During the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly disavowed the notorious Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for a second Republican administration organized by the far-right Heritage Foundation and written by at least 144 people who worked for the Trump administration or his campaign.
In an attempt to distance himself from the unpopular plan, Trump had said, “They've been told officially, legally, in every way, that we have nothing to do with Project 25. They know it, but they bring it up anyway. They bring up every single thing that you can bring up. Every one of them was false.”
In fact, his campaign said they would ban people involved in Project 2025 from his administration.
But now that the election is over, the mask is off, and Trump nominated several architects of Project 2025 to have a key role in his administration.
Here are Project 2025’s authors and contributors that Trump has nominated so far:
Russ Vought
Vought, one of Project 2025’s top architects, is expected to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the agency that develops the president’s proposed budget and executes the president’s agenda.
Vought plays a prominent role for Project 2025. Not only did he author a chapter on “Executive Office of the President” for the project’s “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise”, but his Center for Renewing America is also a member of Project 2025’s advisory board. According to press reports, Vought “was also deeply involved in drafting Project 2025's playbook for the first 180 days of a new Trump administration.”
Vought was also the architect of Schedule F, a misguided plan to reclassify federal employees as at-will employees who could be fired for any reason. He served as OMB director during Trump’s first administration, during which OMB reclassified 88% of its employees as Schedule F. But the reclassification was not fully implemented at OMB or other agencies, and President Biden repealed Trump’s Schedule F directive after he took office.
Vought recently said in an interview, “There certainly is going to be mass layoffs and firings, particularly at some of the agencies that we don’t even think should exist.”
Stephen Miller
Miller is Trump’s pick to serve as White House deputy chief of staff for policy and the president’s homeland security adviser.
He is Trump’s former adviser and the head of the conservative legal activist group, America First Legal, which served as one of Project 2025’s advisory organizations. Miller was also featured in videos produced by the Heritage Foundation promoting Project 2025.
Karoline Leavitt
Leavitt is Trumps’ pick for White House Press Secretary. She is his 2024 campaign’s national press secretary and served in the White House during his first term.
Leavitt is listed as one of Project 2025’s instructors who train conservatives on conservative governance best practices. The course she’s teaching is called The Art of Professionalism. She was featured in the Heritage Foundation’s videos promoting Project 2025.
Interestingly, she tried to distance Trump’s campaign from Project 2025 even though she’s a Project 2025 instructor as well as his campaign’s national press secretary.
Brendan Carr
Carr has been nominated to chair the Federal Communications Commission, an agency that regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, and satellite. He currently serves as the senior Republican on FCC, having been appointed by Trump in 2017.
Carr authored a chapter “Federal Communications Commission” for Project 2025 and has proposed reigning in big tech and media companies that he claims have improperly “censored” conservatives’ views by limiting the reach of misinformation and lies.
Tom Homan, Border Czar
Homan has been appointed “border czar” who will oversee the southern and northern U.S. borders and all maritime and aviation security.
Homan served as the acting heading of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Trump’s first administration. He retired in 2018 after the White House failed to move his nomination toward Senate confirmation. This time, Homan will bypass the process completely because his “border czar” role does not require Senate confirmation.
Homan is listed as an overall contributor of Project 2025.