What exactly would a second Donald Trump presidency look like?
As it turns out, there isn’t much left to the imagination. Consider the meticulous policy plan prepared by a group of Republicans in the event Trump wins in November — an outcome that grows more likely by the day given President Biden’s reluctance to heed increasing calls to step aside as the Democratic nominee after his dismal debate performance last month.
“Project 2025″ is a right-wing wish list that was released last year by the Heritage Foundation, a leading conservative think tank, and supported by roughly 100 partner organizations. It’s a far-reaching blueprint to fundamentally reshape the federal government and its vast, longstanding nonpartisan functions. It includes the decimation of the federal workforce, internment camps for undocumented immigrants, and aggressive bluster about China.
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Yet, curiously, Trump attempted to distance himself from the plan in a social media post last week. “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it,” he wrote on his media platform Truth Social. “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.”
It’s a laughable rejection. “When Donald Trump denies something, you should always take it as a full confession of his absolute guilt,” Rick Wilson, a former Republican and political consultant who cofounded the Lincoln Project, wrote on his Substack.
The truth is in the evidence. The former president’s ties with the authors of Project 2025 are clear. For one, many people involved in drafting the plan are former Trump administration officials, such as Ben Carson, former housing secretary under Trump, and Peter Navarro, Trump’s former trade adviser. The press secretary for the Trump campaign, Karoline Leavitt, stars in one of the project’s promotional videos, as the Biden-Harris campaign highlighted on X. (Leavitt told The Washington Post that she did the video before she started working for the Trump campaign.)
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Notably, during the first year of the Trump administration, “64 percent of [The Heritage Foundation’s original proposals] were included in Trump’s budget, implemented through regulatory guidance, or under consideration for action,” according to the group. Those results exceeded the first year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the foundation noted at the time, saying Reagan distributed Heritage’s book “Mandate for Leadership,” the first one created, at his first Cabinet meeting.
The foundation’s current “Mandate for Leadership,” nearly 1,000 pages long, calls for removing employee protections from tens of thousands of career service workers, making it easier to replace them with political appointees; limiting the independence and reach of various federal agencies; repealing part of the Affordable Care Act and rolling back even more abortion protections; and further empowering the government to deport immigrants who are here illegally, among other sweeping measures.
At times, Project 2025 reads like an apocalyptic governing manifesto with parts that can be deemed pure magical thinking. It also includes the classic conservative ideological bluster against communist China, because of course. But it would be a mistake to outright dismiss the document. While it’s unrealistic to believe that the federal government can operationally put millions of residents who lack legal status in internment camps or deport them, there’s no question that a Trump presidency would be highly restrictive and harmful on legal and illegal immigration.
Cecilia Esterline, a research analyst at the Niskanen Center, wrote that what’s contained in the plan vis-a-vis immigration policy “isn’t simply a refresh of first-term ideas, dusted off and ready to be re-implemented.” Instead, “it reflects a meticulously orchestrated, comprehensive plan to drive immigration levels to unprecedented lows and increase the federal government’s power to the states’ detriment.” For instance, the plan calls for eliminating the protected legal status of half a million “Dreamers” and suspending visa applications for certain categories of legal immigration.
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Does anyone really believe Trump won’t move in that direction? Talk about magical thinking.
About Trump’s vague attempt at denying his support or knowledge of Project 2025: It’s no surprise that it came at the heels of incendiary remarks made by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. During a podcast, Roberts warned that we are “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
But it also reflects that the Trump campaign is having concerns about how the American electorate is reacting to the blueprint’s extreme ideas.
That’s why it’s imperative that Trump is questioned about exactly what his stances are, particularly concerning immigration. As illuminating as the first televised presidential debate was, one of its biggest failures was that Trump, by and large, went unchallenged in most of his immigration policy-related answers.
Whether it follows Project 2025 religiously or not, a second Trump administration would consolidate presidential power, weaken access to contraception and abortion pills, wreck immigrant communities, and be devastating to the economy. In imagining what a second Trump presidency would look like, what’s past is prologue.
Marcela García is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at marcela.garcia@globe.com. Follow her @marcela_elisa and on Instagram @marcela_elisa.
