In a post on his social media platform on Friday, former President Donald Trump attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, a laundry list of right-wing policy proposals assembled by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation in the event of a Republican win in the 2024 presidential election.
The post comes just days after Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, said on Trump ally Steve Bannon’s podcast that the United States is “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
In his Truth Social post, Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee in November’s election, said that he is clueless about the particulars of the far-right agenda — which, among other things, calls for the dismantling of federal agencies, ousting of thousands of civil servants in favor of those loyal to a Republican administration, recommends mass detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants, removing legal protections for sexual orientation and gender identity and cracking down on abortion and contraceptive care — even as President Joe Biden and Democratic allies have hammered him on it in the lead-up to November’s election.
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump claimed. “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.”
Trump did not make clear what aspects of the plan he disagrees with, and it’s unclear the extent to which officials with his campaign and leaders of the far-right agenda are communicating or coordinating. The Republican former president’s campaign has its own webpage, Agenda47, which details his policy proposals.
But several former Trump officials, including former trade adviser Peter Navarro, former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, Ken Cuccinelli, who a judge determined unlawfully held the role of acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and former White House Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought, have contributed to the proposal. Vought was recently tapped by the Republican National Committee and Trump’s campaign to serve as policy director of the GOP’s platform committee.
Biden's reelection campaign wasn't buying Trump's explanation.
"Project 2025 is the extreme policy and personnel playbook for Trump’s second term that should scare the hell out of the American people," said Ammar Moussa, the Biden campaign's director of rapid response. "Project 2025 staff and leadership routinely tout their connections to Trump's team, and are the same people leading the RNC policy platform, Trump’s debate prep, campaign, and inner circle."
“Trump's Supreme Court and Project 2025 have designed the playbook for Trump to achieve his dream of being a dictator on day one, with unchecked, imperial power," Moussa continued. "Allowing a self-absorbed convicted felon that kind of power would be devastating for our democracy and middle-class families. This November, voters must stop Trump from turning the Oval Office into his throne room.”
Trump’s campaign has repeatedly denied coordination with Project 2025, saying in November of last year that “all 2024 campaign policy announcements will be made by President Trump or members of his campaign team. Policy recommendations from external allies are just that-- recommendations.”
“Despite our being crystal clear, some “allies” haven’t gotten the hint, and the media, in their anti-Trump zeal, has been all-to-willing to continue using anonymous sourcing and speculation about a second Trump administration in an effort to prevent a second Trump administration,” Trump campaign co-managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement in December. "Let us be very specific here: unless a message is coming directly from President Trump or an authorized member of his campaign team, no aspect of future presidential staffing or policy announcements should be deemed official.”
And in a statement on Friday, Project 2025 says that it "does not speak for any candidate or campaign."
"We are a coalition of more than 110 conservative groups advocating policy & personnel recommendations for the next conservative president," the group wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement."
The group went on to accuse Biden's reelection campaign of "obsessing over Project 2025" and should instead be focused on the 25th Amendment, which would allow his Cabinet to remove him from power in the event of disability.
But Trump’s direct disavowal comes after Roberts’ appearance on Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, in which he made his “second American Revolution” during a discussion about the Supreme Court’s ruling in the former president’s immunity claim last week.
“We ought to be really encouraged by what happened yesterday, and in spite of all of the injustice — which of course friends and audience of this show, of our friend Steve, know — we are going to prevail,” Roberts, referring to Bannon’s imprisonment for defying a congressional subpoena, told former Virginia Rep. Dave Brat, who hosted the interview.
Roberts went on to call the ruling “vital” to having a strong executive branch and charged that “the radical left” is “apoplectic … because our side is winning.”
“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” he added.
Roberts said in a statement to The Associated Press that the “revolution” was in reference to taking “power back from the elites and despotic bureaucrats” before baselessly accusing the political left of “a long history of violence” by pointing to the racial justice protests of 2020 after George Floyd’s murder by police officers in Minnesota.
Democrats have accused Republicans of engaging in political violence during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the building to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s win. Biden himself has referenced the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., which saw one person killed and dozens more injured.
Biden’s campaign responded to Roberts’ comments by referencing the Fourth of July holiday, which took place on Thursday.
“248 years tomorrow, America declared independence from a tyrannical king, and now Donald Trump and his allies want to make him one at our expense,” Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said Wednesday. “On Jan. 6, they proudly stormed our Capitol to overturn an election Donald Trump lost fair and square — something not even the Confederacy was able to accomplish — now they are dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America.”
Democrats have attempted to shine a spotlight on Project 2025 and tie Trump to the proposal, with Biden’s campaign launching a dedicated website to try and inform the public about the agenda.
Google searches for “Project 2025” spiked following last week’s presidential debate and have continued to rise in recent days, according to Google Trends, potentially fueled in part by Black Entertainment Television Awards host Taraji P. Henson referencing it during the broadcast, and fact-checker Snopes said it received a “flood” of inquiries about Project 2025 in an explainer article published this week.