• Project 2025 is a radical and comprehensive transition plan organized by right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation to guide the next GOP presidential administration. It outlines policy prescriptions that threaten democracy, civil rights, the climate, and more. The initiative is backed by a coalition of over 100 organizations and individuals, at least two-thirds of which receive funding from the Koch network or conservative philanthropist Leonard Leo. The project is also heavily promoted by MAGA-connected media figures such as War Room podcaster Steve Bannon, who has called it the “blueprint” for Trump's second term. [Media Matters, 3/20/24]
• Trump is widely connected to Project 2025, with at least 140 people previously affiliated with the Trump administration involved with the project, including more than half of its authors, editors, and contributors. According to reporting from CNN, six of Trump’s former Cabinet secretaries helped write or collaborated on the playbook, and dozens of his staffers, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows and adviser Stephen Miller, have held positions with conservative groups advising Project 2025. [CNN, 7/11/24]
• Trump said in 2022 that Heritage was “going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.” According to reporting, the former president also gave a keynote speech at a Heritage conference in 2022 and shared a 45-minute private flight with Heritage Foundation president and Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts. [The Washington Post, 8/7/24]

Project 2025 envisions restricting reproductive rights at a federal level by removing the term “abortion” from all federal laws and regulations, urging the Food and Drug Administration to “reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs,” and enforcing the Comstock Act to end “mail-order abortions.” 

The playbook proposes that the next conservative administration collect data “about who had abortions and where” and urging the Department of Health and Human Services to punish noncompliant states. It suggests HHS cut federal funding from those states “to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.”

Right-wing media have bolstered anti-abortion narratives by frequently pushing misinformation about the safety of abortion and abortion medication. They’ve also tried to ignore abortion’s widespread public approval and tried to obscure Republican opposition to the safe medical procedure.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2021, at least 21 states are banning or restricting access to abortion, reportedly with “more than 25 million women and more trans and non-binary people living in states that now have abortion bans or restrictions.” Some states have also passed legislation restricting access to medication abortion, a method reportedly used in 63% of abortions in the United States in 2023.

Over the last two years, reporting indicates that people living in states that enacted restrictions have died from untreated pregnancy complications or been charged with murder after miscarriage, and infant deaths are estimated to have increased in at least one state.

At least 21 Republican governors or GOP-controlled state legislatures have restricted abortion access in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Utah. Some of those measures include: 

• Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill making it a crime to help a minor receive an abortion. The minor, the minor’s parents, or the biological father can sue for monetary damages under the new law, which applies regardless of whether the pregnant minor “consented to the actions that led to the offense” and carries a sentence of 11 months and 29 days in prison. [CNN, 5/29/24]
• Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill classifying two abortion-inducing drugs as “controlled and dangerous substances.” The bill, which took effect on October 1, restricts access to mifepristone and misoprostol, “the most common method of abortion” in the United States. Some of the new requirements could make it more difficult for rural clinics to stock the drugs. [The Associated Press, 5/24/24; NBC News, 9/30/24]
• Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey can now enforce one of the country’s most restrictive abortion bans, preventing abortion at any stage of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The law makes providing an abortion a felony offense, “punishable by 10 to 99 years or life in prison.” [The Associated Press, 5/16/19]
• Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed a near-total abortion ban, which prevents abortions “except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency.” There are no exceptions for rape or incest. Violators could be fined up to $100,000 and up to 10 years in prison. [CNN, 3/9/21]
• Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a near-total abortion ban that prohibits all abortions except in some instances of extreme health risk. The law makes some exceptions, allowing abortion before 22 weeks of pregnancy if a “lethal fetal anomaly” is detected or until 12 weeks of pregnancy in cases of rape or incest. [NPR, 8/1/23; Indiana Capital Chronicle, 8/5/22]
• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law which bans abortion except when a doctor, using their “reasonable medical judgment,” determines care is necessary for the health of the pregnant patient. The vague wording left doctors unsure when they could intervene without being fined $100,000 or sent to prison for life. The Texas Medical Board adopted guidance in June clarifying when doctors can intervene, but many health care providers said they were still worried the guidance isn’t detailed enough. [The Texas Tribune, 5/19/21, 6/21/24]
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Abortion rights advocates warn this amounts to a total ban on abortion since many people do not know they are pregnant by six weeks. One of the closest options for Floridians seeking abortions is now North Carolina, which has mandatory in-person waiting periods before abortions, increasing the length of time and cost of the health care procedure. [CBS News, 4/30/24]
• Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a six-week abortion ban in 2019, and it became law one month after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In October 2024, a Fulton County judge overturned the law, ruling it violated “rights to liberty and privacy guaranteed by the state constitution.” The state appealed the judge’s decision and the Georgia Supreme Court reinstated the ban while considering the case. According to a ProPublica investigation, at least two preventable maternal deaths occurred within the first few months after the law was enacted. [Georgia Recorder, 9/20/24; The Associated Press, 10/1/24, 10/7/24]

