Trump has selected Tom Homan to serve as his “border czar” and run the administration’s border and immigration policy. After his stint as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s first administration, Homan joined The Heritage Foundation as a visiting fellow and was listed as a contributor to Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership, the effort’s nearly 900-page policy book. He has promised to carry out “​​the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen” and said that “no one’s off the table.” 

In February 2022, Homan attended a white nationalist conference hosted by the American First Political Action Conference and its leader, white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Homan ultimately left before the conference began, and skipped a planned speaking gig there, claiming he was unfamiliar with Fuentes and his followers.

Trump has named Brendan Carr for FCC commissioner. Carr currently serves on the commission, after being nominated by Trump in 2017. Carr wrote Mandate for Leadership’s chapter on the FCC, arguing that the commission should focus on “reining in Big Tech, promoting national security, unleashing economic prosperity, and ensuring FCC accountability and good governance.” He also targeted TikTok.

During the 2024 election, Carr echoed some of Trump’s attacks at broadcasters. Trump has repeatedly threatened to revoke the licenses of major broadcast TV news outlets, and Carr said he will make sure the FCC enforces laws that require broadcasters “to operate in the public interest.” 

Trump has picked Stephen Miller to head up the new administration’s homeland security policy. Miller is the founder and leader of a former Project 2025 partner organization, America First Legal, and appeared in recruitment videos shared on the project’s website. Miller has since tried to distance himself from the Heritage project even though AFL is mentioned 14 times in Mandate for Leadership. 

Leavitt, selected to be the administration's press secretary, worked on the Trump ‘24 campaign, where she pushed claims that the Trump campaign had no connections to Project 2025 and other, election-related conspiracy theories. Leavitt also appeared in training videos for Project 2025. 

Russ Vought has been renominated to direct the Office of Management and Budget, a position he also held in Trump’s first term. Vought authored the second chapter of Mandate, on the Executive Office of the President, which argues that “a President today assumes office to find a sprawling federal bureaucracy that all too often is carrying out its own policy plans and preferences—or, worse yet, the policy plans and preferences of a radical, supposedly ‘woke’ faction of the country.” Vought is also a founder of the Center for Renewing America, a MAGA-aligned think tank and Project 2025 partner. He is an outspoken proponent of Christian nationalism, at one point calling for an “army” of right-wing activists with a “biblical worldview” to “go out and lead in reckless abandon.” .

Vought is a leading voice advocating for Schedule F — a scheme to reclassify career civil servants as political appointees and thus make them easier to fire. The policy is a critical piece of a key Project 2025 priority to staff the federal bureaucracy with MAGA loyalists and undermine the agency independence. Vought told former Fox host Tucker Carlson,  “The whole notion of an independent agency should be thrown out.”

Trump has selected John Ratcliffe to lead the CIA. Ratcliffe served as Trump’s director of national intelligence during the COVID-19 pandemic though he had little prior intelligence experience. He drew criticism during his first nomination for having supported conspiracy theories related to the Mueller investigation, and during his time in the Trump administration Ratcliffe continued to spread disinformation about the Russia probe. Ratcliffe is listed as a contributor to Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership. 

Former Ambassador to the Netherlands Pete Hoekstra has been tapped to be Trump’s ambassador to Canada for the second administration. Most recently, Hoekstra served as chair of the Michigan Republican Party and worked with the anti-Muslim group Gatestone Institute. Hoekstra is listed as a contributor to the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership.

Trump has announced James Braid will be the White House’s director of legislative affairs. Braid worked in the Office of Management and Budget during the first Trump administration and as a policy adviser for J.D. Vance in the Senate. Braid contributed to Project 2025’s administration employee training courses, appearing in one titled “Congressional Relations: How to Work with Members.” Braid has also been associated with the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 partner organizations Hillsdale College and American Moment in various roles.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced his selection of Peter Navarro to serve as senior counselor for trade and manufacturing in his second administration. Navarro was previously a senior White House aide under Trump, serving as the director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, and recently served four months in federal prison for contempt of Congress. During his time in Trump’s first administration, Navarro drew scrutiny for his handling of the administration's COVID response and later for ;elevating conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. During the 2022 January 6 hearings, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson claimed Navarro frequently talked about his connections to QAnon and his “QAnon friends.” Navarro wrote a section of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership, titled “The Case for Fair Trade,” in which he claimed the World Trade Organization unfairly charges the U.S. with higher tariffs and called for the next administration to significantly raise tariffs on Chinese products.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced that former Fox News contributor and former Trump treasury official Monica Crowley will serve as chief of protocol of the United States. Crowley is listed as a Project 2025 contributor. She is known for her history of plagiarism and her promotion of conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama, election integrity, and other topics. She has expressed extreme anti-abortion views and helped prep JD Vance for his vice presidential debate in 2024.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced that he’d chosen Paul Atkins to serve as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Atkins appears as a contributor in Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership, and the chapter on the SEC lists him as one of several people who “deserve special mention.” Atkins served as an SEC commissioner during the George W. Bush administration and founded Patomak Global Partners, a financial firm, after his time in the Bush administration. The New York Times reports that he is “seen as a strong advocate for looser regulation of crypto assets.” Atkins is expected to reverse course from the current SEC chair, Gary Gensler, who has taken action to regulate and bring accountability to crypto markets.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced his selection of Michael Anton to serve as director of policy planning for the State Department, a position that does not require Senate confirmation. Anton is listed as a contributor in Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership and is one of several people singled out for “special thanks” in the chapter on the Executive Office of the President of the United States, written by Russ Vought, whom Trump announced he will nominate to serve as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Anton previously served as National Security Council spokesperson during the first Trump administration and is a lecturer at Hillsdale College and senior fellow at The Claremont Institute, a MAGA-aligned think tank. Anton is notable for writing “The Flight 93 Election,” which supported Trump’s candidacy in 2016. He is a frequent critic of birthright citizenship.