Project 2025 director: A Trump administration will likely adopt many of the group’s policy suggestions

Written by Sophie Lawton

Published

Project 2025 director Paul Dans told the Australian Financial Review that he thinks a second Trump administration “will adopt” many of the initiative’s radical right-wing proposals. He also suggested that even if Donald Trump loses, Project 2025’s ideas would live on through the conservative establishment. 

From the Australian Financial Review:

“We think President Trump will adopt many of [our ideas], but certainly not all of them. That’s the call of the leader to pick the policy direction,” Paul Dans, chief of staff in the last Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management and lead architect of Project 2025, told The Australian Financial Review.

…

And if Trump is not there? Dans says Project 2025 will transcend Trump.

“This is a structure that, we hope, will serve the conservative world for decades to come and be the source that continually replenishes personnel and provides people from all walks of life across the United States with an avenue into Washington that is no longer dependent on connections, but dependent on your conviction."

Project 2025 is an effort by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation to plan policy ideas and staffing for the next conservative presidential administration. The group has published a nearly 900-page policy book, Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise, that outlines radical right-wing proposals including efforts to dismantle the civil service, outlaw abortion, and roll back civil rights. Project 2025 has partnered with over 100 conservative organizations. 

The Heritage Foundation has noted that the first Trump administration “embraced fully 64%” of the recommendations from the organization’s previous policy book. 

For more information on Project 2025, see Media Matters' guide here.