Carl Gibson, AlterNet
July 12, 2024 6:35AM ET
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump dances off stage at the end of a campaign rally. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump is once again denying any knowledge or involvement with the controversial far-right Project 2025 initiative written by the Heritage Foundation.
In a post to his Truth Social account Thursday, the 45th president of the United States posted yet another vehement denial of both Project 2025 and the people behind it. This is the second time he has publicly distanced himself from the authoritarian strategic document pushed by both Heritage and well over 100 of his previous administration's advisors and staffers.
"I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it," Trump wrote. "The Radical Left Democrats are having a field day, however, trying to hook me into whatever policies are stated or said. It is pure disinformation on their part. By now, after all of these years, everyone knows where I stand on EVERYTHING!"
READ MORE: Exhaustive review finds at least 140 ex-Trump advisors behind Project 2025: report
However, the Lincoln Project — a prominent anti-Trump Republican group — countered that post with a video clip showing Trump speaking to the Heritage Foundation in 2022. The former president appeared to acknowledge Heritage's policy work, calling them a "great group" that is "going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do."
At the heart of Project 2025 is its 920-page playbook entitled "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise," which six of Trump's former cabinet secretaries either helped write or contributed in other ways via collaboration with the playbook's other authors. Some of the more extreme policies listed in the playbook include cutting veteran and active duty military benefits, permanently banning abortions and fertility treatments, removing LGBTQ+ individuals from the list of federally protected classes and making it easier for them to be discriminated against, converting public education infrastructure into a for-profit system and defunding the FBI and the Department of Justice, among others
Trump's latest denial could be due to heightened interest from the American public in Project 2025. MSNBC host Ari Melber reported Wednesday that, according to Google Trends, more Americans are searching for Project 2025 than even for pop icon Taylor Swift and the National Football League.
A viral photo has also spread of Trump at that same Heritage Foundation meeting shaking hands with the group's president, Kevin Roberts, who is one of the chief architects of Project 2025. This serves as direct evidence contradicting Trump's false claim that he has "no idea who is in charge" of the controversial strategic document.
READ MORE: More Americans searching for Project 2025 than for Taylor Swift or the NFL: Google results
Earlier this month, Roberts proudly proclaimed in an interview with a far-right broadcaster that his side was in the midst of a "second American Revolution." He added that this revolution would be "bloodless, if the left allows it to be," suggesting that dissenters of a second Trump administration could be met with violence.
One of the primary authors of Project 2025 is Russ Vought, who leads the far-right group Center for Renewing America — one of Heritage's main partners in the initiative. Vought served as director of the Trump White House's Office of Management and Budget, and wrote Project 2025's section on "The Executive Office of the President of the United States." Vought is thought to be one of the leading contenders for White House chief of staff if Trump wins in November.
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