for the American dream and our way of life.”
“You know, for our founders, the American dream meant freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom to speak your mind,” Stitt said. “It meant there were no limits to what anyone could accomplish and freedom from government that was not controlled by the government.”
Democrats warn
The Democratic National Committee, President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign and Democratic lawmakers have embraced Project 2025 in recent weeks – a unifying message for the party after Biden’s needy performance in the debate revealed fractures within the party.
The Biden team and its surrogates continued their weeks-long focus on the project on Tuesday at a press conference on the “counter-congress” around the corner from Trump’s downtown Pfister Hotel.
“It’s all written down in Project 2025,” said Ben Wikler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, at the event, which focused on the economic policies outlined in the plan.
“Donald Trump and JD Vance want to plunder the Treasury to give billionaires massive tax cuts and pass the bill on to working Americans,” Wikler said.
Trump announced on Monday that he had chosen Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio. as his running mate.
Democratic U.S. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey attended the event and warned that the project would impact Social Security in 2025.
“If you’ve worked your whole life and paid into Social Security and then you hear what the Republicans are trying to do, from their political groups to Congress to what you’ve heard and read in Project 2025, which is people who want to limit benefits,” Booker said.
Liz Shuler, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO), said: “I think you should ask yourself: ‘Will the Project 2025 agenda make my life better if it becomes law?'”
Trump denies
Trump has denied any connection to the project.
“I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is responsible for it, and, unlike our very well-received Republican platform, had nothing to do with it,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Thursday.
“However, the radical left-wing Democrats have an easy time trying to get me to support every policy they support or say. This is pure disinformation on their part,” he continued. “Now, after all these years, everyone knows where I stand on EVERYTHING!”
Degrees of conservatism
Roberts navigated the tug-of-war over Project 2025 by telling reporters on Monday that the plan was intended as a “menu of options.”
“I think it is impossible for a single conservative to agree with everything in the project,” he said.
The program adopted by the RNC in the run-up to the congress was short-lived, attracted criticism by some conservatives, particularly because they were reluctant to support a nationwide ban on abortion.
When asked about potential friction between Trump, the RNC program and Project 2025, Roberts said that despite the differences, he foresees “very positive” talks.
“Presidential campaigns are on one track, the RNC is on another track, Heritage and Project 2025 and the conservative movement in general are on another track,” Roberts said.
“There are always going to be differences of opinion. We’re going to deal with those when we talk about specific legislative tools in January, and we know those conversations are going to be very positive,” Roberts said. “We may not always agree, but I think now is the time for the center-right parties in this country to recognize that one thing the American people want is to see power taken out of Washington, D.C.”
