In his Tuesday speech to Congress, President Donald Trump praised his own “swift and unrelenting action” on 100 executive orders and 400 executive actions, many of them based on Project 2025, an unpopular conservative blueprint he disavowed and claimed ignorance of during his campaign.
“We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years, or eight years,” said Trump, who claimed his second presidency already has become “the most successful in the history of our nation.”
An easy-to-navigate online “Project 2025 Tracker” shows Trump has been successful in implementing a third of the specific policy goals laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s 900-plus-page blueprint, which was designed to “institutionalize Trumpism.”
The online tracker shows Trump already has achieved 100% of Project 2025’s goals for USAID, including ending projects that address diversity or climate change and prioritizing funding for Christian groups such as Samaritan’s Purse, which is led by Franklin Graham, an ardent Trump supporter.
Trump has effectively shut down USAID, a move critics say will lead to tens of thousands of deaths among vulnerable populations. But this victory may be short-lived.
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday the administration must pay $2 billion to USAID contractors whose contracts and payments were illegally halted. By March 1, 100 lawsuits had been filed opposing the administration’s cuts to programs and its firing of thousands of workers, reported The New York Times.
Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow holds a book of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 during the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago, Ill., on Monday, August 19, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
Only USAID has achieved 100% progress on Project 2025’s goals. Progress in 33 other federal agencies varies widely:
- 89% of the Heritage Foundation’s goals have been reached in the Department of State, including halting admission of refugees and withdrawing from or cutting funds to the World Health Organization, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
- 88% of Project 2025 goals for the White House have been reached, many of them addressing diversity issues. The White House also has loosened restrictions on who can authorize spending and claimed the power to conduct security clearance investigations, an important task previously overseen by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency.
- 58% of Project 2025 goals have been achieved in two departments: Justice and Personnel, but none so far in eight agencies overseeing drugs, health, Medicare and Medicaid, and elections.
- Trump also has moved to downsize the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which tracks weather and predicts hurricanes, after Project 2025 called NOAA “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”
These are impressive accomplishments for a project Trump originally endorsed before publicly distancing himself from it during his 2024 campaign when public opinion turned against it.
Project 2025 was backed by more than 100 conservative organizations, including more than a dozen evangelical groups, including:
- Family Research Council (a D.C. political group founded by Focus on the Family)
- Family Policy Alliance (Focus’ public policy partner in 40 states)
- Alliance Defending Freedom (a legal group founded by James Dobson and others)
- ACLJ Action (a political group affiliated with the American Center for Law and Justice, led by Trump attorney Jay Sekulow)
- American Family Association
- Concerned Women for America
- Eagle Forum
- Hillsdale College, Liberty University and Patrick Henry College.
But in his debate with Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, Trump claimed, “I have nothing to do with Project 2025.”
Russell Vought (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
His campaign went further in a threatening July 2024 statement: “President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the president in any way. Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”
Yet During Trump’s first week in office, he appointed and/or nominated dozens of Project 2025 experts who have helped achieve the project’s goals.
During his first week in office, 36 of Trump’s 53 executive orders and actions aligned with the Project 2025 blueprint, according to CNN.
On the occasion of Trump’s speech to Congress, one Republican congressman, John Rose of Tennessee, summarized Trump’s first 43 days in office: “How do you think the president was prepared to issue all these executive orders? How do you think they were prepared to make all of these appointments in such quick succession after he got into office? Project 2025.”
Heritage Foundation originally opposed Trump in 2016, calling him a “clown.” But the think tank quickly pivoted, placing more than 60 of its employees in the first Trump administration and claiming that Trump 1.0 enacted 64% of its favored policies.
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