In a single video, Bethany Kozma, a conservative activist and former deputy chief of employees on the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth within the Trump administration, downplays the seriousness of local weather change and says the motion to fight it’s actually a part of a ploy to “control people.”
“If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere,” Kozma says.
In the identical video, Kozma calls the thought of gender fluidity “evil.” One other speaker, Katie Sullivan, who was an appearing assistant lawyer normal on the Division of Justice underneath Trump, takes goal at government actions by the administration of President Joe Biden that created gender adviser positions all through the federal authorities. The purpose, Biden wrote in a single order, was to “advance equal rights and opportunities, regardless of gender or gender identity.”
Sullivan says, “That position has to be eradicated, as well as all the task forces, the removal of all the equity plans from all the websites, and a complete rework of the language in internal and external policy documents and grant applications.”
Trump has tried to distance himself from Venture 2025, falsely saying that he knew nothing about it and had “no idea who is behind it.” In actual fact, he flew on a non-public jet with Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Basis, which leads Venture 2025. And in a 2022 speech at a Heritage Basis occasion, Trump stated, “This is a great group and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.”
A evaluate of the coaching movies exhibits that 29 of the 36 audio system have labored for Trump in some capability — on his 2016-17 transition group, within the administration or on his 2024 reelection marketing campaign. The movies seem to have been recorded earlier than the resignation two weeks in the past of Paul Dans, the chief of the 2025 challenge, and they’re referenced on the challenge’s web site. The Heritage Basis stated in a assertion on the time of Dans’ resignation that it will finish Venture 2025’s policy-related work, however that its “collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels — federal, state, and local — will continue.”
The Heritage Basis and most people who seem within the movies cited on this story didn’t reply to ProPublica’s repeated requests for remark. Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump marketing campaign who options in one of many movies, stated, “As our campaign leadership and President Trump have repeatedly stated, Agenda 47 is the only official policy agenda from our campaign.”
Venture 2025’s 887-page “Mandate for Leadership” doc lays out an unlimited array of coverage and governance proposals, together with eliminating the Division of Training, slashing Medicaid, reclassifying tens of hundreds of profession civil servants in order that they might be extra simply fired and changed, giving the president higher energy to regulate the DOJ and additional proscribing abortion entry.
Democrats and liberal teams have criticized the challenge’s coverage agenda as “extreme” and “authoritarian” whereas stating the numerous connections between Trump and the lots of of people that contributed to the challenge.
“Trump’s attempts to distance himself from Project 2025 have always been disingenuous,” stated Noah Bookbinder, president of the watchdog group Residents for Duty and Ethics in Washington. “The discovery that the vast majority of speakers in Project 2025 training videos are alumni of the Trump administration or have other close ties to Trump’s political operation is unsurprising further evidence of the close connection there.”
A number of audio system within the movies acknowledge that the Trump administration was slowed by staffing challenges and the inexperience of its political appointees, and so they provide classes discovered from their stumbles. A number of the recommendation seems at odds with conservative dogma, together with a suggestion that the following administration might have to develop key authorities businesses to realize the bigger purpose of slashing federal laws.
Rick Dearborn, who helped lead Trump’s 2016 transition group and later served within the Trump White Home as deputy chief of employees, recalled in a single video how “tough” it was to search out individuals to fill all the key positions within the early days of the administration.
The personnel a part of Venture 2025 is “so important to the next president,” Dearborn says. “Establishing all of this, providing the expertise, looking at a database of folks that can be part of the administration, talking to you like we are right now about what is a transition about, why do I want to be engaged in it, what would my role be — that’s a luxury that we didn’t have,” referring to a database of potential political appointees.
Dan Huff, a former authorized adviser within the White Home Presidential Personnel Workplace underneath Trump, says in one other video that future appointees needs to be ready to enact vital adjustments in American authorities and be able to face blowback after they do.
