Fact Check: Trump’s Ties to Project 2025
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Project 2025 is a comprehensive blueprint for Donald Trump’s potential second presidential term, proposed by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. The plan’s vision features a presidency with more authority and fewer restraints, taking action on several longtime conservative priorities.
What the Candidates Are Saying: Trump has distanced himself from the project, while the Biden campaign has cast it as an “extreme” plan that would give Trump “more power over your daily life.”
Left Ties the Project to Trump: Outlets on the left used sensational language and implied that the plan would likely be implemented if Trump wins the election. CBS (Lean Left bias) labeled it a “sweeping overhaul,” while Washington Post (Lean Left) called the participants “former and likely future leaders of a Trump administration.” New Republic (Left) wrote that “a shocking number” of Trump officials were involved, and said, “Everyone on Donald Trump’s team knows exactly what Project 2025 is.”
Right Rebuts Left: Daily Signal (Right) said Biden’s website contained “totally baseless claims about the initiative,” noting that it “developed independently of Trump’s reelection campaign.” Fox News (Lean Right) portrayed Biden affiliates as obsessed with apocalyptic messaging about the project.
Center Proceeds With Caution: Reuters (Center) avoided characterizing the project as authoritarian and described its contents mostly in a politically neutral tone. The article called Project 2025 “a lightning rod for opponents of…Donald Trump,” acknowledging (without endorsing) Democrats’ allegations of authoritarianism, and noted that Trump disagrees with some of the plan’s provisions.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Center
Project 2025: What is it? Who is behind it? How is it connected to Trump?A set of conservative policy proposals known as Project 2025 has become a lightning rod for opponents of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as they seek to highlight what they say are the dangers of him retaking the White House.
Trump has recently tried to distance himself from Project 2025, even though many of his closest policy advisers are deeply involved. The campaign of Democratic President Joe Biden says the project is proof that Trump would adopt a series of authoritarian and hard-right policies if elected.
WHAT IS PROJECT 2025?
At its heart, Project 2025...
From the Right
FACT CHECK: Does Project 2025 ‘Terminate the Constitution’?As Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Monday, the Left’s inflammatory attacks on Project 2025 show that it’s “right over the target.” President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is so desperate to defeat Project 2025 that it spreads direct falsehoods about it, perhaps not expecting the American people to actually examine what the project comprises.
The Biden campaign launched a special website dedicated to attacking Project 2025, and posted totally baseless claims about the initiative.
“Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your...
From the Left
Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025. A CNN review found at least 140 people who worked for him are involvedDonald Trump has lately made clear he wants little to do with Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the next Republican president that has attracted considerable blowback in his race for the White House.
“I have no idea who is behind it,” the former president recently claimed on social media.
Many people Trump knows quite well are behind it.
Six of his former Cabinet secretaries helped write or collaborated on the 900-page playbook for a second Trump term published by the Heritage Foundation. Four individuals Trump nominated as ambassadors were also...
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