Less than a year since Donald Trump started serving his second term as President of the United States, the controversial Project 2025 became significant again as some of its proponents can be felt in his current administration.
Trump initially distanced himself from this policy plan during the presidential campaign in 2024, but he no longer denies the project's involvement in his plans as the head of state of the US.
What is Project 2025?
For those unfamiliar with Project 2025, this Far-Right blueprint was created in 1973 by the conservative public policy institution Heritage Foundation.
The project's policy agenda was written in a book titled 'Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,' and was shared online. It contains 30 chapters of proposals that would extend the power of the US president and plan an ultra-conservative social vision.
More details about the project's policies are mentioned in a viral TikTok post by a Law student from Yale University to help others understand it better.
@dariarosereal Replying to @Seth #greenscreen #project2025 #secondterm
♬ original sound - Daria Rose
The project's primary objective is to propose a list of recommendations on how the major federal agencies should be governed. Some of the most controversial examples include:
Abortion
The project wants the government to make abortion completely illegal in the US. Conservatives in the states and in Washington, including in the next conservative Administration, should push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America,' the book stated.
'In particular, 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 and vigorously complying with statutory bans on the federal funding of abortion.'
The book also wanted the federal government to end funding for Planned Parenthood and the other abortion service providers and redirect the funds to health providers that offer real health care to women.
Immigration
The creators of Project 2025 want to reinstate all the immigration rules implemented during Trump's first term in the White House and call for additional immigration policies to reorganise all immigration-related operations.
Some of their proposals include tighter asylum requirements, allowing fewer refugees in the country, and reinstating Trump's Remain in Mexico program.
The project also proposes to significantly reduce or totally eliminate the visas issued to foreign students from enemy nations, lessen the issuance of guest worker visas and repeal the diversity visa program that issues visas to countries with low immigration to the country on a lottery basis.
Social Welfare Programs
The project used fraud and waste in safety net programs to find reasons for revamping policies on social welfare.
They want to add work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries and implement time limits to prevent permanent dependence on the national health insurance programme that serves almost 74 million individuals as of May.
Trump's Statements about Project 2025
On 21 April 2022, Trump spoke at the Heritage Foundation's annual leadership conference, where he seemed to talk about the contents of Project 2025.
'This is a great group, and they're going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America. And that's coming,' Trump stated.
Then he denied any knowledge about the project during his presidential campaign. He even went to his Truth Social account to say that he does not recognise it.
'I know nothing about Project 2025,' Trump wrote on Truth Social on 5 July. 'I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.'
He made another contradicting statement in early October, when he announced his meeting with the Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, whom he called 'he of PROJECT 2025 Fame.'
Trump shared that the meeting will help him decide which 'Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.'
Originally published on IBTimes UK
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