How Trump has infused parts of Project 2025 into his administration

How Trump has infused parts of Project 2025 into his administration
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(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail but has since nominated several authors or contributors from the controversial conservative presidential wishlist to his administration.

Trump called the Project 2025 policy proposals — which include restrictions on abortion pills, birth control pills and Medicare access, as well as eliminating a couple of federal agencies — “extreme, seriously extreme” in a July 20 rally.

“I don’t know anything about it. I don’t want to know anything about it,” he previously said, despite having many connections to its authors and contributors.

Democrats pounced on Trump for Project 2025 during the election season, calling it a warning of what is to come under a second Trump term.

“Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins,” the Biden campaign stated.

Project 2025 is an over 900-page playbook of policy proposals created by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation intended to guide the next conservative administration. The organization behind the document told ABC News in a past statement that it was not intended to speak for any candidate during the election.

Project 2025 and Trump’s Agenda47 share similarities — including proposals to eliminate the Department of Education, increase fossil fuel energy production, and begin mass deportations.

At the ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump reiterated his earlier sentiment on the project. “This was a group of people that got together, they came up with some ideas, I guess some good, some bad, but it makes no difference. I have nothing to do [with it].”

Now, several Project 2025 authors and contributors are not just connected to Trump, but also nominated for roles in his administration.

Russ Vought, who authored a chapter on “Executive Office of the President” for Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” is also under consideration for a cabinet-level position in the next administration and has been vetted by Trump’s transition team, sources told ABC News. He was also the RNC platform committee’s policy director.

Here’s a look at which Project 2025 contributors may have a place in the incoming Trump administration:

Brendan Carr

Brendan Carr, Trump’s nomination for chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is credited as the author of Project 2025’s FCC recommendations which include: a ban on TikTok, restrictions on social media moderation, and more.

Carr would be tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband. Trump has suggested that he would expand the White House’s influence over the FCC and potentially punish TV networks that cover him in a way he doesn’t like.

Carr is a longtime member of the commission and served previously as the FCC’s general counsel and as the senior Republican for the FCC. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Trump and President Joe Biden to the commission.

John Ratcliffe

Ratcliffe, listed as a contributor who assisted “in the development and writing” of Project 2025, has been nominated to serve as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Ratcliffe is a three-term Republican congressman from Texas and served as the director of national intelligence from mid-2020 until the end of Trump’s first term.

Project 2025’s Intelligence Community chapter, credited to The Heritage Foundation’s intelligence research fellow Dustin J. Carmack, notes that the “CIA’s success depends on firm direction from the President and solid internal CIA Director–appointed leadership. Decisive senior leaders must commit to carrying out the President’s agenda and be willing to take calculated risks.”

Tom Homan

Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan has been designated as Trump’s “border czar” — which is not an official Cabinet position.

Homan, who is expected to be in charge of the mass deportations promised by the Trump campaign, is listed as a contributor to Project 2025 who assisted in its “development and writing.”

Project 2025’s Department of Homeland Security chapter, credited to Trump’s former Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli, calls for full use of ICE’s “expedited removal” authority and further development of immigrant detention spaces. This all aligns with Trump’s immigration proposals on mass deportations and funds for the construction of detention centers.

Other links to Project 2025

Christopher Miller is credited with the project’s Department of Defense recommendations. Miller served as Acting Secretary of Defense and Special Assistant to the President under Trump from November 2020 to January 2021.

Ben Carson is credited with the project’s Housing and Urban Development recommendations. He served as the Secretary of HUD under Trump’s first administration.

Adam Candeub is credited with the project’s Federal Trade Commission recommendations. He served under the Trump administration as Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Telecommunications and Information.

Bernard L. McNamee is credited with recommendations on the Department of Energy and Related Commissions. He was nominated to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by Trump in October 2018.

Cuccinelli — who wrote the Department of Homeland Security section — was also part of Trump’s former administration as the Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security.

The RNC platform committee’s Deputy Policy Director Ed Martin is also president of the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, which is listed on the project’s advisory board.

Others connected to Trump, including Trump’s United Nations Commission on the Status of Women appointee Lisa Correnti, are listed among the contributors.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

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Democrats launch 11th-hour ads to boost turnout among Black rural voters in South
Democrats launch 11th-hour ads to boost turnout among Black rural voters in South
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(WASHINGTON) — The Democratic National Committee on Saturday is launching a new ad campaign targeted at rural voters to boost turnout in two southern battlegrounds in the final days of the presidential election.

The effort, backed by a six-figure media buy, comes as Democrats are especially concerned that early vote turnout is low among Black voters in rural areas. The effort will span 15 counties that are part of the “Black Belt” in Georgia and North Carolina.

The ads, which will run on multi-media billboards and on radio stations in the area, will feature DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison, a Black South Carolinian who has spoken extensively of his upbringing in rural Orangeburg. The effort will promote policies that Democrats say will help rural voters, including expanding rural infrastructure, making health care more affordable and ensuring rural hospitals can remain open.

