Any day now, President Donald Trump will reportedly sign an executive order to begin the process of eliminating the U.S. Department of Education. Getting rid of this key federal agency — something he can’t do entirely on his own without congressional approval — is one of his long-standing campaign promises. It also happens to be one of the key proposals outlined in Project 2025, the far-right governing plan written by more than 140 Trump 1.0 alumni and that some Serious Political Operators™ have downplayed as something that wouldn’t actually come to fruition.
But that’s exactly what’s happening: A CNN analysis of 53 executive orders and actions Trump took in just his first week back in office found that 36 of them were outlined in the playbook, called Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. And he’s only implemented even more policies echoing Project 2025 in the days since.
The plan, a 900-page behemoth created by right-wing groups, was the stuff of authoritarian dreams and freaked out many voters when it went viral as the election heated up last summer. Of course, Trump publicly denied any connection to the effort. “I have nothing to do with Project 2025 — I haven’t read it,” Trump said during the only presidential debate with Kamala Harris in September. “I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it.”
The public relations spin showed the depth of his campaign’s panic at the time. That same month, just 4 percent of registered voters surveyed by NBC News had a positive view of the policies outlined in Mandate, with 57 percent saying they viewed the proposals negatively. And yet mainstream media outlets and conservative influencers who breathlessly spoke about how Trump had supposedly “disavowed” the plan made it seem like believing that Project 2025 was Trump’s very real plan for governing was somehow akin to buying into QAnon conspiracy theories.
How wrong those people were! Immediately after seizing power, Trump aggressively rolled out dozens of proposals that are identical to those in Project 2025. The attacks have come fast and furious since January 20, including but not limited to:
- Introducing sweeping immigration-related orders, including expanding detention facilities for migrants without legal status, limiting refugee admissions, and attempting to block sanctuary cities.
- Dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across federal agencies.
- Freezing the hiring of federal employees.
- Firing longtime apolitical civil servants in order to replace them with people aligned with Trump’s views, as well as stripping federal workers of employment protections.
- Attempting to freeze billions of dollars in federal grants.
- Prohibiting nongovernmental foreign organizations from receiving federal funding if they promote or offer abortion care.
- Restoring Title IX regulations from Trump’s first term, which provided more protections for students accused of sexual violence.
- Refusing to enforce the FACE Act to protect abortion providers from violence.
- Investigating NPR and PBS to potentially defund them.
- Restricting gender-affirming care for minors in addition to implementing a slew of other anti-trans policies.
- Withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Paris climate agreement.
- Ending other climate-change initiatives.
The fact that Project 2025 is going full steam ahead shouldn’t take anyone by surprise. Not only were the connections between the playbook’s authors and Trump’s campaign spelled out clearly from the beginning, but once the election was over, his transition team announced that many of the plan’s contributors would join the incoming administration, sometimes even in Cabinet-level positions. See White House border czar Tom Homan; new CIA director John Ratcliffe; new FCC commissioner Brendan Carr; and Russ Vought, nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget.
And their playbook is already having devastating real-world consequences. ICE raids have terrorized entire communities, from Seattle to Phoenix to San Juan. Hospitals have begun to quietly deny gender-affirming care to minors, even in supposed safe havens like New York City. Head Start programs across the country are at risk of shutting down because they remain locked out of federal aid. Thousands of federal workers have been effectively forced out of their jobs. And the dismantling of USAID has left millions of people globally without access to food, life-saving health care, and clean water.
So for anyone who, given all this evidence, continues to believe Trump is not trying to remake our nation in Project 2025’s far-right, white-nationalist image, I have a bridge to sell you.