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Project 2025 keeps coming up this election. What is it?

A copy of Project 2025 is held during the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. For a year, Project 2025 has endured as a persistent force in the presidential election. It’s rare for a complex 900-page policy book to figure so dominantly in a political campaign.
J. Scott Applewhite
/
AP
A copy of Project 2025 is held during the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. For a year, Project 2025 has endured as a persistent force in the presidential election. It’s rare for a complex 900-page policy book to figure so dominantly in a political campaign.

This story originally appeared as part of NPR's live coverage of the 2024 election. For more election coverage from the NPR Network head to our live updates page.


One phrase you've probably heard a lot this election cycle is "Project 2025."

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It refers to a controversial plan drafted by the conservative Heritage Foundation to overhaul the U.S. government. The 900-page document lays out a roadmap for reorganizing the federal government to promote a conservative agenda.

Democrats have repeatedly sought to tie Trump to the most controversial aspects of the plan, while Trump has sought to distance himself from it.

While Trump has sought to deny a connection, there is plenty of overlap between Project 2025 and his agenda. It proposes mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants. So does Trump.

Trump has called for cuts to the federal agencies like the Department of Education. Project 2025 calls for its elimination.

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"He's expressed an interest in adopting certain parts of it and in other parts, he believes that it is too extreme for the nature of his future potential administration, and we at Heritage Foundation find that to be sufficient," Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told NPR.

But, there are also differences. On abortion, for example, Project 2025 goes farther with restrictions than Trump has said he would go.

"If President Donald Trump is a successful candidate here and wins the general election, that there are certain parts that he would be keen to adopt based on representations he's already made within public context," Perry said. "And there may be other parts that he doesn't want to have anything to do with."

Copyright 2024 NPR

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Rachel Treisman
Rachel Treisman (she/her) is a writer and editor for the Morning Edition live blog, which she helped launch in early 2021.
Franco Ordoñez
Franco Ordoñez is a White House Correspondent for NPR's Washington Desk. Before he came to NPR in 2019, Ordoñez covered the White House for McClatchy. He has also written about diplomatic affairs, foreign policy and immigration, and has been a correspondent in Cuba, Colombia, Mexico and Haiti.