Russell Nystrom (4:44)

In the simplest terms, Project 2025 was a proposal for how the next Republican president should navigate the administrative state when they take office. The cornerstone of the project was a set of written policy prescriptions called Mandate for Leadership the Conservative Promise, a 30 chapter book developed by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that has had significant influence in the Republican Party for decades. Overall, Project 2025 had four mandate for leadership, a database of personnel who could serve in the potential incoming administration, a presidential administration academy designed to train that personnel, and a playbook of actions that the next president should take in their first 180 days in office. Several Key Project 2025 authors now serve in the Trump administration. The first is Russell Vaught. Vaught is currently Trump's Director of Office of Management and Budget, also known as omb. He was also a major author of Mandate for Leadership, writing a chapter on how the president could leverage OMB to exercise greater control over the executive branch and ensure full alignment with White House policy. Over the last year, Vought has helped cut the federal workforce and has been tasked with winding down agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, also known as CFPB, and the U.S. agency for International Development, also known as USAID. The next person is Peter Navarro. Navarro served as the director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy during Trump's first term and is now senior counselor to the President for trade and manufacturing. He wrote a chapter of Project 2025 titled the Case for Fair Trade, outlining how America could strengthen its manufacturing and defense industrial base while on shoring the supply chain. Over the past year, Navarro has been a key advocate for Trump's use of tariffs. The next person is Brendan Carr. During his first term, Trump appointed Carr to serve as a commissioner on the Federal communications commission, the FCC. While serving in that role, Carr wrote Project 2025's chapter on the FCC. He identified four main goals for the commission. The first was to rein in Big Tech. The second was to promote national security. The third was to unleash economic prosperity and the fourth was to ensure the FCC's accountability and good governance. Carr made headlines in September for his role in ABC's decision to temporarily suspend Jimmy Kimmel's late night show. Mandate for Leadership also lists 277 contributors who were not the lead author for any chapter, but generously volunteered their time and effort to assist the authors in the development and writing of this volume's 30 chapters, end quote. Some of these people have gone on to have significant roles in the Trump White House. Those being Paul Atkins, who serves as the Chairman of the securities and Exchange Commission Steve Bradbury, who serves as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation Elbridge Colby, who serves as the Undersecretary of Defense for policy Troy Edgar, who serves as the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Joseph Edlow, who is the Director of the U.S. citizenship and Immigration Services John Fear, who is chief of staff for U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan, who is White House borders are and John Ratcliffe, who is the director of the CIA. The Trump administration has pursued several different Project 2025 policies. The first is the Justice Department and executive branch having increasing alignment. Mandate for Leadership specifically calls for issuing guidance to ensure that litigation decisions are consistent with the President's agenda and the rule of law. The administration followed this up on June 11th by directing the civil division of the DOJ to use its authority to advance the administration's policy objectives. Additionally, the Justice Department has brought several cases against political adversaries of the president after Trump specifically called on Bondi to do so. The DOJ has obtained indictments against John Bolden, Letitia James, and James Comey James and Comey's indictments have since been dismissed. It also sought indictments against six Democratic members of Congress after they urged service members to resist unlawful orders. The next category is with relation to civil servants and Schedule F. In 2020, Trump issued Executive Order 13957, which allowed for the reclassification of of many career federal workers to Schedule F, a new service category that would remove many of their normal employment protections. Positions moved into the new category would remain career jobs, meaning they are intended to be filled on a nonpartisan basis but would become at will positions. Many critics argued that jobs falling under this schedule would become more akin to political appointments. The order applied to roles that were determined to be confidential, policy determining, policymaking, or policy advocating. These eventually became known as Schedule F positions, after the classification federal workers would have fallen into had the order been implemented and Trump stayed in office. Reinstating Schedule F became one of the marquee proposals of Project 2025, and on his first day back in office, Trump did just that. The name of the schedule was changed from F to Policy Career, and the Office of Personnel Management, also known as opm, issued a final rule on the matter last week, clearing the way for the change to be implemented as soon as March. Which jobs will be reclassified is currently unclear, but estimates suggest about 50,000 employees could be affected. President Trump, rather than OPM, will make the final call on which positions fall into the category. Agencies are expected to create a list of positions they intend to reclassify over the next month and send it to the White House for review.