“If you’re not on board with helping implement a dramatic course correction because you’re afraid it’ll damage your future employment prospects, it’ll harm you socially — look, I get it,” Huff says. “That’s a real danger. It’s a real thing. But please: Do us all a favor and sit this one out.”
“Eradicate Climate Change References”
The challenge’s specialists define regulatory and coverage adjustments that future political appointees ought to put together for in a Republican administration.
One video, titled “Hidden Meanings: The Monsters in the Attic,” is a 50-minute dialogue of supposed left-wing code phrases and biased language that future appointees ought to concentrate on and root out. In that video, Kozma says that U.S. intelligence businesses have named local weather change as an more and more dire risk to world stability, which, she says, illustrates how the difficulty “has infiltrated every part of the federal government.”
She then tells viewers that she sees local weather change as merely a canopy to interact in inhabitants management. “I think about the people who don’t want you to have children because of the” — right here she makes air-quotes — “impact on the environment.” She provides, “This is part of their ultimate goal to control people.”
Later within the video, Katie Sullivan, the previous appearing assistant lawyer normal underneath Trump, advocates for eradicating so-called vital race principle from public schooling with out saying how the federal authorities would accomplish that. (Elementary and secondary schooling curricula are usually set on the state and native stage, not by the federal authorities.)
“The noxious tenets of critical race theory and gender ideology should be excised from curriculum in every single public school in this country,” Sullivan says. (Reached by cellphone, Sullivan advised ProPublica to contact her press consultant and hung up. A consultant didn’t reply.)
In a unique video, David Burton, an financial coverage professional on the Heritage Basis, discusses the significance of an obscure but influential company known as the Workplace of Info and Regulatory Affairs. The Trump administration used OIRA to assist roll again laws on financial, fiscal and environmental points. Beneath Biden, OIRA took a extra aggressive stance in serving to evaluate and form new laws, which included efforts to fight housing discrimination, ban the sale of so-called ghost weapons and set new renewable gas targets.
Burton, within the Venture 2025 video, urges future political appointees to work in OIRA and argues that the workplace ought to “increase its staffing levels considerably” in service of the conservative purpose of reining within the so-called administrative state, particularly the federal businesses that craft and subject new laws.
“Fifty people are not enough to adequately police the regulatory actions of the entire federal government,” Burton says. “OIRA is one of the few government agencies that limits the regulatory ambitions of other agencies.” (Burton confirmed in a short interview that he appeared within the video and endorsed increasing OIRA’s staffing ranges.)
Increasing the federal workforce — even an workplace tasked with scrutinizing laws — would appear to chop in opposition to the conservative motion’s long-standing purpose of shrinking authorities. For anybody confused by Venture 2025’s insistence {that a} conservative president ought to fill all appointee slots and probably develop sure capabilities, Spencer Chretien, a former Trump White Home aide who’s now Venture 2025’s affiliate director, addresses the stress in a single video.
“Some on the right even say that we, because we believe in small government, should just lead by example and not fill certain political positions,” Chretien says. “I suggest that it would be almost impossible to bring any conservative change to America if the president did that.”
A Trump Authorities-in-Ready
The audio system within the Venture 2025 movies are cautious to not explicitly facet with Trump or speak about what a future Trump administration may do. They as an alternative check with a future “conservative president” or “conservative administration.”
However the hyperlinks between the audio system within the movies and Trump are many. Most of these served Trump throughout his administration, working on the White Home, the Nationwide Safety Council, NASA, the Workplace of Administration and Finances, USAID and the departments of Justice, Inside, State, Homeland Safety, Transportation and Well being and Human Companies. One other speaker has labored within the Senate workplace of J.D. Vance, Trump’s 2024 working mate.
Sullivan, the previous DOJ appearing assistant lawyer normal in control of the division’s Workplace of Justice Applications, which oversees billions in grant funding, seems in three totally different movies. Leavitt, who’s in a coaching video titled “The Art of Professionalism,” labored within the White Home press workplace throughout Trump’s first presidency and is now the nationwide press secretary for his reelection marketing campaign.
