Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project or the Mandate for Leadership, has been discussed in political commentary for the past few months. In short, the project is a 922-page conservative plan created by over 100 organizations such as Moms for Liberty, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and the National Rifle Association. Under the leadership of the Heritage Foundation, these organizations outlined policies they wished the next president of the United States would enact. The project has also been mentioned numerous times by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz throughout their campaign thus far. The Harris campaign has an entire section on the campaign website dedicated to informing the public of some key aspects of Project 2025, including its wanting of the Food and Drug Administration to reverse its approval of abortion pills and have states report information regarding abortion to the Center for Disease Control or risk losing federal funding. The Harris campaign also recently aired an ad regarding the plan in which the campaign linked the project with former president Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee who is often credited with leading the Republican party to a harsher conservativeness. The plan was further mentioned throughout the four nights of the Democratic National Convention. Individuals such as Michigan state Senator Mallory McMorrow and comedian Kenan Thompson held up large copies of the 900-page plan as they discussed it. Harris and Walz also mentioned it, with Harris reaffirming her stance that the plan was created in association with Trump, warning convention attendees and those watching at home of the dangers, as she sees it, of a second Trump presidency that will run in accordance with Project 2025.
While Harris and her campaign have attempted to link Project 2025 with Trump, the former president has remained adamant that he had nothing to do with the creation of the project. Despite his claims, he is still a far-right conservative who previously campaigned on many of the talking points the creators of Project 2025 wish to enact. Some clear overlaps include the promotion of a border wall, one of the former president’s major talking points during his campaign in 2016, and deporting illegal immigrants. Another wish of both the plan and the former president is restricting abortion access, which Trump has already played a major part in doing. Trump’s appointments to the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that declared abortion a fundamental right protected by the Constitution, thus barring states from enacting bans contrary to the trimester system outlined in the case, via the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. To his point, however, there are some differences in what the plan advocates for and what Trump has stated. For instance, while the actions of Project 2025 may lead to a national abortion ban, particularly if the Comstock Act, which criminalized the transportation of abortion related materials through the mail, is reenacted, Trump has said that he would not sign a national abortion ban into law if elected into office.
So, while Harris and her campaign have attempted to reinforce the idea that Trump is somehow related to Project 2025, Trump has held firm in the notion that he is not. But, until Trump either confirms his affiliation with the plan or is elected into office and does not enact the project, the facts are up for debate.