John Lowell (11:22)

We'll be right back after this Quick break.

Isaac Saul (11:29)

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Russell Nystrom (11:30)

Ooh, who's there?

Isaac Saul (11:31)

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John Lowell (11:43)

Okay, it's just that when people say.

Russell Nystrom (11:45)

Knock knock, there's usually a joke to go with it.

Isaac Saul (11:47)

Like I said, this isn't a joke.

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So the knock knock was just you knocking? Yeah.

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Delivery available for select devices purchased@boostmobile.com. The next category is Trade Reform tariffs have been a defining policy thus far. In Trump's second term, a large portion of Navarro's chapter advocated for the passage of the United States Reciprocal Trade act, also known as usrta, which would have allowed the President to raise US Duties when a trading partner refused to lower non reciprocal trade barriers. While the US RTA never passed, Trump has pursued similar powers by declaring a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Trump used this declaration for his Liberation Day reciprocal tariffs. However, Trump's authority to implement these tariffs may end abruptly as the Supreme Court is set to rule on the legality of his emergency declaration in the coming court term ending in June. The next category is dismantling DEI and civil rights policies. Project 2025 issued several recommendations on decreasing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the federal government and beyond. While many proposals are department specific, the playbook also promotes changes to government wide race based policies. Mandate for Leadership called for the abolition of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, or ofccp, which exists to prevent certain federal contractors from discriminating in employment based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin. On Trump's first full day in office, he rescinded the 1965 executive order that the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs was designed to enforce. He then attempted to reduce the office's budget to $0. However, after recent budget negotiations, the program will receive $101 million next year. Relatedly, Trump repealed President Biden's executive order to establish a White House Gender Policy Council. These moves align closely with Project 2025's recommendations for rolling back DEI related requirements across the federal government. The next category is rescinding the endangerment finding. On Day one of his second term, Trump signed an executive order directing EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to submit a report on the legality and continuing applicability of the endangerment Finding, which serves as the basis for much of the United States greenhouse gas regulations. In March 2025, Zeldin announced the EPA would move towards eliminating the finding, and on Thursday he announced it was formally rescinded. The next category is school vouchers, which the administration has pushed significantly. School vouchers are government funded subsidies redeemable for tuition at non public schools or for homeschooling. The administration's actions include funding the first federal private school choice program. The next policy is adding a citizenship question to the census. During his first term, Trump attempted to include a question on the census asking if respondents were American citizens. After a lengthy court battle and the Supreme Court stepping in, the Census Bureau printed the questionnaire without the citizenship question. However, the court did not say that a citizenship questioned would be illegal, instead finding Trump's rationale for including it to be contrived, they said. Project 2025 called for a conservative president to resume these efforts, and as of February 2026, the Trump administration has begun testing a citizenship question for the 2030 census. The last thing we're going to look at today for policies that Project 2025 proposed that the Trump administration has pursued are certain abortion reforms. HHS suspended, then restored Title 10 funding to planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, and Veterans affairs no longer provides abortions to its patients. The FDA has also initiated a review of the abortion pill Mifepristone in an apparent effort to determine whether to revise federal rules on the drug.

John Lowell (16:54)

We'll be right back after this quick break.

