What is Project 2025, Heritage Foundation's outline of conservative priorities?

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has garnered national attention in recent weeks for its right-wing policy proposals that Democrats have now launched efforts against.

Project 2025 outlines a series of policies and initiatives conservatives hope to put forward in a new administration. It has been a rallying point for Democrats, who say that the outline represents an extreme conservative agenda if Republicans win back the White House in November.  

Here’s what to know about Project 2025: 

What is the project? 

The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is a 900-page "governing agenda" that details conservative priorities should a Republican win the White House in November.

The project’s website said it includes the work and insights from more than 400 scholars and policy experts.

It’s divided into five sections and 30 chapters. The five sections are titled “Taking the Reins of Government,” “The Common Defense,” “The General Welfare,” “The Economy” and “Independent Regulatory Agencies.” 

What are some of the policy proposals? 

The mandate includes reshaping the powers of the executive branch, gutting small government agencies and removing diversity, equity and inclusion language from federal government.  

One of the central priorities outlined in Project 2025 includes reimplementing Schedule F, which would reclassify thousands of workers so that they could be subject to swifter firing. The Associated Press noted that this could affect up to 50,000 federal workers.

Then-President Trump rolled out an executive order regarding Schedule F in 2020, but President Biden revoked it after he took office. His administration introduced a new rule earlier this year that would make it more difficult for Trump to fire federal workers if he is reelected. 

The handbook also rails against abortion, demanding that the federal government cut funding for abortions in some of its programs and that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reverse its approval of abortion pills, such as mifepristone. 

The foreword states that the next president must “make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors.” The foreword said this starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation, gender identity, diversity, equity and inclusion “out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” 

It also calls for deleting the terms gender, gender equality, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights and “any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights.” 

What are proponents of the handbook saying?

More than 50 organizations served on the advisory board for the outline, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Young America’s Foundation and the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pressed one of the co-authors of the handbook, Jonathan Berry, last month about the contents of the proposals. Berry doubled down on his stances, saying that he would support reimplementing Schedule F.

The leader of Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, said Tuesday that the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity would help lead to a “second American Revolution,” which he said would “remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

The end of the handbook also includes some praise for the project from politicians, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).

“The next conservative president must dismantle the administrative state and return power back to the states and the American people. This publication is a blueprint to do just that,” he said.

How have Democrats responded?

Biden’s campaign and Democrats have seized on Project 2025 to take aim at Trump, who has backed some ideas put forward in the outline.

Ahead of last week’s debate with Trump, Biden’s campaign projected a QR code around Atlanta that led people to a campaign page titled “Project 2025.” It references the Heritage Foundation’s playbook and warns that Trump would take away reproductive rights nationwide and use the presidency for revenge against personal enemies.

Democrats also launched an effort last month to counter Project 2025.

“Americans don’t understand just how far down the road to a dystopic, right-wing theocracy we are right now,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who is leading the campaign. “And that, for me at least, is the priority: making sure people know it, and making sure we’re ready to confront it.”

Other critics of Project 2025 have labeled the effort as “authoritarian” and “un-American.”