Paul Dans, director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation, resigned after former President Donald Trump became angry over news reports linking him to the plan’s policy proposals.
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The Heritage Foundation announced Tuesday that the senior official behind the Project 2025The conservative think tank’s sweeping plan to reform the US government has withdrawn, but the remaining work on the project will be led by its president.
Heritage said Paul Dans would step down and Project 2025’s policy work would end. Foundation president Kevin Roberts said in a statement that policy work was always set to end after party conventions, but its staff work would continue.
“Our collective efforts to build the capacity of policymakers at every level — federal, state and local — will continue,” he wrote.
Former Republican President Donald Trump’s campaign has sought to deny the project. Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, who led the campaign, said in a statement that “reports of Project 2025’s demise are to be warmly welcomed and should be taken as a warning to anyone or any group that attempts to misrepresent their influence over President Trump and his campaign—it will not end well for you.”
The Trump campaign has sought to distance itself from a comprehensive plan to transform the US government in a second Trump administration amid controversy over some of its policy positions on issues such as abortion and immigration. The 900-page plan serves as a conservative handbook for expanding presidential power and reforming the federal workforce. to be replaced by party loyalists.
As polls show that Voters reject Project 2025Democrats began linking Trump to it, prompting the former president to post on Truth Social: “I don’t know anything about Project 2025. I don’t know who’s behind it. I don’t agree with some of the things they say, and some of the things they say are absolutely ridiculous and bad. Whatever they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
While Trump has sought to deny the connection, there is a lot of overlap between Project 2025 and his agenda: Project 2025 proposes mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants. So does Trump. Trump has called for cuts to federal agencies like the Department of Education. Project 2025 calls for eliminating that project.
But there are differences, too: On abortion, for example, Project 2025 would be more restrictive than Trump has said.
Democrats appear ready to continue tying the project to Trump.
In a statement Tuesday titled “Project 2025 is going nowhere,” Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez stressed that “Project 2025 is on the ballot because Donald Trump is on the ballot. This is his agenda, written by his allies, for Donald Trump to impose on our country.”