Project 2025 calls for the next Health and Human Services secretary to “immediately put an end to the department’s foray into woke transgender activism” and to remove terms related to gender and sexual identity from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” The policy book’s foreword further states that “allowing parents or physicians to ‘reassign’ the sex of a minor is child abuse and must end,” labels the ”omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology” as “pornography” that “should be outlawed,” and criticizes efforts to include trans children in sports, claiming they are an attempt by “Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice” to “undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists.”

Right-wing media figures have also amplified anti-LGBTQ narratives by spreading misinformation about gender-affirming care, fearmongering about inclusive bathroom policies, and fixating on trans-inclusive initiatives in sports. 

According to data from the American Civil Liberties Union, over 40 states have introduced legislation restricting LGBTQ rights, and according to data from the Movement Advancement Project, Republican-controlled legislatures and/or governors in at least 25 states have signed bills or executive orders — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Many of these policies target trans rights, codifying which bathrooms people can use, restricting who can participate in female sports teams, or blocking access to gender-affirming care for minors. Those measures include:

• In January, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill codifying which bathrooms people are allowed to use. The law requires people to use bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools and government-owned buildings that match the sex they were assigned at birth. [The Associated Press, 1/30/24; KSL.com, 1/30/24]
• In March 2023, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a law changing the definition of “adult cabaret” to mean “adult-oriented performances that are harmful to minors,” leading experts to worry that it could be used to ban drag performances and target transgender people. [The Associated Press, 3/2/23]
• The Texas Supreme Court recently upheld a 2023 law preventing “people under 18 from accessing hormone therapies, puberty blockers and transition surgeries.” At least 25 states have enacted laws “restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.” [The Associated Press, 6/28/24]
• North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed two bills in April 2023 restricting transgender women and girls from participating in female sports teams in K-12 and college. North Dakota is one of at least 20 states that have placed restrictions on transgender athletes. [The Associated Press, 4/11/23]
• Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed a 2023 bill restricting access to puberty blockers in the state. The bill bans puberty blockers and gender-affirming surgery for minors, adults with Medicaid health insurance, and prisoners. [The Associated Press, 6/7/23]
• In May 2023, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen signed a bill banning people under 19 from receiving hormone treatments, puberty blockers, or gender-affirming surgical care. AP noted that the law also makes “the state’s chief medical officer — a political appointee who is an ear, nose and throat doctor — in charge of setting the rules for those therapies.” [The Associated Press, 5/22/23]
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation in July 2023 mandating people use bathrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth. Individuals who use a different bathroom may face penalties. According to a Politico report after the bill passed the Florida legislature, the legislation made it “a misdemeanor trespassing offense for someone to use certain bathrooms that don’t align with their sex at birth.” In February, a transgender student was suspended from high school for using the women’s bathroom. [NBC 6 Miami, 6/28/23; Politico, 5/3/23; NBC News, 6/27/24]

Some experts argue Project 2025’s directions for education policy are “interpretable through the lens of white Christian nationalism,” with multiple proposals aimed at “ethno-traditionalism and protecting the freedoms of a very narrowly defined ‘us.’” Project 2025 advocates for securing a conservative version of parental rights and advancing right-wing ideology in schools and libraries, while restricting the rights of LGBTQ and other children. 

