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Paul Dans, director of Project 2025, stepped down on Tuesday after Donald Trump’s campaign distanced itself from the group’s 900-plus page policy framework to remodel the federal government.
Project 2025 is a collaborative effort led by conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation to develop a blueprint for a Republican presidency to overhaul the US government. But Democrats, including Kamala Harris, Trump’s rival for the presidency, had used it to claim Trump would pursue a radical agenda “to weaken the middle class”.
Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts wrote in its opening pages that “one set of eyes” reading the manifesto would be the 47th US president.
Dans’ decision to leave the foundation was praised by Roberts, who on Tuesday said the former director had the ability to synthesise the ideas of dozens of organisations “to create a unified conservative vision”, and would be “moving up to the front where the fight remains”.
The Trump campaign has repeatedly criticised the plan, despite the involvement of several of his former officials who would like to work for him again. The former president last week said claims linking him to the report were “merely disinformation put out by the Radical Left Democrat Thugs”.
The project’s socially conservative proposals — which included banning pornography, limiting the use of contraceptives and enhancing government data collection on abortions — frustrated the former president and his advisers.
After nominating conservative justices who struck down Roe vs. Wade, Trump has tried to separate himself from the right’s goal of a nationwide ban on abortions.
Roberts stated in Project 2025’s foreword that “the next conservative President should work with Congress to enact the most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support while deploying existing federal powers to protect innocent life”.
Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, senior advisers to the Trump campaign, celebrated Dans’ departure and issued a warning to other groups that claim to speak for Trump.
“Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” wrote Wiles and LaCivita in a joint statement.
“Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”
An adviser to Project 2025 said the mission to create a policy blueprint may be over but work to create a database of potential White House appointees would continue.
Harris’s campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said “hiding” Project 2025 would not make it go away.
“What remains clear is that Trump, [JD] Vance, and the Project 2025 agenda will take America backwards: more abortion bans, more suffering, higher costs for the middle class, cuts to Social Security and Medicare, repeal of the Affordable Care Act, dirtier air and water, and empowering Trump to destroy American democracy,” wrote Chavez Rodriguez.
The Daily Beast first reported Dans’ departure from the Heritage Foundation.
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