Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly disavowed Project 2025the Heritage Foundation’s curated conservative wish list, saying the plan is not his own and contains “terrible ideas.”
But a line-by-line review by CBS News identified at least 270 proposals in Project 2025’s published blueprint for the next Republican president that align with Trump’s past policies and current campaign promises.
The CBS News data team mined more than 700 political proposals taken from the 922-page Project 2025 policy guide and compared each element to policies adopted during Trump’s first term as well as his campaign platform, rally speeches and interviews.
From shutting down the Department of Education to removing any mention of diversity, equity, and inclusion from federal agency plans and programs, Project 2025’s agenda often aligns with Trump’s recorded words and his administration’s actions.
As part of Project 2025, CBS News identified:
- At least 80 proposals that would revive executive orders and other policies of the Trump administration from 2017 to 2020.
- 170 proposals that match ideas that the Trump campaign has posted on its campaign website or that he has expressed in rally speeches and interviews.
- 21 other proposals that match both Trump’s past actions and his campaign promises and statements.
Additionally, CBS News reviewed the professional backgrounds of the 38 named lead authors. Project 2025 and found that at least 28 of them worked in the Trump administration.
This includes both leaders of Project 2025.
Among the ideas that fit Trump’s actions and agenda:
- The 2025 plan calls for combing through federal agency rules and programs for any mention of gender identity, transgender rights protections or gender-affirming care, and removing them. Trump repeatedly promised to do the same thing during the campaign, adding that his next administration would reaffirm that there are only two valid genders, classify gender-affirming care for children as abuse and ban transgender students from sports teams.
- The 2025 plan calls for shrinking the Department of Education and transferring most of its functions to the states. Trump has said this repeatedly in speeches and campaign materials, going so far as to say on several occasions that he would eliminate the department.
- The 2025 plan proposes to eliminate all subsidies for electric vehicles and reduce new emissions limits for gasoline-powered vehicles. Trump has promised this both on the trail and in his campaign materials, emphasizing that he would reverse all of President Biden’s actions to subsidize electric vehicles.
- The 2025 plan, in its sections on nearly every federal department, includes proposals to find and eliminate all rules and programs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as teaching or training around critical race theory. The former president regularly emphasizes this point, saying, for example, that he “banned” critical race theory in his administration and that he will do that and more to eliminate DEI programs and rules next time. “We will finish the job that we so successfully started,” he said in a campaign speech.
Many other ideas in the Project 2025 document reflect Trump’s positions on issues such as building the border wall and mass deportations illegal immigrants; restricting student and work visas; withdrawing from global climate change agreements; expanding school choice; expanding and modernizing the United States’ nuclear weapons arsenal; increasing military spending; and work requirements for public assistance recipients.
There are several areas where Project 2025 falls short of Trump’s policies or promises. Among them:
- The 2025 bill includes dozens of proposals for ways the federal government could further restrict abortion, including banning abortion drugs and criminalizing their mailing. Trump said He opposes a federal ban on abortion and wants leave abortion issues to the states to decide, but did not rule out some federal rules.
- The 2025 project calls for the criminalization of pornography in all its forms, including prosecuting teachers and public librarians who provide access to books that conservatives consider pornographic. Trump, for his part, has not taken a position on criminalizing pornography.
- The bill repeatedly calls for an outright ban on the social media platform Tik TokTrump had once supported banning the Chinese-owned video social media app but now opposes it.
The Heritage Foundation also created a similar policy under the same title — “Mandate for Leadership” — in 2015, before Trump’s first term.
A few years into his term, Heritage said Trump had implemented 64% of his policy recommendations, including abandoning the Paris climate accords, increasing military spending and increasing drilling.
Taylor Johnston contributed to this report.