“In the final days of this election, Democrats are not taking our foot off the gas as we communicate our plan for rural America. From affordable and accessible health care, to lower costs, and economic opportunities, the Democratic Party will fight for the policies that make a tangible difference for rural Americans,” Harrison said in a statement provided first to ABC News.

“Growing up in a rural town, I know how important it is to show up and truly meet rural voters where they are. The DNC’s latest rural ‘I Will Vote’ initiative does exactly that, ensuring that the final message rural voters in the critical battlegrounds of Georgia and North Carolina receive in this election is Democrats’ commitment to fight for them.”

The ad buy comes as Democrats grow concerned that Black rural voters are not participating in early voting at the rate that the party needs.

Democrats hope to be competitive in Georgia and North Carolina, where Black rural voters are key. Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to clean up in urban areas, but she’ll have to keep former President Donald Trump’s rural margins down enough to stop him from offsetting her advantage in cities like Atlanta and Raleigh.

In Georgia, 41% of early voters are Republican, and 42% are Democrats, according to 538 analysis of voter data from L2, a non-partisan political data company. In 2020, early voting was 41% Republican – 46% Democrat.

It’s the same story in North Carolina, where 34% of early vote ballots have been cast by Republicans, and 33% by Democrats. In 2020, early voting was 32% Republican – 35% Democrat.

Of voters who voted early in 2020, only 66% of Black voters have cast an early ballot this time around so far. That number drops to 63% of Black voters in rural areas.

The drop is likely explainable in part by this year’s election not taking place in the middle of a pandemic, whereas in 2020, many voters leaned on early and absentee voting to avoid long lines and possible COVID-19 exposures.

Still, both states remain highly competitive. Polling averages from 538 show Trump up 1.6 points in Georgia and 1.3 points in North Carolina.

Early voting has also had some promising signs for Democrats, including high female turnout, particularly as polls show a widening gender gap, with women leaning toward Harris and men toward Trump.

And while operatives said Democrats were not hitting their marks with Black rural voters early on, that trend has begun to be mitigated, with veteran North Carolina Democratic strategist Morgan Jackson conceding that while “they had started early vote a little low,” the turnout has “picked up pretty substantially.”

“My suspicion is by Saturday’s close, they’ll be at parity with where they were four years ago,” added Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College in North Carolina who is tracking the early vote numbers.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to meet with House Republicans on DOGE plans
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to meet with House Republicans on DOGE plans
Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head to Capitol Hill next week to meet with House Republicans on their plan to slash regulations and other parts of the federal government.

Speaker Mike Johnson announced he will host them on Thursday, Dec. 5 to discuss “major reform ideas” to “revive the principle of limited government.”

Musk and Ramaswamy have been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency.” Their roles have been described as “outside of government” advisers on how to make drastic cuts to various federal agencies and their workforces.

Musk, in particular, has become a member of Trump’s inner circle as the president-elect prepares for a second term. The Tesla billionaire spent Thanksgiving with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

Earlier this week, Musk proposed abolishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“Delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies,” he wrote on his social media platform, X.

Trump on the campaign trail vowed to dismantle federal bureaucracy but did not specifically call for the CFPB to be eliminated. To gut an entire agency would be a difficult task, and would require legislation from Congress.

CFPB, which was formed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to protect consumers and review practices of the nation’s banks, lenders and other institutions, has long been a target of conservative attacks over its cost and its regulations.

Earlier this year, the CFPB survived a legal challenge led by former Trump administration Solicitor General Noel Francisco on behalf of a group of payday lenders alleging the agency’s structure was illegal. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, upheld the agency’s funding mechanism as constitutional.

Musk also recently reposted on social media the names of specific people and jobs that he suggested be cut. They include employees at the Department of Energy and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. “So many fake jobs,” Musk wrote in one post.

Musk and Ramaswamy outlined more of their plans for DOGE in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published last week.

They said they were helping Trump’s transition team bring on board a “lean team of small-government crusaders” that would be aimed at three core actions: repealing regulations, reducing the administrative workforce and saving costs.

“We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail,” they wrote. “Now is the moment for decisive action. Our top goal for DOGE is to eliminate the need for its existence by July 4, 2026 — the expiration date we have set for our project.”

Legal and logistical hurdles remain for Musk and Ramaswamy’s goal to slash the government. But they will get some help on Capitol Hill by a new congressional subcommittee aimed at eliminating government waste in conjunction with DOGE. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a conservative firebrand and staunch supporter of Trump, has been chosen to chair the panel.

Ramaswamy, in response to Johnson’s announcement of next week’s meeting, said he’s had “great discussions so far” with House and Senate GOP leaders about DOGE.

“Congress appears serious about delivering structural reform. We look forward to productive meetings in D.C. next week,” Ramaswamy wrote on X.

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Biden tells Trump ‘get a life’ over hurricane misinformation
Biden tells Trump ‘get a life’ over hurricane misinformation
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday delivered a sharp rebuke of Donald Trump for spreading misinformation about the federal government’s hurricane response.

Speaking on Hurricane Milton at the White House on Thursday afternoon, Biden was asked if he’s spoken to Trump directly.

“Are you kidding me? Mr. President Trump, former President Trump, get a life, man. Help these people,” Biden responded.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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