The book’s foreword by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts states that American “children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.” It further equates materials with “transgender ideology” to “pornography” and argues that they have “no claim to First Amendment protection,” adding that “educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.” Project 2025 also attacks efforts to teach about racial equality, alleging that critical race theory — a university-level academic framework used for studying the impacts of systemic racism — disrupts “the values that hold communities together such as equality under the law and colorblindness.” 

Right-wing media outrage campaigns vilifying teachers, public school curricula, critical race theory, and public school library collections have helped spur unprecedented levels of actions taken to censor books. 

As New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait wrote in 2023, “Over the past three years, legislators in 28 states have passed at least 71 bills controlling what teachers and students can say and do at school.” The American Library Association reported “efforts to censor 4,240 unique book titles in schools and libraries” in 2023 — a 65% increase from the year before — which disproportionately targeted books “representing the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals.” Simultaneously, Republican-led states have increased efforts to blur the line between church and state by injecting Christian rhetoric and guidance into public schools.

Since 2021, policies or legislation enforcing a conservative agenda in public schools have been authorized by the Republican-controlled legislatures, boards of education, state superintendents of public instruction, or GOP governors in the following states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming. These measures include:

• Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed SB 34, which allows public schools and charters to offer “elective social studies courses on ‘the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament and the New Testament.’” According to GOP state Rep. Ben Baker, the bill’s co-sponsor, it “specifies that the Bible can be taught as an elective from a historical perspective in our public schools” and “will provide the opportunity for our kids to have a better understanding of US History.” [Twitter/X, 7/7/23; KMOV, 6/19/23]
• In June, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed legislation requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom. The law’s text describes the Ten Commandments as “foundational documents of our state and national government.” The commandments will be displayed with a “context statement” describing how they “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries,” and will be in state classrooms by the start of 2025. [The Guardian, 6/19/24]
• In 2022, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order to remove critical race theory from public school curricula. While “there is no evidence that CRT has been formally adopted into state curricula,” AP explained, Youngkin’s office claimed the executive order was intended to “restore excellence in education by ending the use of divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory, in public education.” [The Associated Press, 2/15/22; The Guardian, 1/16/22]
• Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed SB 202, which restricts granting tenure at public institutions “if certain conditions related to free inquiry, free expression and intellectual diversity are not met.” The new bill gives state university boards of trustees, many of them appointed by Holcomb, authority to determine if public institutions are living up to the bill’s standard of “free inquiry” and “free expression.” Some Indiana professors protested the bill, with a joint statement by state chapters of the American Association of University Professors saying, “These measures would severely constrain academic freedom.” [Fox59 News, 3/13/24; Inside Higher Ed, 2/21/24]
• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill targeting critical race theory that promised to keep any “currently controversial issue” out of Texas public schools. The law decrees that teachers “may not be compelled to discuss a widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs.” The law does not define a “controversial issue,” though it also reportedly “requires at least one teacher and one campus administrator at each school district to attend a civics training program that will teach educators how race and racism should be taught in Texas schools.” [The Texas Tribune, 12/2/21]
• In April, Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed House Bill 710, requiring public and school libraries to relocate “harmful” materials “to a section designated for adults only.” The law could impact content with LGBTQ themes, as Forbes noted that Idaho’s law features “a broad definition of ‘harmful to minors’ … including any act of homosexuality.” Now at least one library is “adults only.” [Idaho Capital Sun, 4/10/24; Forbes, 5/23/24]
• That same month, Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed House Bill 538, which “bars teachers from referring to a student by a name or pronoun that doesn’t align with their birth sex, unless the teacher has parental consent.” The law also authorizes teachers to sue if they believe they’ve been punished for refusing to use a student’s requested name or pronouns. [Idaho Capital Sun, 4/9/24]
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1069, which restricts materials containing “sexual conduct” from Florida classrooms, in 2023. In one Florida county, the school district reportedly removed more than 1,600 books from classrooms after the law’s enactment, including Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, some dictionaries, and biographies on Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice. In August, publishing companies sued the state, saying the law created a “regime of strict censorship” in Florida public schools. [The Guardian, 1/11/24; The New York Times, 8/29/24]
• In July, Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters issued guidelines for including the Bible in public school curricula. According to Oklahoma Voice, the rules require “students to analyze literary elements of biblical stories and to identify how those have impacted Western culture.” In an announcement about the guidelines, Walters said, “The Bible is indispensable in understanding the development of Western civilization and American history.” [Oklahoma Voice, 7/24/24]
• North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature in April made it illegal to talk to kindergarten through fourth grade students about sexuality and gender identity. Schools are also required to tell parents if a student changes their pronouns. Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the bill in 2023, but the state’s Republican supermajority overrode the governor’s decision, passing the bill into law. [Spectrum News, 12/22/23] 
• South Carolina’s State Board of Education gained broad powers in 2024 to ban instructional materials, including library books, that are deemed not “age and developmentally appropriate.” The regulation vaguely defines acceptable material as “topics, messages, materials, and teaching methods suitable to particular ages or age groups of children and adolescents, based on developing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral capacity typical for the age or age group.” Materials are automatically deemed unacceptable if they include descriptions or depictions of “sexual conduct.” Greenville County Schools has paused book fairs, while the schools “explore ways to continue offering book fairs in the future” under these new guidelines. [Popular Information, 6/24/24; Book Riot, 6/18/24; Greenville News, 8/22/24]

