Project 2025 Implodes (w/ Mary Harris)
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An extra episode for you: Sam went on Slate's What Next podcast (hosted by Mary Harris) to discuss the rise and fall of the Heritage Foundation's Trump transition project — Project 2025. Is it dead? Why did Trump's campaign resent it so much? And how much influence would its architects have in a second Trump administration?
We'll back to your regular programming (the J.D. Vance episode!) later in the week.
Hello listeners, this is your podcast co-host Sam Adler-Bell, popping into the Know Your Enemy feed to share an extra episode with you. A special episode. It's an interview I did on Slate's daily news podcast What Next. You probably remember a few months ago, We Are Know Your Enemy, went deep on Project 2025, and as you may have seen, Project 2025 more or less imploded over the last few days. That's why the incredibly talented host of What Next, Mary Harris, called me up and asked me to come on her show and explain it all. A quick note about What Next. As you'll hear, it's a deep analytical dive into relevant and breaking news which comes out every weekday. If you like what you hear, I genuinely do encourage you to go over to their feed and subscribe. And to be clear, and I was asked to be clear about this, it's What Next. No apostrophes. Not what is next, but what next? As in, oh geez, what next? What could possibly be next? Yet another awful thing? Okay, I guess it is. All right, here's Mary. Enjoy. So, Sam, I'll start here. How did you know that Project 2025 had become a political buzzword? It's interesting. I've been following Project 2025 for a long time, basically since it started, but it was only in the past couple of months that I saw it everywhere. Sam Edlerbell hosts the Know Your Enemy podcast. Welcome to part four of our series Project 2025. How democracy dies. And when he says Project 2025 has been everywhere, he means everywhere. I just started reading Project 2025, and yeah. It's on TikTok, it's on cable news. And you, I'm sure, have seen their agenda. Project 2025. Randy, can you believe they put that thing in writing? Suddenly, it was seemed like this, this word, this phrase was on everybody's lips, and it was sort of being referred to as this like demonic plan from the right, but it reached a level of just total saturation in political media I feel like in the past few months. Even though this phrase has become so familiar, so fast, it's worth breaking down exactly what Project 2025 is. It calls itself a presidential transition project. It's based out of the right wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation. Over a hundred conservative organizations helped shape it. It offers dozens of conservative policy proposals. It gives conservatives a way to pre-apply to jobs in a future Republican administration. It offers training for people who want to enter civil service. Think of it as a kind of easy bake government in waiting for any conservative, but primarily for Donald Trump. The perspective of the people involved in Project 2025 was that Trump's first presidency had some serious flaws, in particular that he wasn't able to surround himself with sufficiently loyal and ideological and competent staff. That strikes me as true, but is Donald Trump ready for that feedback? No, no, I think the problem from the very beginning of Project 2025 was that they were trying to solve for a problem they could not name. Back in January, Sam wrote this article for The New York Times. He saw conservative thinkers lining up behind Project 2025, and he actually thought this project could be doomed. He knew Trump hates being managed. Last week, Sam seemed like a sage. The director of Project 2025, which is a right-wing Heritage Foundation policy blueprint prepared for the next Republican president, now stepping down following criticism from former President Donald Trump. Now, I should note the Trump campaign appeared to cheer Paul Danza's departure tonight, even though he is an alum of the Trump administration who served in the were you surprised when you saw the head of Project 2025 was gone? I was surprised. I was especially amazed to read the quote from Trump's campaign manager that said reports of Project 2025's demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign. It will not end well for you. Whew, it's like a threat. It is. It always struck me that Donald Trump operates like a mob boss, and the first rule of mob bosses is don't write anything down, and a 900-page manifesto is like the opposite of that. Yeah, I mean, think about when Trump ran for re-election
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Sam joins Slate's Mary Harris to discuss the rise and fall of the Heritage Foundation's Trump transition initiative — Project 2025.