Project 2025 Revisited

 

Last August (2024), I posted a description of Project 2025, which at the time Trump was denying any knowledge of. It was so massively unpopular that he distanced himself from it like a Republican politician confronted with a tax increase. Well, Trump has been in office for eight months, so let’s take a quick look at the 50 points I listed over a year ago as a warning to see what Trump really thinks about Project 2025. I’ll put my assessment in bold after each point:

 

1. taking partisan control of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Commerce, Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC);

Yes

2. dismantling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS);

No. Instead, Trump has done far worse. He has turned a division of DHS, ICE, into a colossally overfunded secret police force that refuses to identify itself as it disappears noncitizens and citizens and imprisons them without due process.

3. reducing environmental and climate change regulations to favor fossil fuels;

Yes

4. instituting tax cuts;

Yes

5. abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be transferred or terminated; 

Under way.

6. cutting funding for climate research; 

Yes

7. making the National Institutes of Health (NIH) less independent, stopping them from funding research with embryonic stem cells or using quotas to promote equal participation by women;

The funding cuts reach far further than this.

8. cutting Medicare and Medicaid, 

Yes on Medicaid. Medicare will surely follow.

9. explicitly rejecting abortion as health care; 

Many Republican states have accomplished this.

10. eliminating coverage of emergency contraception; 

Not yet

11. enforcing the Comstock Act to prosecute those who send and receive contraceptives and abortion pills; 

Several Republican states have passed laws to  this effect.

12. withdrawing approval of the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol;

Fourteen states have banned mifepristone.

13. criminalizing pornography;

Over 20 Republican states have required adult websites to verify the age of users.

14. removing legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; 

Yes

15. terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and affirmative action by having the DOJ prosecute “anti-white racism”; 

Yes, the anti-DEI program has been extremely effective.

16. arresting, detaining, and deporting illegal immigrants; 

Yes, including many who are in the country legally and many who just look like they are illegal immigrants.

17. deploying the military for domestic law enforcement; 

Yes, in LA, D.C., and more to come.

18. enforcing capital punishment and the speedy “finality” of those sentences;

Apparently not high on the priority list, but we’ll have to see how this plays out with Tyler Robinson.

19. undoing almost everything implemented by the Biden Administration;

Yes

20. infusing Christian nationalism into every facet of government policy;

Yes

21. abolishing the Federal Reserve;

No, but Trump is trying very hard to take it over so that it loses its independence.

22. eventually moving from an income tax to a national sales tax;

Tariffs are a national sales tax, but the Republicans have just reduced taxes on the wealthy, not eliminated the income tax.

23. changing the tax code in ways that would likely increase taxes significantly on lower- and middle-income households;

Yes. Tariffs are a regressive tax, as is the inflation caused by tariffs and by gutting the agricultural, construction, and hospitality workforces through deportations.

24. reducing the corporate tax from 21 percent to 18 percent (before the Trump tax cuts, it was 35 percent);

Not exactly. The Big Ugly Billionaire Bill Act (BUBBA) made the 2017 rates permanent, but there were several other cuts in the bill that affect companies differently, depending on their products and circumstances.

25. reducing the capital gains tax from 20 percent to 15 percent;

No, but BUBBA expanded the capital gains tax exclusion for some investors.

26. abolishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau;

Not yet, but according to NerdWallet, the CFPB is still standing—barely. Most of its activities have been stopped.

27. abolishing the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces antitrust laws;

No, but today (9/22/25) the Supreme Court allowed Trump to fire the last remaining Democratic commissioner, effectively neutering the FTC.

28. shrinking the role of the National Labor Relations Board, which protects employees’ ability to organize and fight unfair labor practices;

Trump has left the board without a quorum, which means it cannot decide cases. It is effectively paralyzed.

29. instituting work requirements for people reliant on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps);

Yes. And Medicaid.

30. allowing states to opt out of federal educational programs or standards;

Some. But states that do opt out lose federal funding.

31. making public funds for education available as school vouchers with no strings attached, even for parents to send their children to private or religious schools;

This varies by state, but the answer is yes for several states.

32. eliminating Head Start, a program that provides services to children of low-income families;

No, but the administration has take actions that negatively impact Head Start.

33. ensuring that “any research conducted with taxpayer dollars serves the national interest in a concrete way in line with conservative principles,” which would, for example, reduce funding for research in climatology;

Yes.

34. abandoning strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change, including by repealing regulations that curb emissions, downsizing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and abolishing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA);

Yes. The NOAA has not been abolished, but its funding has been cut.

35. preventing states from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions;

No.

36. relaxing regulations on the fossil fuel industry;

YES!!

37. reversing a 2009 EPA finding that carbon dioxide emissions are harmful to human health, preventing the government from regulating greenhouse gas emissions;

YES!!

38. dismissing all Department of State employees and replacing them with Trump loyalists;

Maybe not all, but the replacement of federal civil servants is ongoing.

39. reclassifying tens of thousands of federal civil service workers as political appointees and replacing them with Trump loyalists, who would be willing to bend or break protocol and in some cases violate laws to achieve Trump’s goals;

Of course.

40. increasing the number of nuclear weapons above treaty limits and preparing to test new nuclear weapons despite the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;

All I can find on this is that the U.S. signed but never ratified the 1992 treaty, which means we are not bound by it, but all presidents thus far have abided by its terms.

41. prohibiting Medicare from negotiating drug prices;

Not yet. The Inflation Reduction Act has not yet been overturned, but this may depend on the balance in Congress after the midterm elections.

42. denying gender-affirming care to transgender people;

Yes, in some states.

43. cutting funding for Medicaid in a number of ways, and allowing states to impose stricter work requirements for beneficiaries;

YES!!

44. increasing Medicaid eligibility determinations to make it harder to enroll in, apply for, and renew Medicaid;

YESS!!

45. withholding federal disaster relief funds to state or local governments that refuse to abide by federal immigration laws;

Despite Trump’s threats to withhold funding from California, he did release the funds.

46. ending same-sex marriage, removing protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual or gender identity, and eliminating provisions pertaining to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI);

Same-sex marriage has not been ended, but DEI programs have been attacked relentlessly.

47. defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting;

Yes.

48. allowing more media consolidation by converting local news programs into national news programs;

Nexstar and Sinclair, two right-wing companies, own hundreds of local stations and are appealing to have the rules changed so that they can accumulate more media power. This will undoubtedly be approved by Trump’s FCC, especially after the two companies followed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s orders to stop airing Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show.

49. reforming the Department of Justice and placing it under White House supervision;

Oh my! Reforming is too weak a word for what the DOJ has become under Pam Blondi (intentional misspelling). Trump is demanding that she go after his political “enemies” regardless of whether or not they have done anything wrong. Everyone who opposes Trump is guilty by default in his eyes.

50. making the director of the FBI personally accountable to the president.

The only way to do this was to not promote from within but to appoint a totally incompetent director from among Trump’s most fervent sycophants.

 

Well, considering that Trump denied any knowledge of Project 2025 during his campaign, he has followed it quite closely, and we’re only eight months into his second term. Most alarming, however, are all the unconstitutional acts he has ordered that go well beyond Project 2025, including but not limited to killing boaters in international waters without apprehending them and proving in a court of law that they are drug smugglers, easing restrictions on Russia and turning a blind eye to Putin’s escalation of his war on Ukraine, and demanding that the DOJ and FBI never reveal what is in the Epstein files (wonder why). So, welcome to the Banana Republic of America.