Top Project 2025 Dude Still Planning Trump's Second Term, Just *Secret-Like*
Probably not drafting executive orders just for the hell of it.
While we’re all out here frolicking in the sunlight like happy woodland creatures because Kamala Harris is going gangbusters in her presidential campaign, CNN brings us a scary but necessary glimpse into the inky darkness of Trumpworld. Specifically, thanks to undercover videos by British muckraking journos with the Centre for Climate Reporting, we have a clearer idea of what Russell Vought, one of the chief architects of Project 2025 (and a top Trump administration guy), has been up to since Trump insisted he’d never met Project 2025 and accidentally mistook it for one of his ex-wives.
Big surprise: Vought and other shadowy men from shadowy Planet Trump are still tunneling away to undermine American Democracy through Project 2025, even though the mole-people claimed they were folding up their tents (made of human skin, we suspect) after the publication of the 900+ page wish list for far-Right Christian Nationalists. As CNN explains, the journos posed as wealthy donors who wanted to give Vought and his think tank, the “Center for Renewing America,” a hefty donation to make America a theocracy. They invited Vought to meet in their office, which was full of cameras and mics, and they even bowed their heads and prayed with him, which probably means they are going to hell for Stolen Piety.
For nearly two hours, he talked candidly about his behind-the-scenes work to prepare policy for former President Donald Trump, his expansive views on presidential power, his plans to restrict pornography and immigration, and his complaints that the GOP was too focused on “religious liberty” instead of “Christian nation-ism.”
Yes, as the CNN piece makes clear, “Christian nation-ism” is what Vought means.
“I want to make sure that we can say we are a Christian nation. […] And my viewpoint is mostly that I would probably be Christian nation-ism. That’s pretty close to Christian nationalism because I also believe in nationalism.”
That does sound like something these weirdos might say, like how storefront preachers punctuate their prayers with “FatherGod” every 15 seconds.
So here’s the “spoiler,” not that anyone is surprised at all: Vought says that of course Trump distanced himself publicly from Project 2025, because that’s simply the “graduate-level politics” necessary for making an inconvenient story go away. Meanwhile, he’s been a busy little fascist beaver:
Vought said his group, the Center for Renewing America, was secretly drafting hundreds of executive orders, regulations, and memos that would lay the groundwork for rapid action on Trump’s plans if he wins, describing his work as creating “shadow” agencies. He claimed that Trump has “blessed” his organization and “he’s very supportive of what we do.”
“Eighty percent of my time is working on the plans of what’s necessary to take control of these bureaucracies,” Vought said. “And we are working doggedly on that, whether it’s destroying their agencies’ notion of independence, that they’re independent from the president.”
Here’s a teaser video the climate people posted to YouTube Thursday. The narration is a little … narrator-y, we guess, but it’s still freaky as hell.
CNN reports that Vought is perfectly open about why he thinks Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants is important to white Christian Nationalists’ greater plans for America, too, although this bit isn’t in the above video:
Once deportations begin, “you’re really going to be winning a debate along the way about what that looks like,” Vought said. “And so that’s going to cause us to get us off of multiculturalism, just to be able to sustain and defend the deportation, right?”
What a cheerful endorsement of white supremacy! No more multiculturalism, because obviously we’re deporting Those People now, just starting with the ones without papers.
Oh, and this bit that’s in the video is fun, too: Vought aide and Project 2025 contributor Micah Meadowcroft explained to the “donors” that Vought is supervising a secretive second phase of Project 2025, complete with “policy packets and executive orders and agenda items” to be used in remaking Cabinet-level agencies.
But to maintain the illusion that Trump isn’t handing the transition off to Project 2025, Meadowcroft tells the reporter that those materials are being prepared outside any formal transition process, “because obviously you want as little of it to be FOIA-able … as possible.”
“Yeah, the goal is to familiarize all the transition team people with these plans. But you don’t actually, like, send them to their work emails, because then, you know …
“You could just give the handbooks to everyone and be like ‘this is the game plan for the admin,’ but if the press knows that’s what you’re doing, then they’re going to immediately just say ‘I request all of your emails from Heritage.’”
Gosh, can’t have any of that Freedom Of Information stuff; it would spoil the surprise!
In another part of his chat with the donors, Vought explained that all the policies Trump will need once he takes office are being prepped now so they can be rolled out effortlessly by a guy who never plans anything:
“President Trump will want to spend literally zero amount of time thinking or contemplating what a transition will look like,” Vought said. “It’s not how he thinks.”
Remember how in 2016 he threw out Chris Christie’s thorough transition plans, literally in a dumpster, and then made things up as he went along for four years? That’s far too chancy for the Project 2025 crew, so they’ll give Trump all he needs, in a tidy box, to remake America.
Needless to say, the Trump campaign denied everything to CNN, because Trump is a thin-skinned petulant turd who may be lazy enough to let someone else plan his policies, but damned if anyone but Trump himself can take credit for them.
[CNN]
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Are liberals overreacting to project 2025? We went to a Trump rally and we can’t find a single liberal who is concerned about it.
NYT
I believe Trump when he says he knows nothing about what's in Project 2025. I also believe he intends to implement it if he's elected. If you hadn't noticed, he isn't really a policy wonk.