Isaac Saul (17:00)

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Russell Nystrom (18:09)

We're now going to go and look at Project 2025 policy proposals that Trump has not enacted, at least not yet. The first is comprehensive abortion reform, one of Project 2025's most widely covered sections focused on abortion policy. In the lead up to the 2024 election, abortion was a key issue for Democrats, and fears about Project 2025's recommendations were central to their attack ads. While the playbook stopped short of calling for a law banning abortion nationwide. It laid out several recommendations to restrict access domestically that would act as a ban, and it called for removing U.S. involvement with international organizations that promote or permit abortion. Most notably, Project 2025 called on the DOJ to enforce the Comstock act, an 1873 law that prohibits drugs, medicines or instruments used for abortions from being sent through the mail. Additionally, the proposal called for the permanent codification of the Hyde and Weldon Amendments into law. These amendments are typically renewed each year. Hyde bars most federal funds, including Medicaid, from paying for abortion with few exceptions, and Weldon blocks HHS from giving funds to agencies or localities that, quote, discriminate against a healthcare entity. Weldon blocks HHS from giving funds to agencies or localities that discriminate against a healthcare entity because it doesn't provide or cover abortions. Before his election, Trump said he would not enforce the Comstock act, though the FDA is reviewing miferpristone. The DOJ has asked courts to reject state lawsuits that would restrict mifepristone access until the FDA review is completed. President Trump has not pushed Congress on the Hyde and Weldon Amendments permanent codification, and in January he even suggested that Republicans should become flexible on Hyde in order to pass a funding deal. The next category is prioritizing funding for home based childcare, not universal daycare. Project 2025 argued that children who spend more time in daycare were more likely to experience anxiety, depression and neglect, as well as worse educational outcomes. Instead, it advocated for prioritizing funding to offset the cost of parents staying home with a child or to pay for in home child care. The Trump administration has begun the process to change payment rules and oversight requirements with child care funds in response to alleged fraud in Minnesota daycares. However, these changes have yet to shift priority to at home childcare. The next category is to ban apps like TikTok and WeChat. Navarro's chapter also calls for a ban on Chinese social media apps, particularly TikTok and WeChat, arguing they pose a national security threat. Despite a law requiring a TikTok ban to go into effect. President Trump has delayed the enforcement of the act, giving himself time to find a buyer for TikTok. He has not moved towards banning WeChat. The next is entitlement reform. Several chapters of the book suggest reforms to entitlements. These proposals usually include adding work requirements for Medicaid, installing stricter eligibility determinations for other programs and tightening controls on funds. While the One Big Beautiful Bill act adds work requirements for Medicaid and rules for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is more commonly referred to as SNAP. It overlooked several other Project 2025 proposals.

Isaac Saul (22:02)

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Russell Nystrom (22:35)

Can I make my site firmer?

John Lowell (22:37)

Can we sleep cooler?

Isaac Saul (22:39)

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Russell Nystrom (23:46)

Proposals for example, the One Big beautiful bill called for moving SNAP and the Women, Infants and Children Program, also known as wic, from the Department of Agriculture to Health and Human Services, converting federal Medicaid funding to block grants and launching a personal option allowing recipients to use Medicaid funding to secure coverage outside the Medicaid program. But Project 2025 was not the only think tank or advocacy group that Trump's second administration has pulled from. In our initial coverage of Project 2025, we noted that many groups, not just the Heritage foundation, were working to shape the potential second Trump administration's policies.

John Law (24:41)

Hey everybody, this is John, executive producer for Tangle. We hope you enjoyed this preview of our latest episode. If you are not currently a newsletter subscriber or a premium podcast subscriber and you are enjoying this content and would like to finish it, you can go to retangle.com and sign up for a newsletter subscription. Or you can sign up for a podcast subscription or a bundled subscription which gets you by both the podcast and the newsletter and unlocks the rest of this episode as well as ad free daily podcasts, more Friday editions, Sunday editions, bonus content, interviews and so much more. Most importantly, we just want to say thank you so much for your support. We're working hard to bring you much more content and more offerings, so stay tuned. I will join you again for the daily podcast. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y'.

Isaac Saul (25:32)

All.

John Lowell (25:35)

Peace Our Executive Editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our Executive producer is John Lowell. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Senior Editor Will Kbach and Associate Editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsey Knuth and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at retangle. Com.