Project 2025, which is meant to guide a future Republican presidential administration, features numerous extremist policy measures. Right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation, along with 100 partner organizations and more than 200 authors and contributors, put together a comprehensive transition plan to guide a future Republican presidential administration. The playbook’s proposed measures includes reinstating Schedule F, a Trump-era executive order that makes federal employees fireable at-will, stripping tens of thousands of employees of civil service protections, and severely inhibiting the federal government’s protections around reproductive rights, LGBTQ and civil rights, and immigration, as well as its climate change efforts. [Media Matters, 3/20/24; Project 2025, accessed 7/30/24; Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

Former President Donald Trump, who has tried to distance himself from Project 2025 amid criticism of the extremist policies in the plan, has extensive ties to Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation, and the 900-page playbook’s authors, editors, and contributors. CNN found that at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025, including more than half of the people listed as authors, editors, and contributors to the playbook. Among them are six of Trump’s former Cabinet secretaries, who helped write or collaborated on it. Trump has also previously praised the think tank, and Project 2025’s then-director previously bragged about the initiative’s relationship with Trump. [CNN, 7/11/24, 7/11/24; Media Matters, 7/23/24]

Project 2025 provides a staffing agenda for a transition to the next Republican administration, aiming for the administration to quickly hire Trump loyalists. As New York Times reporter Jonathan Swan has noted, the Trump campaign would have to rely on Project 2025 should Trump win the election given how little transition work has been done. Combined with right-wing media’s ideal picks for Trump’s next Cabinet — suggestions have included Tucker Carlson, Michael Flynn, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Laura Loomer — it could add up to a full-scale plan to fill the federal government with loyal extremists. [Media Matters, 6/7/24, 7/30/24; Twitter/X, 7/30/24]

White nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes urged followers to join Project 2025 and called it “the best personnel database between several competing think tanks.” [Media Matters, 8/11/24; Telegram, 7/17/24]

“Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander called Project 2025 “cool.” [Telegram, 7/11/24; Media Matters, 7/27/21]

White nationalist Patrick Casey: “I’ve heard … Project 2025 probably has the best list and the best people.” Casey also said that “it would be a shame if the — the human capital amassed and organized by Project 2025 goes to waste.” [Rumble, Restoring Order with Patrick Casey, 7/5/24; Media Matters, 1/29/24]

Far-right conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich: “Project 2025 was former Trump staffers who wanted to avoid the 2017 personnel problems” and is “a credible plan to avoid the personnel problems of 2017.” [Twitter/X, 7/30/24, 7/30/24; Media Matters, 8/21/18]

White nationalist and Holocaust denier Vincent James Foxx wrote that it’s “concerning” that Trump is “disavowing” Project 2025 because it’s what he “ran on in 2016.” [Telegram, 7/30/24; Media Matters, 2/17/22]

Far-right figure David Carlson, who has led a group tied to white nationalism and seemingly pushed white nationalist “blood and soil” rhetoric himself, called Project 2025 “the future of the Republican Party.” [Twitter/X, 7/9/24, 1/21/22; Political Research Associates, 7/20/21; DCPerspective, 7/8/21]

Proud Boys chapters have reportedly called Project 2025 an avenue for the “complete restructuring of the federal government” and called for followers to help implement it. According to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, Proud Boys of Columbus called Project 2025 “‘child’s play,’ suggesting Project 2025 isn’t all that extreme,” which is “a sentiment shared by Proud Boys Ohio.” The organization also noted that Proud Boys of Columbus called Project 2025 a “key facilitator in the ‘complete restructuring of the federal government,’ which ‘likely won’t be bloodless.’” Another chapter, Proud Boys Philippines, “forwarded a message from another channel criticizing former President Trump for distancing himself from Project 2025.” The post suggested Project 2025 “could help with implementing ‘mass deportations’ in the United States” and called for followers “to supposedly help implement Project 2025, urging them to ‘keep pushing until the dam breaks’ by ‘run[ning] for local office.’” [Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, 7/11/24]

A neo-Nazi Telegram account with over 20,000 subscribers called “Thuletide” reportedly shared a post calling on followers to “join a think tank…[and] Project 2025.” [Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, 7/11/24]

Users on far-right forums TheDonald and 4chan’s “politically incorrect” (commonly known as “/pol/”) have praised the project, writing that “Project 2025 could be the best thing ever” and that it “is very beneficial.” [patriots.win, 7/21/24; 4chan, 7/11/24; Media Matters, 11/10/23, 6/5/24]

On July 29, USA Today reported that some contributors of Project 2025 have a “trail of racist writings, activity,” including Richard Hanania, who previously spent years contributing to white nationalist sites using a pseudonym. The article also named failed Virginia GOP Senate candidate Corey Stewart, who told a crowd in 2017 that he was proud to stand next to a Confederate flag. According to USA Today, at least three contributors have also pushed the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, including Michael Anton, a former senior national security official in the Trump administration. [USA Today, 7/29/24]

Writing under the pen name “Richard Hoste,” Hanania reportedly wrote racist essays for white supremacist websites for years — with HuffPost reporting his identity in August 2023. In those writings, he “identified himself as a ‘race realist,’” “expressed support for eugenics and the forced sterilization of ‘low IQ’ people, who he argued were most often Black,” “opposed ‘miscegenation’ and ‘race-mixing,’” and, “while arguing that Black people cannot govern themselves … cited the neo-Nazi author of ‘The Turner Diaries,’ the infamous novel that celebrates a future race war.” In response to HuffPost’s reporting, Hanania reportedly “only partly renounced his past,” and white nationalist Richard Spencer, who published some of Hanania’s articles on his site, said to USA Today that “while Hanania may have moderated some of his views, ‘I think it’s very clear that Richard is a race realist and eugenicist.’” [HuffPost 8/4/23; USA Today, 7/29/24]

Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), has called Hanania a “friend.” Vance, who seemingly has ties to Project 2025 himself, reportedly “described Hanania as a ‘friend’ and a ‘really interesting thinker’” during a 2021 interview before Hanania’s white nationalist writings were uncovered. The two have also reportedly “interacted several times” on social media, “liking and commenting on each other’s posts.” [USA Today, 7/29/24; Media Matters, 7/24/24, 7/26/24, 7/30/24]

Following publication of the August 2023 HuffPost report on his anonymous white nationalist writings, Hanania continued to appear on white nationalist programs. Despite claiming to have renounced some of his past activity and previous views following HuffPost’s report, Hanania subsequently spoke online with white nationalist figures: 

• In September 2023, Hanania appeared on white nationalist Stew Peters’ show, telling Peters that “we both oppose anti-white discrimination.” [Rumble, The Stew Peters Show, 9/26/23; Media Matters, 3/13/23]

• That October, Hanania streamed on YouTube with Keith Woods, an Irish white nationalist and self-described “raging antisemite,” using the interview to ask Woods if he could “provide a link” for his new book about “wokeness” for Woods’ viewers “who wanna buy it.” While appearing on Woods’ channel, Hanania also urged viewers who “care about, like, public policy” to go “into public policy,” and Woods told Hanania that while they “may not agree on everything,” “I’ve been interested in your work for a while” and “think you always have a very thoughtful, interesting perspective.” [YouTube, 10/6/23, 10/6/23, 10/6/23, 10/6/23; Media Matters, 2/13/24]