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Top speakers at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday escalated their attacks on Project 2025, as Democrats continue to highlight the far-right political effort and warn that it could serve as a blueprint for former President Donald Trump’s administration should he win a second term.
Comedian and actor Kenan Thompson speaks on the third day of the … (+)
Key data
On Wednesday night, an analysis of Project 2025 was presented in a live sketch by Saturday Night Live star Kenan Thompson. Thompson appeared onstage with an oversized book depicting the initiative’s controversial 900-page main document, titled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.”
Thompson compared Project 2025 to the terms people must agree to when they download a new app on their phone, calling it “the terms of a second Trump presidency.” He then highlighted proposals it contains to eliminate protections for LGBTQ Americans and restrict access to abortion, among other things.
Senator Cory Booker, D-N.J., referred to the document in his speech, saying that if Trump had his way, “he would push through their extreme agenda,” before mockingly calling it “Project 1825” and “Project 1925.”
Colorado Governor Jared Polis pointed to the oversized book “Project 2025” and warned that Trump could use “an obscure 19th-century law” to ban abortion in 50 states. He later removed page 451 from the document to send it to undecided voters. It states, Polis said, “the only legitimate family is a married mother and father, with only the father working.”
While the site in question does not actually define “legitimate” families, it does state that “families consisting of a married mother, a married father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society,” and attacks policies supporting “LGBTQ+ equality” and “single mothers.”
Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida said in her speech that Project 2025 is “not just a threat … It’s a reality we fight against every day,” before attacking Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for “turning the state into a testing ground for the right’s most egregious and dangerous policies.”
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News Peg
In his closing remarks of the third night, Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz sharply attacked the controversial policy paper. “Some people just don’t understand what it means to be a good neighbor. Take Donald Trump and JD Vance. Their Project 2025 is going to make life much, much harder for people who are just trying to live their lives,” Walz said. The Minnesota governor said that while Trump and Vance “spend a lot of time pretending they don’t know anything about” Project 2025, his experience as a high school football coach tells him that “if somebody takes the time to draft a script, they’re going to use it.” Walz said Project 2025 is an “agenda that nobody asked for” and only serves the “richest and most extreme among us,” before adding, “Is that odd? Absolutely. Absolutely. But it’s also wrong and dangerous.”
Contra
Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), who is running for Senate in November, also mentioned Project 2025 in her speech against Trump. She said Trump “spoke the quiet parts out loud with his friends – but not only out loud, he wrote a book about it. What’s it called? Project 2025.” That’s incorrect, because Trump did not write Project 2025. However, the document lists several authors and contributors who served in the former president’s administration.
Important background
Project 2025 is a sweeping initiative by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation that contains far-right policy proposals to completely restructure the executive branch of the U.S. government. The plan outlines right-wing measures on issues such as taxes, abortion, climate change, student loans and replacing officials with political appointees, to name a few. While not directly mentioning Trump by name, the policy paper lays out a plan for the “next conservative president” — which would be the former president if he won in November. In recent months, Trump and his campaign team have sought to distance themselves from Project 2025, saying the former president had “nothing to do with it.”
tangent
The oversized version of the 900-page “Mandate for Leadership” policy document was also wheeled onto the stage by speakers on the first two nights of the DNC. On Monday night, Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow held up the book during her speech, saying, “They just wrote down all the extreme things that Donald Trump wants to do in the next four years, and they just tweeted it out… So we read it.” McMorrow claimed the document was a plan to “turn Donald Trump into a dictator.” On Tuesday, Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta also brought out the book, calling it a “radical plan to set us back, bankrupt the middle class, and raise prices for working families like yours and mine.”
Colorado Governor Jared Polis holds a copy of the “Mandate for … (+)
Pennsylvania State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta holds a copy of the Heritage report. … (+)
Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow holds a book from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
On the first day of the Democratic National Convention, participants hold signs reading “Project 2025.”
More information
Secretly recorded video by Project 2025 co-author: Trump’s distancing doesn’t worry him (Forbes)
What you should know about Project 2025’s “fourth pillar” playbook – which the authors say remains “under wraps” (Forbes)
In his speech to the Democrats, Walz describes the 2025 project as “strange” and “dangerous” (Forbes)
Oprah endorses Kamala Harris at the DNC: Her political history – and rare show of support – explained (Forbes)
