Project 2026? Group behind Trump’s return to the White House outlines next agenda
The right-wing think tank behind the 900-page plan for Donald Trump’s administration is looking ahead to 2026 with a theme inspired by the president’s own message: “golden age” is coming.
Heritage Foundation Project 2025 and basic policy book Leadership Authority: Conservative Promise It was crafted by a group of Trump aides and allies who would go on to find jobs in the administration.
Project 2025’s plans for a Republican administration included a radical expansion of executive power, drastic cuts to spending and social services, hollowing out the federal workforce, stripping LGBT+ rights, and implementing a sweeping anti-immigrant agenda.
By the end of the year, more than half of the items on the Heritage Foundation’s massive wish list had been implemented, with the plan’s co-authors appointed to key roles across the federal government.
of the group 2026 agendaReleased earlier this year as the “Restoring America’s Promise” plan, the United States promises to “engage in Washington to dismantle the deep state and in the states to restore the family, rebuild American institutions, and restore opportunity for all” as the country enters its 250th anniversary.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan for a Republican administration was at the center of protests before and after Trump’s election (AFP via Getty Images)
A. new ad Broadcasting on cable networks “is a golden age choice,” he says.
“This is a choice to put families first and strengthen local communities,” the narrators say, alongside a cinematic score and a montage of iconic American scenes like a mountain sunset, blue-collar workers, an aircraft carrier, a baby, fireworks and Charlie Kirk.
“The option of finding dignity in successful and honorable work,” they say. “The choice to prioritize the security of our nation, to protect our homeland, and to stand strong against foreign threats. The choice to appreciate the greatest gift we have been given: to wake up every day as an American citizen.”
A Heritage spokesman said: Independent that the organization’s mission to “build a better America” remains unchanged.
“We will always explore, develop and advocate for conservative policy solutions,” the spokesman said. “But our strategy is changing.”
The group is currently building on the “Four Cornerstones,” including the “American Family, the Dignity of Work and the Future of Free Enterprise, National Security, and American Heritage and Citizenship.”
The national ad campaign aims to “reset and reframe the conversation,” the spokesperson added.
Heritage did not respond IndependentHe is asked whether he would consider working with the Trump administration to implement these ideas.
“Heritage will continue to work with lawmakers and officials at all levels of government, just as we have done for more than 50 years,” the spokesperson added.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts is trying to set an agenda for Trump’s remaining years in office by planning America’s ‘golden age’ (AP)
This “vision” includes nine priorities reminiscent of the right-wing campaigns that dominated the Trump era, from increasing immigration enforcement to investing in Big Oil.
Chief among these is “opposing the Chinese Communist Party,” which Heritage describes as “the most persistent and significant foreign threat facing the American people today.”
Heritage also aims to eliminate federal regulations that it believes are stifling business and the economy; ending “immigration chaos” by pouring federal resources into the administration’s mass deportation campaign; ensuring “election integrity” by requiring proof of U.S. citizenship at the ballot box and expanding “educational freedom” by getting rid of the Department of Education.
The group also wants to “restore digital sovereignty” by targeting Big Tech, “put family first” with an anti-abortion agenda, and “unleash American energy” by abandoning regulatory frameworks aimed at combating the climate crisis.
Plans to “root out the deep state” call for centralizing presidential control of the federal government; this includes “opposing the expansion of the powers of independent agencies” that seek to hold the federal government accountable.
Democratic officials seize on Project 2025’s ties to the Trump administration and the Heritage Foundation’s plan to consolidate power within the executive branch (Getty Images)
Heritage also published an 800-page book. Article by article analysis of the ConstitutionIt was co-written by a fleet of conservative federal judges on the Supreme Court’s short list.
Prepared with a foreword by conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and contributions from more than 30 judges with similar ideological orientations, the “Constitutional Heritage Guide” appears to be the legal equivalent of the Project 2025 manifesto.
The guidance also includes an 18-member “judicial advisory board,” none of whom were appointed by Democratic presidents.
All but three were appointed by Trump, and most of their names have been announced as possible Supreme Court nominees at some point.
White House budget director Russell Vought, who was among the architects of Project 2025, is one of several Heritage-focused officials appointed to the Trump administration (Getty Images)
Trump initially said he had “no idea” who was behind Project 2025 as Democratic campaigns raised alarm during the 2024 election.
Presidential transition chairman and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said he wouldn’t touch it, and Trump has repeatedly tried to distance himself from the group during the campaign, both claiming he knew “nothing” about Project 2025 and having “no idea who was behind it” while also saying he disagreed with some of the project’s “absolutely ridiculous and awful” proposals.
Meanwhile, the chief political action committee supporting Trump was running online ads promoting Project 2025, clearly calling it “Trump’s Project 2025.”
Project 2025’s authors quickly dispersed throughout the administration.
Trump picked Russell Vought to be director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, a key role that oversees spending across the administration. Vought is also among the architects of the 2025 plan and wrote the chapter on transforming the executive branch.
Months later, after destroying the federal government and waging legal battles to make the cuts permanent, Trump boasted that he would meet with Vought and openly mentioned the Project 2025 connection.
“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought of PROJECT 2025 Fame to determine which of the many Democratic Organizations he proposes to cut, many of which are political frauds, and whether these cuts will be temporary or permanent,” Trump posted on Truth Social in October. “I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of quietly and quickly wanting to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, wrote the chapter of Project 2025 on the agency that regulates television, radio, the internet and communications.
Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan (former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is also among Project 2025 contributors and serves as a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Border Security and Immigration, where he drafted a series of articles on immigration policy for the group.
John Ratcliffe, whom Trump nominated for CIA director, was among the authors of Project 2025’s section on US intelligence.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller took issue with the “leftist” jury that acquitted a man who was towing an internal combustion fuel vehicle during an arrest. (Getty)
Stephen Miller returned to the Trump White House as deputy chief of staff for policy, overseeing much of Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. His organization, America First Lega, was initially among those contributing to Project 2025, but the group’s name was removed from its website after Trump and his allies began criticizing the proposal.
In August, Trump nominated Heritage Foundation economist EJ Antoni to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after firing commissioner Erika McEntarfer following her provisional employment report and the president’s bogus claims that employment statistics were fabricated to politically harm Republicans. Following widespread criticism and what one group called “like hiring a flat earther to run NASA,” Antoni withdrew from consideration.
But by the end of the year, reports emerged that the Heritage Foundation was facing “open rebellion” as it struggled to contain the growing uproar that chairman Kevin Roberts had incited by defending right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson following his interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
This outcome appears to reflect a broader divide within the American conservative movement, which is preparing for life after Trump’s presidency and devising a plan to survive without him.
