--- title: How Trump Supercharged Project 2025 description: Trump wants us to forget about Project 2025. We shouldn’t, writes Jesse Ferguson. canonical: https://time.com/7003383/trump-supercharged-project-2025-essay/ author: Jesse Ferguson article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-07-25T16:00:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:23.498Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How Trump Supercharged Project 2025—Whether He Wanted To or Not og:description: Trump wants us to forget about Project 2025. We shouldn’t, writes Jesse Ferguson. og:url: https://time.com/7003383/trump-supercharged-project-2025-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt991fbdf1d73b7823/698a5934db29877b7f26be80/donald-trump-project-2025.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump Holds A Campaign Rally In Charlotte, North Carolina og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Trump Supercharged Project 2025—Whether He Wanted To or Not twitter:description: Trump wants us to forget about Project 2025. We shouldn’t, writes Jesse Ferguson. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt991fbdf1d73b7823/698a5934db29877b7f26be80/donald-trump-project-2025.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # How Trump Supercharged Project 2025—Whether He Wanted To or Not > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=76255c1f-927b-473b-9a8a-cac29b10fdae&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: What Kamala Harris and Donald Trump Have Said About Project 2025 [Watch (HLS stream): What Kamala Harris and Donald Trump Have Said About Project 2025](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uPVIlsSZ.m3u8) (1:53)  _Published 2024-07-25. Vice President Kamala Harris this week compared her and President Biden's policies with those of Donald Trump and the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, a far-right proposed plan for a second Trump term. The previous weekend, Trump had once again denied involvement with the "extreme" Project 2025 at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and claimed "he took a bullet for democracy."_ Jul 25, 2024 4:00 PM UTC  Republican Presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at his campaign rally at the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, N.C. on July 24, 2024. Republican Presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at his campaign rally at the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, N.C. on July 24, 2024. Brandon Bell—Getty Images by [Jesse Ferguson](https://time.com/author/jesse-ferguson/) ## Jesse Ferguson Jul 25, 2024 4:00 PM UTC From running a business into the ground to doing the same with our country, [Donald Trump](https://time.com/6972021/donald-trump-2024-election-interview/) does a lot of things [wrong](https://time.com/3988970/donald-trump-business/). But, if we’re being honest, his instincts in marketing are usually pretty darn good. In recent weeks, though, he’s made a colossal marketing mistake. On July 5, Donald Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social to declare that he “knows nothing” about Project 2025, a 920-page guidebook for a second Trump presidency, put together by right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation. And he tried it [again](https://x.com/TrumpDailyPosts/status/1816169208470028590) this week. He thought he could distance himself from the backlash to his blueprint. But, Donald Trump claiming to not know Project 2025 would be like Jeffrey Dahmer claiming to be an introvert who has never met people before. More than simply not being believed, though, Trump did something that he never expected: He supercharged interest in Project 2025\. On Jun 24, the pollsters at [Navigator](https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Navigator-Update-07.23.2024.pdf?) Research found Project 2025's favorability underwater by 9-points (10-19%) with most people unaware of the plan altogether. Less than one month later, the favorability had plummeted to negative 32-points (11-43%) after Trump made it a bigger subject of conversation. When people learn about it, they react like they would watching a horror movie: They hate each minute of it but they can’t stop themselves from watching what comes next. In fact, by July 11, more people were [searching](https://www.inquirer.com/politics/trump-election-project-2025-tariji-henson-20240711.html) for information about Project 2025 than were searching for Taylor Swift or the NFL. People ranging from John Oliver to Taraji P. Henson have brought attention to it. Vice President Harris even referenced it in the announcement that she was running for President last weekend. Project 2025 outlines how a second Trump administration would take over the government and give the MAGA movement more power than any president has had in the history of the United States The detailed plan meticulously lays out all the freedoms the Trump administration plans to take away from the American people and the threat they pose to working families and seniors, including letting government monitor women’s pregnancies while they pass a national ban on abortion; overturning health care protections for people with pre-existing conditions while removing the $35 cap on the price of insulin; and eliminating the Department of Education, Head Start, clean energy and the National Weather Service. **_Read More:_** [_Project 2025’s Plan to Eliminate Public Schools Has Already Started_](https://time.com/7001264/project-2025-public-school-closure/) There is real power in having a national conversation about Project 2025\. As people hear more about the plan, they [shift](https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Navigator-Project-2025-Report-07.12.2024.pdf) from opposing it by 13-points to opposing it by 48-points. The biggest growth comes from non-MAGA affiliated Republicans and independents, especially non-college educated women under 55\. All of these are key to building an electoral coalition in 2024 and beyond. There are three main things people need to know when it comes to communicating about Project 2025. ## **It’s not your typical political BS** Most voters think a “plan” or an “agenda” from a politician is meaningless and largely disconnected from what will really happen. While that is sometimes true, Project 2025 isn’t like that. Twelve years ago, Republicans were caught on defense because they actually passed a budget (the Ryan budget) that would privatize Medicare. For the last two years, they’ve had to defend the actual overturning of Roe v. Wade. It wasn’t theoretical. It was real. People will know that this 920-page meticulous blueprint to takeover government is just as real and as present a danger. ## **It confirms people's worst fears about Republicans, especially Trump** People are fearful of what another Trump presidency would mean—the chaos, the criminality, and shredding the Constitution. Americans start with a pre-existing belief that Trump and the MAGA allies are power-hungry, but Project 2025 proves they intended to do it and shows how. For example, they will take away the Department of Justice and replace it with hand-picked loyalists who report to them. It’s clear this is exactly what people featured—them pursuing absolute power. ## **It’s mysterious and sinister** If you look at the massive uptick in the online conversation about Project 2025, one theme emerges consistently: curiosity. People see a 920-document written in secret by a bunch of Trump’s agents as mysterious and probably sinister. So they want to read it. They want to understand it. They want to reveal it. It plays into the conspiratorial notion of how people think and the conspiracy-theory attributes that drive many of the algorithms that dominate social media. In fact, as Trump found out starting with his July 5th tweet, the more that his team denies ownership of the plan, the more convinced people are that they own it. But Democrats can’t just name drop the plan and expect that to evoke its intended impact. We have to frame the plan as the extreme blueprint it is and explain its consequences. We need to tell a common story, not just use a common set of magic words. Project 2025 is more than a white paper, a policy proposal, or an agenda. It’s an instruction manual for a takeover—eliminating the protections for people and strengthening their ways to control people. We have to treat it as such. The Trump team made the mistake of writing down their manual, giving everyone a chance to see what the future would look like under their administration. Then, they told everyone not to look at it. Predictably, now everyone wants a peek. ## Transcript Project 2025 is a plan to return America to a dark past. Donald Trump and his extreme allies want to take our nation back to failed trickle down economic policies. Back to Union busting, Back to tax breaks for billionaires. Donald Trump and his allies want to cut Medicare and Social Security to stop student loan forgiveness for teachers and other public servants. And I say to AFT, they even want to eliminate the Department of Education. And end head start, which, of course, would take away preschool from hundreds of thousands of our children. He intends to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and make working families foot the bill. And he intends to end the Affordable Care Act. You know, America has tried these failed economic policies before. But we are not going back. We are not going back. And they come up with this I don't know what the hell it is. It's Project 25. He's involved in project. And then they read some of the things and they are extreme. I mean, they're seriously extreme. But I don't know anything about it. I don't want to know anything about it. But what they do is misinformation and disinformation. And they keep saying, He's a threat to democracy. I'm saying, What the hell did I do for democracy? Last week, I took a bullet for democracy. 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