Trump’s inner circle is filled with architects of Project 2025. Here are the policies they have implemented so far
Approximately half of the recommendations in Project 2025 have become official policies, presidential directives or overall goals of the Trump administration in the first 12 months of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The nearly 1,000-page ultra-conservative policy blueprint emerged from the Heritage Foundation think tank in 2023 and was widely seen as a possible manifesto for a second Trump turn despite denials by the candidate himself and many of those around him.
Filling the federal workforce with political appointees, phasing out the Department of Education, rolling back major Biden administration-era policies on climate change, axing diversity polices and offices, as well as ramping up immigration deportations, were some of the major policy changes that aligned with the conservative mandate.
It’s an unsurprising finding, given that major Trump administration officials are authors or contributors to Project 2025, including Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, border czar Tom Homan, FCC chairman Brendan Carr, CIA director John Ratcliffe, trade adviser Peter Navarro, SEC chairman Paul Atkins and many more.
Yet, the president appeared to downplay his understanding of it in June 2024 when he declared, “I know nothing about Project 2025” and “I have no idea who is behind it.”
Here are the areas where The Independent found Trump administration polices that reflected ideas set out in the 887 pages of Project 2025.
Project 2025’s recommendations regarding the restructuring of the executive office and federal workforce have some of the most significant overlap with the Trump administration’s agenda.
The overall goal for the federal workforce, specifically within the executive branch, was to remove career civil servants and ensure that most employees are aligned with the president’s agenda while also reducing the size of the workforce by making cuts to grants and funding.
Project 2025 called for reinstating Trump’s first-term executive order, making 50,000 employees easier to dismiss by classifying them under Schedule F, designating them as at-will roles which made it easier to fire them. Trump did that on day one. Also successfully implemented was Project 2025’s call for the Office of Personnel Management to take more control over the federal workforce hiring process.
While the Department of Government Efficiency was not part of Project 2025, its swift efforts to make sweeping cuts have helped cut down the workforce. Approximately 317,000 employees have left government jobs.
In addition, Project 2025 calls for the president to exert more authority over the executive branch by pushing for the Supreme Court to overturn a precedent that prohibits the president from firing individuals. The high court is currently considering this case.
Project 2025 recommends that nearly every government department and agency conduct thorough reviews of grants and contracts to ensure no money is being allocated to projects that do not align with the president’s agenda.
Trump has fulfilled that goal, first by attempting to freeze all grants and then by taking a steadier approach to cutting back funding for polices or projects he does not agree with. Much of that impacted the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Throughout the year, the administration has cut funding to nonprofits or organizations embarking on green energy projects, as well as scrapping research projects aimed at renewable energy.
