The director of Project 2025, the right-wing policy blueprint and personnel project prepared for the next Republican president that became a political cudgel used by Democrats, is departing after the effort drew criticism from former President Donald Trump.
The project, which has been a collaborative effort across the conservative ecosystem led by the Heritage Foundation, has become a lightning rod on the 2024 campaign trail. The group had spent months developing an expansive set of policies, and the president of the Heritage Foundation said Tuesday it was concluding its drafting of new ideas as planned.
“When we began Project 2025 in April 2022, we set a timeline for the project to conclude its policy drafting after the two party conventions this year, and we are sticking to that timeline,” Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, said in a statement praising Paul Dans, the outgoing director.
Trump has tried to distance himself from the specifics inside the 900-page plan for months, saying the sweeping agenda to reshape the federal government is not his, though many of the proposals were crafted by people who served in the first Trump administration.
“It’s a group of very, very conservative people. And they wrote a document that many of the points are fine. Many of the points are absolutely ridiculous,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News last week. During the same interview, he insisted he had “never seen” the plan and had “nothing to do with” it.
President Joe Biden, and now Vice President Kamala Harris, have repeatedly used some of the less popular planks to attack Trump. Harris brings up Project 2025 during almost every campaign stop. At a fundraiser this weekend, she described it as “a plan that would return America to a very dark past.”
The Trump team, which has grown increasingly frustrated by the coverage of Project 2025’s plans, cheered its apparent end Tuesday. The Daily Beast first reported the departure of Dans.
“Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you,” said Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, Trump’s top two advisers, in a statement.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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