'We told you so': Trump team scouring Project 2025 database for political appointees
Donald Trump's transition team has been using the Project 2025 database to begin filling the ranks of its political appointees for the next administration, according to a new report Friday.
The former president and his allies attempted to distance themselves from the politically toxic blueprint for a right-wing restructure the federal government, but he has already tapped several of the plan's architects to serve in key roles and, according to a source, looked into filling lower-profile positions with its recommended appointees, reported NBC News.
“There’s a lot of positions to fill and we continue to send names over, including ones from the database as they are conservative, qualified and vetted,” said the source, who worked on Project 2025. “Hard to find 4,000 solid people so we are happy to help.”
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That person said officials overseeing plans for some departments and agencies have been reaching out to potential hires who were identified in the Project 2025 database, which officials have described as a conservative LinkedIn to help staff the next Republican administration.
“The transition is working to ensure great people are in position to deliver the promises made through president Trump’s common sense agenda and overwhelming victory on Election Day," said a Trump transition official when asked about the database.
Plenty of Trump policies overlapped with Project 2025 recommendations – including mass deportations and drastic cuts to the federal bureaucracy – but other the blueprint's call to ban pornography and break up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration differed from the campaign messaging.
“Very, very conservative,” Trump said at a campaign event in July. “Sort of the opposite of the radical left. You have the radical left and the radical right. They came up with this. I don’t know what it is. … Then you read some of these things and they are seriously extreme. But I don’t know anything about it. I don’t want to know anything about it.”
Solid majorities of voters consistently expressed negative views of the Heritage Foundation project, while almost none said they viewed it positively, but Democrats say voters are getting the government they warned about before the election.
“It’s easy to say ‘we told you so,’ but more importantly, we now know what they’re going to do, so it’s on Democrats to decide how to fight back,” said Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. “Which is exactly what I’m doing.”