On Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone highlights Project 2025’s “work that they’re doing right now to attempt to steal or undermine the election”
Carusone: “This is their backup plan if they don't get the majority of votes. It's a full on transition to tyranny well before they even get into office.”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
Citation From the October 22, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): That's Vice President Kamala Harris in a brand new interview with our NBC News colleague Hallie Jackson on the very real risk that Donald Trump could try to steal the 2024 election as he did the 2020 election, should he fall short at the ballot box. That interview airing on NBC News Now and NBC Nightly News. Joining our conversation, President of Media Matters for America, Angelo Carusone is here. And with me at the table, MSNBC legal analyst and NYU law professor Melissa Murray is at the table.
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I think on the economy, too, all the data suggests that that's not the case, that there's a feels issue with the economy. It can feel expensive. People feel bad about it. And even if they don't feel bad about their personal economy, they feel bad or worried about their kids or their neighbors or others. And yes, that is throughout history, Angelo, a ripe climate for an autocrat, which is exactly what Project 2025 ushers in.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah, I mean, you know, Project 2025 as Melissa noted, it's not just about, sort of aspirational ideas. They have a playbook about what the first 180 days looks like. And it's worth noting that that playbook is the one part of Project 2025 that they have not made public, right?
That's the thing that Russell Vought is doing in secret, in addition to drafting 350 individualized memos, executive orders and guidance for departments and agencies to be implemented in the first few weeks of the administration. So, that's part of it. And then, as you noted in the opening segment, it's sort of a little bit bigger than that because Project 2025 goes beyond what happens when Trump gets into office. It also provides the bedrock for the organizing and the connective tissue for sort of helping steal the election in the first place.
We just put out a new report today which points out that ten of the major players that are part of Project 2025 extensively detailing all the work that they're doing right now to attempt to steal or undermine the election. That is, litigation, that is putting out false information and false reports about noncitizens voting already. I mean, they're already flooding the zone with the types of information that they would then capitalize -- disinformation that they would then capitalize on to sort of push not just public opinion, but then initiate and execute sort of this larger legal strategy that they're putting in place.
And that's what makes this so real and scary is that they're not just winging it like last time. This is not sort of a thing that's happening on the fly. This is their backup plan if they don't get the majority of votes. It's a full on transition to tyranny well before they even get into office. And it is an alarm.
WALLACE: I mean, I think the bright spot is that Project -- you know, in the sort of "How bad is it?" -- Project 2025 is so bad even Trump's people hate it. So, I want to go through some of the new reporting in The New York Times today about the deep ties between Trump's orbit and this very unpopular plan, Project 2025.
Citation From the October 22, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): We've been covering Project 2025 and the brand new reporting in The New York Times that combed through the numerous people who worked on the 900 page far right manifesto Angelo's talking about and found a stunning number of direct ties to the ex-president, Donald Trump -- 18 of 40 authors and editors who worked on the document served in the first Trump administration. One worked on Trump's first presidential transition team, 12 of them worked both in Trump's first administration and on one of his transitional campaign teams. And of the 267 additional contributors to the Project 2025 playbook, at least 144 of them also worked for Trump previously.
We're back with Angelo and Melissa. Angelo, this idea that Project 2025 is sort of this deadweight that JD Vance and Trump have to carry around does bear out in the polls, but only if it's sort of put in front of voters in a way that's a little clunky, without a lot of visual aids.
Governor Tim Walz does it everywhere he goes. He does it on podcasts, he does it on rallies. He does it at off the record stops. Do you -- what is your sense, sort of knowing at such granular level of how much has seeped in to the public's understanding?
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): It's one of the few things where people -- the consciousness and the awareness of Project 2025 zoomed up, once that catalyst happened. Once Kevin Roberts talked about that "bloodless revolution if Democrats allow it" and people actually started to pay attention for the first time, within less than a month, 70% of Americans were made aware of Project 2025 and the majority of them already had negative feelings about it and that was before the summer of discussion. That's just unprecedented. Things like that don't happen unless the full right-wing media echo chamber is all spun out.
So, it is an albatross, and it's important that it keeps getting pointed to. And you can ignore the data -- you can just look at Trump. There's a reason he is constantly out there screaming and yelling about how unfair it is that Democrats keep trying to saddle him with Project 2025. But the problem with that, though, and as the New York Times reporting details, is that even when you dig beyond just what they've uncovered in terms of the connections, Trump has done seven public appearances in just the last few weeks with key Project 2025 authors. I mean, the overlap is intense. Everywhere you look, you can't shrug it.
Just yesterday, Kevin Roberts, the head of Project 2025, shrugged off Trump's efforts to disassociate. He said, "Look, we're just focused on November 6th, the day after the election. That's when policy comes into place and that's where we shine, that's our terrain." So, I mean, as much as Trump has tried to distance himself from it, those efforts haven't really been effective and it's important we just keep emphasizing that. Because it is deeply unpopular.
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WALLACE: Angelo, from our many, many conversations now over a long time, I mean, I've come to understand that you know, the autocratic things that Trump says are buttressed now by an autocratic manual for how he changes the government and the stars that align are what Melissa just articulated, the Supreme Court, the autocrat himself and the policy apparatus that goes in and changes government. The other tool of an autocrat is despair and hopelessness. But all of this education and all of this sort of public awareness, I mean, these are the polls on Project 2025 according to NBC News: 57% have a negative view of it, only 4% a positive view. What are your thoughts as we sort of head into the last two weeks?
CARUSONE: I think what is important that we continue to talk about it. Because it's one thing that continues to have some broad consensus. There are few things that have that kind of consensus and it's important that we do. It puts into focus what this election is really about. It sort of takes it out of the personality component and the individual component and it puts into stark contrast. That's the first thing.
And I think you're right when you noted before that when Trump makes these references about military, deploying the military, whenever I hear those things, immediately I think about the Project 2025 underpinnings of it. So, the more he talks about that, I talk about -- I think about the military memos that they drafted, about how he can use those powers. So, I think it's important we had this conversation. I'm glad we're having them.
WALLACE: And they are to be continued.