The foreword to Project 2025’s policy book calls for “deleting the terms” diversity, equity, and inclusion from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” The book alleges that these programs “have become the vehicles” for “unlawful discrimination” and calls for the next conservative administration to “reverse this trend” by stopping all DEI efforts.

Right-wing media have repeatedly attacked DEI in American institutions, deploying the term as a smear against prominent people of color and blaming diversity initiatives for major disasters and even for the Secret Service’s apparent failures during an assassination attempt against Trump.

Since 2023, 28 states introduced at least 86 bills to limit or ban diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, with at least 14 becoming law. These bills run parallel to right-wing media’s sustained attacks against racial justice efforts, slamming DEI programs as “un-American.” 

Republican-controlled legislatures and governors have restricted or banned DEI programs in at least 9 states (Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming), with at least one additional governor, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, signing an executive order also restricting such initiatives. Those measures include: 

• Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called DEI hiring programs “bordering on evil” and signed a law in January prohibiting the state’s government and universities from having “offices dedicated to promoting diversity” or requiring employees to commit to DEI practices. The bill passed the state House and Senate along party lines. [The Salt Lake Tribune, 12/20/23; The Associated Press, 1/31/24]
• In March, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill prohibiting public funds from being used for DEI programs and “limiting the ability of public employees to discuss so-called ‘divisive concepts.’” The new law prevents public school teachers and some public employees from “compelling others to accept or conform certain ‘divisive topics,’” including “the moral character of an individual is determined by his or her race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin” and “meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist.” [Alabama Reflector, 3/20/24]
• In December 2023, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order terminating state funding for “all DEI positions, departments, activities, and trainings” and reportedly ordered institutions to dismiss “non-critical personnel.” The press release from Stitt explained, “We’re taking politics out of education and focusing on preparing students for the workforce” by removing any DEI role or initiative that “grant preferential treatment based on one person’s particular race, color, ethnicity or national origin over another’s.” [Insight into Diversity, 12/15/23; The Guardian, 12/14/23]
• In June 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 17, which “prohibits higher education institutions from establishing or maintaining a DEI office and bans mandatory diversity training for students and employees.” The bill’s sponsor in the state Senate described it as “the most significant ban on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in higher education in the nation.” [CNN, 6/15/23]
• North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed SB 2247, which prevents mandatory DEI training at public universities and prohibits students and employees from being discriminated against because of their position on a “specified concept.” These specified concepts include “the idea of meritocracy is ‘inherently racist or sexist’; and that the United States itself is ‘fundamentally or irredeemably’ racist or sexist.” [The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/25/23]

