Project 2025: What It Actually Says (All 900 Pages, Summarized)
Quick Answer
What is Project 2025? Project 2025 is a 900-page policy blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation in 2023, outlining a plan to restructure the federal government under conservative control. It proposes replacing career civil servants with political loyalists, eliminating multiple federal agencies, expanding presidential power, and using existing federal law to restrict abortion access without new legislation. It was written by over 100 conservative organizations and former Trump administration officials.
Project 2025 is a 900-page document. Most people have heard of it. Very few have read it. That gap is doing a lot of work right now.
What It Is
The full title is "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise." It was published in 2023 by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that has been producing "Mandate for Leadership" documents since 1981. The 2025 version is by far the largest and most detailed. It lays out a plan to restructure the entire executive branch of the federal government in the first 180 days of a new conservative administration.
Over 100 conservative organizations contributed. Many of the authors held senior positions in the Trump administration. The document is not a wish list. It is a staffing manual and policy implementation guide, organized by agency and department, with specific instructions for what to do and in what order.
The Core Strategy: Schedule F
The most consequential proposal in the document is the expansion of "Schedule F," an executive order originally signed by Trump in October 2020 and reversed by Biden on his first day in office. Project 2025 calls for reinstating and dramatically expanding it.
Schedule F would reclassify tens of thousands of career federal civil servants as at-will employees, stripping them of the job protections that have kept the federal workforce nonpartisan since the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. The stated goal is to remove "ideologically hostile" employees and replace them with people loyal to the administration's agenda. Critics describe this as the largest restructuring of the civil service in modern American history. Supporters describe it the same way, but approvingly.
What It Says About Federal Agencies
Project 2025 calls for eliminating or significantly restructuring a long list of federal agencies. The Department of Education is targeted for outright elimination, with its functions returned to individual states. The document calls for defunding or restructuring the FBI, pulling it out from under the Justice Department, and placing both under more direct presidential control. NOAA, which operates the National Weather Service, is described as a "climate change" activist organization and targeted for restructuring. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are all addressed with varying degrees of hostility.
The underlying argument throughout is that independent agencies operating outside direct presidential control are unconstitutional. The document is explicit: the president should have unilateral authority over the entire executive branch, including agencies that have historically operated with significant independence from political pressure.
What It Says About Abortion
Project 2025 does not call for a federal abortion ban by name. It does something more specific: it calls for using existing law, specifically the Comstock Act of 1873, to ban the mailing of abortion medication and abortion-related materials nationwide. It also calls for the FDA to revoke approval of mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in medication abortion, which now accounts for the majority of abortions in the United States. These actions would not require new legislation. They would be implemented through executive and regulatory action.
Who Wrote It and What Happened Next
The lead organization was The Heritage Foundation. Key contributors included Russell Vought, Trump's Office of Management and Budget director, who wrote the chapter on the Executive Office of the President. John McEntee, who ran the White House Presidential Personnel Office under Trump, helped design the staffing strategy. Paul Dans, a former Trump official, directed the project.
During the 2024 campaign, Trump publicly distanced himself from Project 2025, saying he had not read it and disagreed with some of it. After winning the election, his administration began implementing significant portions of it through executive order, including reinstating Schedule F, beginning the process of eliminating the Department of Education, and initiating mass firings of career federal employees. The document that was supposedly disavowed became the operational framework.
If you want to understand what is happening right now, the document is worth reading. If fascism has a mechanism, this is a detailed description of one. We wrote about what fascism actually is and how it works if you want the historical context alongside the current one.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is Project 2025 in simple terms?
Project 2025 is a 900-page governing blueprint published by The Heritage Foundation in 2023. It outlines how a conservative administration should restructure the federal government in its first term, including which agencies to eliminate, which laws to reinterpret, and how to replace career government employees with political loyalists. It was written by over 100 conservative organizations and many former Trump administration officials.
Who wrote Project 2025?
Project 2025 was led by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank founded in 1973. Over 100 organizations contributed, including many staffed by former Trump administration officials. Key authors include Russell Vought (former Trump OMB director), John McEntee (former White House Presidential Personnel Office director), and Paul Dans, who served as the project's director. Many of the chapter authors have since taken positions in the current administration.
Is Project 2025 actually being implemented?
Yes, in significant part. After winning the 2024 election, the Trump administration reinstated Schedule F via executive order, began the process of eliminating the Department of Education, initiated mass firings of career federal employees, and moved to restructure or defund several agencies named in the document. This occurred despite Trump publicly distancing himself from the project during the campaign.
What does Project 2025 say about abortion?
Project 2025 does not call for a federal abortion ban by name. Instead, it calls for using the Comstock Act of 1873 to ban mailing abortion medication nationwide, and for the FDA to revoke approval of mifepristone, which is used in the majority of abortions in the United States. These actions would be implemented through executive and regulatory authority, without new legislation from Congress.
What is Schedule F and why does it matter?
Schedule F is an executive order that reclassifies career federal civil servants as at-will employees, removing job protections that have kept the federal workforce nonpartisan since 1883. Project 2025 calls for reinstating and dramatically expanding it, potentially affecting tens of thousands of federal employees. The intent is to make it easier to fire workers deemed insufficiently loyal to the administration's agenda and replace them with political appointees. Trump originally signed Schedule F in October 2020. Biden reversed it on his first day in office. Trump reinstated it in January 2025.
What federal agencies does Project 2025 want to eliminate?
Project 2025 calls for eliminating the Department of Education entirely, with its functions returned to states. It targets the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, calls for restructuring the FBI and placing it under more direct presidential control, and describes NOAA and its National Weather Service as politically motivated agencies in need of major restructuring. The document addresses virtually every federal agency and department with specific policy recommendations, ranging from minor reforms to outright elimination.