A constant theme within the recommendation and testimonials provided by these Trump alums is that Venture 2025 trainees ought to count on a hostile reception in the event that they go to work within the federal authorities. Kozma, the previous USAID deputy chief of employees, says in a single video that “many” of her fellow Trump appointees skilled “persecution” throughout their time in authorities.
In a video titled “The Political Appointee’s Survival Guide,” Max Primorac, a former deputy administrator at USAID throughout the Trump administration, warns viewers that Washington is a spot that “does not share your conservative values,” and that new hires will discover that “there’s so much hostility to basic traditional values.”
In the identical video, Kristen Eichamer, a former deputy press secretary on the Trump-era NASA, says that the media pushed false narratives about then-President Trump and individuals who labored in his administration. “Being defamed on Twitter is almost a badge of honor in the Trump administration,” she says.
Outthinking “the Left”
The movies additionally provide much less overtly political tutorials for future appointees, masking every little thing from how a regulation will get made to working with the media, the mechanics of a presidential transition course of to acquiring a safety clearance, and finest practices for time administration.
One recurring theme within the movies is how the following Republican administration can keep away from the errors of the primary Trump presidency. In a single video, Roger Severino, the previous director of the Workplace of Civil Rights within the Trump-era Division of Well being and Human Companies, explains that failure to meticulously observe federal process led to courts delaying or throwing out sure regulatory efforts on technical grounds.
Severino, who can also be a longtime chief within the anti-abortion motion, goes on to stroll viewers via the ins and outs of procedural legislation and says that they need to put together for “the left” to make use of each instrument potential to derail the following conservative president. “This is a game of 3D chess,” Severino says. “You have to be always anticipating what the left is going to do to try to throw sand in the gears and trip you up and block your rule.” (In an electronic mail, Severino stated he would ahead ProPublica’s interview request to Heritage’s spokespeople, who didn’t reply.)
Working underneath the idea that some profession workers may search to thwart a future conservative president’s agenda, among the recommendation pertains to how political appointees can keep away from being derailed or slowed down by the federal government bureaucrats who work with them.
Sullivan urges viewers to “empower your political staff,” restrict entry to appointees’ calendars and pass over profession employees from early conferences with extra senior company officers. “You are making it clear to career staff that your political appointees are in charge,” Sullivan says.
Different ideas from the movies embody scrubbing private social media accounts of any content material that’s “damaging, vulgar or contradict the policies you are there to implement” properly earlier than the brand new administration begins, as Kozma put it.
Alexei Woltornist, a former assistant secretary for public affairs on the Division of Homeland Safety, encourages future appointees to bypass mainstream information retailers like The New York Instances and The Washington Submit. As a substitute, they need to deal with conservative media retailers as a result of these are the one retailers conservative voters belief.
“The American people who vote for a conservative presidential administration, they’re not reading The New York Times, they’re not reading The Washington Post,” Woltornist says. “To the contrary, if those outlets publish something, they’re going to assume it’s false. So the only way to reach them with any voice of credibility is through working with conservative media outlets.”
And in a video about oversight and investigations, a gaggle of conservative investigators advise future appointees on learn how to keep away from making a paper path of delicate communications that might be obtained by congressional committees or outdoors teams underneath the Freedom of Info Act.
“If you need to resolve something, if you can do it, it’s probably better to walk down the hall, buttonhole a guy and say, ‘Hey, what are we going to do here?’ Talk through the decision,” says Tom Jones, a former Senate investigator who now runs the American Accountability Basis.
Jones provides that it’s potential that company legal professionals may cite exemptions within the public-records legislation to stop the discharge of sure paperwork. However appointees are finest served, he argues, in the event that they don’t put essential communications in writing within the first place.
“You’re probably better off,” Jones says, “going down to the canteen, getting a cup of coffee, talking it through and making the decision, as opposed to sending him an email and creating a thread that Accountable.US or one of those other groups is going to come back and seek.”