Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly disavowed Project 2025, the conservative wish list organized by the Heritage Foundation, saying the plan is not his and contains some “extreme” ideas.
But a line-by-line review by CBS News identified at least 270 proposals in Project 2025’s published blueprint for the next Republican president that match Trump’s past policies and current campaign promises.
CBS News’ data team extracted more than 700 specific policy proposals from Project 2025’s 922-page policy guide and compared each one to policies enacted during Trump’s first term as well as his campaign platform, rally speeches and interviews.
From shuttering the Department of Education to excising every mention of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion from federal agencies’ projects and programs, the Project 2025 agenda often matches Trump’s recorded words and his Administration’s deeds.
Within Project 2025, CBS News identified:
- At least 80 proposals that would revive executive orders and other policies of Trump’s own administration from 2017 to 2020.
- 170 proposals that match ideas Trump’s campaign has published on its campaign website or that he’s said in rally speeches and interviews.
- 21 more proposals that match both Trump’s past actions and his campaign promises and statements.
What’s more, CBS News reviewed the work histories of the 38 named primary authors of Project 2025 and found that at least 28 of them worked in Trump’s administration.
That includes the two leaders of Project 2025.
Among the ideas that match Trump’s actions and agenda:
- Project 2025 calls for scouring federal agencies’ rules and programs for any mention of gender identity, protection of transgender rights or gender-affirming care — and excising them. Trump repeatedly has promised the same during the campaign, adding that his next administration will reiterate some conservatives’ idea that there are only two valid genders, classify gender-affirming care for children as abuse, and keep transgender students off sports teams.
- Project 2025 calls for downsizing the Department of Education and moving most of its function back to the states. Trump repeatedly has said the same during speeches and in campaign documents, going so far as to repeatedly say he will abolish the department.
- Project 2025 proposes eliminating any subsidies for electric vehicles and scaling back new emissions limitations on gas-powered vehicles. Trump has promised both on the trail and in his campaign documents, stressing that he will roll back any actions President Biden has taken to subsidize electric vehicles.
- Project 2025, in its sections on almost every federal department, includes proposals to find and end all rules and programs related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as well as teaching or training around critical race theory. The former president regular stresses the same, saying for example that he “banned” critical race theory in his Administration and will do that and more to remove DEI programs and rules next time. “We are going to finish the job that we so successfully started,” he said in a campaign speech.
Many more ideas in the Project 2025 document mirror Trump’s positions on issues including constructing the border wall and mass deportations of illegal immigrants; restricting student and work visas; pulling out of global climate change accords; expanding school choice; increasing and modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal; boosting military spending; and work requirements for public assistance recipients.
There are several clear areas where the Project 2025 blueprint does not align with Trump’s policies or promises. Among them:
- Project 2025 includes dozens of proposals for ways the federal government could further restrict abortion — including outlawing abortion drugs and criminalizing shipping them through the mail. Trump said he opposes a federal abortion ban and wants to leave abortion questions to states to decide, but hasn’t ruled out some federal rules.
- Project 2025 calls for criminalization of pornography in all its forms, including a call to prosecute teachers and public librarians who provide access to books that conservatives consider porn. Trump, for his part, has not taken a position on criminalizing pornography.
- The project calls multiple times for an outright ban on the social media platform TikTok. Trump once supported a ban on the Chinese-owned video social media app, but now opposes it.
The Heritage Foundation also created a similar policy outline under the same title — “Mandate for Leadership” — in 2015 before Trump’s first term.
A couple of years into his term, Heritage touted that Trump instituted 64% of its policy recommendations, including leaving the Paris Climate Accords, increasing military spending and increasing drilling.
contributed to this report.
