As much as we know by now about Donald Trump’s creative approach to facts, even the man whom late-night host Jimmy Kimmel calls “Rant-a-Claus” can go a fib too far.
Trump seemed to hit his credibility limit when he took to Truth Social, his social media platform, to deny any knowledge whatsoever of Project 2025, a collection of very-conservative policy initiatives developed by the same Washington, D.C., policy factory that’s been setting GOP agendas for more than four decades.
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” the former president wrote, sounding about as believable as the corrupt police prefect in “Casablanca” who was “shocked, shocked” to hear there was gambling going on.
“I have no idea who is behind it,” he continued. “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.”
Well, maybe not exactly “nothing.” In fact, Project 2025 is a presidential transition agenda compiled by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, aided by dozens of former Trump administration officials. It claims credit for Trump’s “embracing two-thirds of Heritage’s proposals within just one year in office” during his term.
Since 1981 Heritage has been publishing its hefty “Mandate for Leadership” to advise conservative administrations, beginning with President Ronald Reagan, whose praise raised the profile of the group in the days of the “Reagan Revolution.”
I quickly learned to appreciate Heritage research for advancing such issues as welfare reform and school vouchers. But Heritage, in my view, took a decided turn away from objective research as new leaders and donors wanted more conservative activism. That seemed fine with President Trump who also seemed to appreciate Heritage folks, although his recent attempts to distance himself seem to show his well-known reluctance to share his spotlight.
Nevertheless, the connection lives on in the parade of familiar, well-connected Beltway names participating in Project 2025. They include Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management; Ben Carson, former Housing and Urban Development secretary; Ken Cuccinelli, former deputy secretary of homeland security; Peter Navarro, former director of the White House National Trade Council and director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy; Stephen Moore, an adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign; Russell Vought, former director of the Office of Management and Budget; Brooks Tucker, former chief of staff for the Department of Veterans Affairs; Roger Severino, former director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, and Bernard McNamee, former commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, just for starters.
And if you still somehow have not heard of Project 2025, President Joe Biden’s campaign is happy to help you, too. The Biden campaign’s website describes Project 2025 as a vehicle to help Trump “gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office.” That sounds about right to me.
For the record, Project 2025 is not Trump’s official platform. The official campaign site is Agenda47, which focuses on the former president’s central issues, such as curbing immigration and boosting economic growth.
If past is prologue, though, and Trump in a second term ends up using Heritage’s big book as a policy blueprint again, this 920-page tome offers plenty to keep more moderate folks, like me, awake at night.
It calls for replacing vast numbers of federal civil servant jobs with political appointees who would be loyal directly to the president. It proposes crackdowns on abortion rights, criminalization of pornography (What happened to First Amendment freedom?), big cuts to climate research funding (Really? Does Trump still think it’s all a hoax?) and eliminating a couple of familiar targets of right-wing frustration, the Departments of Commerce and Education. Those two departments have survived past GOP efforts to zero them out, maybe indicating that the programs they oversee are important to a lot of Americans.
You may not have heard much about the Project 2025 controversy amid the confusion and debates about Biden’s future atop the Democratic ticket. But “Rant-a-Claus” and friends are raising troubling issues too.
Clarence Page is a Chicago Tribune columnist and a member of its editorial board. Email him at cpage@chicagotribune.com.
