What we can VERIFY about Trump’s connections to Project 2025

Project 2025 and some of the initiative’s policy recommendations have become popular talking points leading up to the 2024 presidential election. 

The initiative, created by a conservative think tank called The Heritage Foundation, provides a roadmap intended for the next conservative president to transform the government in favor of conservative social policies and ideals. 

“If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration,” an online description of the plan says. 

Amid increased scrutiny about Project 2025, its director Paul Dans stepped down in late July and multiple media outlets have reported that Project 2025 is winding down its policy work.

Claims like these have led many VERIFY readers to ask us questions about Trump’s affiliation with Project 2025.

Here’s what we can VERIFY about Trump’s connections to Project 2025.

THE SOURCES

WHAT WE FOUND

Former President Donald Trump has never publicly endorsed Project 2025. The former president and his campaign have recently distanced themselves from the initiative on multiple occasions.

Project 2025 itself has denied any affiliation with Trump. But the initiative describes its policy proposals in more general terms as being a “playbook” for the “next conservative administration.” 

A number of former Trump administration members and people working for his campaign have also contributed to Project 2025 or promoted the initiative. 

VERIFY researched what Trump and his campaign have said about Project 2025, as well as how people with ties to Trump – including vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance and some of Trump’s former staff – are connected to the initiative.

What Trump and his campaign have said about Project 2025

Trump has recently denied any knowledge of Project 2025 and said he has nothing to do with the plan. However, Trump has praised the Heritage Foundation and alluded to Project 2025 in the past.

In two separate posts to his Truth Social account in July, Trump said, “I know nothing about Project 2025.”

Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on July 5, “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

He doubled down on his stance in another post on July 9, writing, “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it. The Radical Left Democrats are having a field day, however, trying to hook me into whatever policies are stated or said. It is pure disinformation on their part. By now, after all of these years, everyone knows where I stand on EVERYTHING!”

"President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” the July 30 statement says. “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign— it will not end well for you."

“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. And that’s what’s coming,” Trump said during the speech. 

Project 2025 says it’s not affiliated with Trump, but helped shape his policies

Though Project 2025 recommends policy and personnel changes for the next conservative president, a spokesperson for Project 2025 said in a July 5 post on X that it “does not speak for any candidate or campaign.”

In another post on July 9, the official Project 2025 account emphasized that it is “not affiliated with former President Trump.”

The Project 2025 spokesperson added in the July 5 post that it is ultimately up to the next conservative president, who they believe will be Trump, to decide which of the initiative’s recommendations to implement, if any. 

On a webpage describing Project 2025, the team behind the plan touts its impact in shaping past conservative policies, including those implemented during the Trump administration.

“The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is being organized by The Heritage Foundation and builds off Heritage’s longstanding ‘Mandate for Leadership,’ which has been highly influential for presidential administrations since the Reagan era. Most recently, the Trump administration relied heavily on Heritage’s ‘Mandate’ for policy guidance, embracing nearly two-thirds of Heritage’s proposals within just one year in office,” the page says. 

Former and current Trump staffers connected to Project 2025

While Trump himself has denied any connections to Project 2025, a number of members of his presidential administration and people currently working for his campaign directly contributed to the plan or have promoted it. 

That includes Paul Dans, Benjamin Carson, M.D., Peter Navarro, Ph.D., and Kevin Cuccinelli, among others. 

Dans, the former director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation who stepped down in late July, served as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under Trump.

Carson served as Trump’s secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Navarro was Trump’s director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, and Cuccinelli was the acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under Trump.

Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s current campaign press secretary, and Trump’s former policy advisor Stephen Miller also appear in a September 2023 promotional video for a Project 2025 initiative.

JD Vance’s connections to Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation

Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who is Trump’s vice presidential pick, does not appear to have issued any public endorsements of Project 2025, though he does have connections to people involved with the plan. 

Vance wrote the foreword for Roberts’ book titled “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America,” which is slated to be released in September 2024, according to its Amazon listing. Along with serving as the Heritage Foundation’s president, Roberts also wrote the “Mandate for Leadership” foreword. 

According to the description, Roberts’ book will identify “institutions that conservatives need to build, others that we need to take back, and more still that are too corrupt to save,” This could be in line with Project 2025’s policy proposals that call for defunding numerous organizations that receive federal funding, such as Planned Parenthood and public broadcasters like NPR and PBS.

In reviews for the book that are shown on the Amazon webpage, Vance is quoted as saying, “Never before has a figure with Roberts’s depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism... We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lie ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.”

Some proposals in Trump’s Agenda 47 are similar to Project 2025

On Trump’s website, a page titled “Agenda 47” outlines his own official policy agenda should he be re-elected. 

Though Agenda 47 and Project 2025 are separate from one another and don’t outline all of the same policy proposals, there are some similarities between the two plans.

For example, Project 2025 recommends that critical race theory and gender ideology should be removed from every public school in the country. Trump’s policy agenda also calls for cutting federal funding “for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.”

Project 2025 also advocates for ending the use of government funding for gender reassignment surgeries for military service members. Similarly, Trump’s agenda says his administration would seek to “ban taxpayer funding for sex change surgeries.”

VERIFY digital journalist Kelly Jones contributed to this report.