Project 2025 proposes policies to further hamper unions’ ability to collectively bargain and weaken overtime regulations. Moreover, the Center for American Progress notes that Project 2025 recommends “eliminating protections against hazardous work for children” by calling on the U.S. Department of Labor to “amend its hazard-order regulations to permit teenage workers access to work in regulated jobs with proper training and parental consent.” Additionally, Project 2025 suggests eliminating “card check” — where a majority of workers who have signed union authorization forms can ask their employer for voluntary recognition — and mandating “the secret ballot exclusively.”

Right-wing media have railed against labor laws and unions for years, spreading misinformation about so-called “right-to-work” laws, asking business leaders how to prevent workers from unionizing, lying about union fair-share fees, and railing against strikes.

Over the last three years, at least 13 states have enacted legislation weakening child labor laws and worker safety regulations, such as extending the hours that teens can work, removing requirements that businesses verify the ages of their workers, and reversing local ordinances that require water breaks for construction workers. Additionally, at least six Republican governors have publicly made statements condemning labor organizing, with three states signing laws blocking economic development subsidies to any business that voluntarily recognizes a union without insisting on a formal vote. 

Republican-controlled legislatures and governors have signed such bills into law in Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. These measures include:

• In 2023, Texas passed House Bill 2127 reversing local ordinances requiring water breaks for construction workers. The law “prevents local governments in Texas from mandating businesses implement practices, such as employment leave and breaks, that exceed or conflict with federal or state law for employers.” [El Paso Matters, 7/4/24; The Associated Press, 8/9/23]
• Earlier this year, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed Senate Bill 362, which withholds state incentives from companies that voluntarily recognize unions. The bill makes it harder for unions to receive recognition by requiring the additional step of holding an election with secret ballots, which some labor leaders have said “violates 1935’s National Labor Relations Act, which governs union organizing, and will be challenged in court.” [AJC Politics, 4/24/24; The Associated Press, 3/20/24]
• Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill barring state incentives from companies that voluntarily recognize unions without requiring the additional step of secret-ballot elections. Alabama’s already restrictive labor regulations “have led to a lower-than-average unionization rate” of “7.5% compared to the national rate of 10%.” [Alabama Daily News, 8/22/24; Alabama Reflector, 3/27/24]
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law “requiring most public sector unions to boost the rate of members paying dues or be disbanded.” Local outlet WLRN investigated the bill’s impact a year later and found that “already several tens of thousands of workers have quietly lost their collective bargaining rights, a right that is explicitly protected by the Florida Constitution.” [WLRN, 2/15/24]
• In 2023, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law removing requirements for businesses to certify the ages of workers under 16 and issue work certificates for 14- and 15-year-olds. Experts say these new changes will make it harder to detect child labor violations and leave children “more vulnerable to exploitation.” [NPR, 3/10/23; Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families, 3/3/23]
• Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill last year removing protections for teens — allowing teens to work longer hours, serve alcohol in restaurants, and work in industrial laundry services and in freezers. CNN reported that the bill passed along party lines after “Democrats argued that easing the rules would endanger children and distract them from school and extracurricular activities.” [CNN, 5/26/23]