President Donald Trump has suddenly begun hyping a hard-line governing blueprint—and the people behind it—signaling that its ideas are moving from think-tank paper to White House practice.
That sudden enthusiasm comes after months and months of Trump trying to distance himself from the same effort, at times brushing it off as “too extreme” and claiming he wanted nothing to do with it while winking at his fanatical MAGA sycophants.
But CNN just dropped a devastating 20-second montage that spliced together Trump’s denials one after another — exposing how the president is now openly embracing the very plan he once pretended to disown.
Trump’s alignment with the controversial Project 2025, an extreme right-wing plan by the conservative Heritage Foundation to essentially dismantle democracy and radically concentrate all the powers of the federal government seemed apparent to everyone, except Trump.
“Some on the right, the severe right came came up with this project 25 I don’t even know,” he claimed in the montage. “They are seriously extreme, but I don’t know anything about it. I don’t want to know anything about it,” he said another time.
Then, “I have nothing to do with Project 2025 that’s out there. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it,” then-candidate Trump insisted.
“Project 2025, I’ve said 100 times, I know nothing about it. I had nothing to do [with it],” he contended, continuing to deny he knew anything about it.
But Trump is now very comfortable with the contentious 900-page manifesto, in fact so much so that he’s even bragging about the project officials he’s appointed in his administration and boasting about implementing their priorities.
Amid the government shutdown, which Trump is blaming on Democrats even though he and Republicans control the White House and Congress, the President announced he was meeting with his director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, none other than the architect of Project 2025.
He posted on his social media platform Thursday morning that an upcoming meeting with Vought would “determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote.
Opponents took to social media to blast Trump and his duplicity and praising the network for calling him out.
“Good on CNN for releasing a full montage of Donald Trump denying he knew anything about Project 2025 during the campaign. Look at his smug face during the clips. He’s so proud of himself,” observed a user on Threads.
“Trump is the biggest liar and grifter in the history of the word. Full stop,” this Threads user proclaimed.
Another agreed, “Everyone who didn’t vote for Donald knew that he was lying about this. It’s easy because he lies about absolutely everything.
And this sarcastic post, “Trump? A liar? How could this be? Hes such a godly man…”
“Trump knows not what he is doing from one day to the next,” this Threads poster stated.
“@potus Would you admit that you’re the most corrupt President in our great countries history???” still another asked of the President.
Trump’s post and the Vought meeting were meant as a threat against Democrats, trying to force them into capitulating on the budget stalemate. The Senate needs Democratic support to pass a stopgap measure to reopen the government.
Democrats are demanding that the spending bill include protections for Affordable Care Act subsidies, as well as Medicaid coverage, something Trump drastically cut when he signed his “One Big Beautiful Bill” this summer without any Democratic support.
The sweeping bill extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and pays for other administration priorities. But it does so by cutting more than $1 trillion from health programs in the largest such federal rollback in history.
An estimated 10 million people will lose their health insurance and millions more will see their premiums skyrocket. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill will add $3.4 trillion to the national debt.
Meantime Project 2025 is a 900-page document focused on radical conservative policy goals that, among other objectives, includes plans to recruit and train loyalists and idealogues to replace 50,000 civil servants. It also seeks to greatly expand executive power, creating opportunities for corruption while prioritizing ideology over policy. The resulting chaos within the government would result in a long-term loss of confidence in the government, according to the Kettering Foundation.
