A comprehensive proposal detailing how Donald Trump should approach a second term in office has raised alarm due to its potential impact on the federal government’s role and its calls to abolish several fundamental human rights.
The 2025 Presidential Transition Project, or Project 2025, introduced a 900-page manifesto titled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” last year.
This policy guidebook, assembled by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation in collaboration with over 100 other conservative organisations, envisions a far-right, Christian nationalist America. It proposes to erode the separation of church and state, replace nonpartisan government employees with Trump loyalists, and increase the president’s control over independent agencies.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, a potential candidate for Trump’s chief of staff in a second term, championed his group’s extreme views during a July interview, stating, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Following Roberts’ contentious interview, Trump attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, claiming on Truth Social that he knows “nothing” about it and has “no idea who is behind it,” although he noted he disagrees with some of its proposals.
While Project 2025 is not officially part of Trump’s campaign platform, it is spearheaded and endorsed by several key figures in his circle. The project’s senior leaders all worked in Trump’s White House, and many of the manifesto’s contributors served in the Trump administration, including former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and imprisoned former trade adviser Peter Navarro.
Trump’s assertion of unfamiliarity with Project 2025 is further undermined by his close collaboration with the Heritage Foundation during his initial presidency. He received a similar “Mandate for Leadership” in 2016 and implemented nearly two-thirds of the group’s proposals within his first year in office.
The Heritage Foundation reportedly played a significant behind-the-scenes role on Trump’s presidential transition team and was instrumental in staffing the administration.
Olivia Troye, a former adviser to Mike Pence, called Trump’s denial of Project 2025 “ludicrous” in a CNN interview. “I think what this is telling us is that Donald Trump knows that what is written in this plan is so extreme that it is damaging to his possibility of getting elected,” she said.
Below is a breakdown of the most notable policy proposals in Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership.”
Christian Nationalism Project 2025 proposes guiding the federal government through a biblical lens. The nearly 1,000-page mandate promotes an unpopular interpretation of the Christian agenda, targeting reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people of colour by effectively erasing mentions of related terms, protections, and historical accounts.
While the mandate accuses the “woke” left of infringing on religious freedoms, its policies are based on a singular, extremist view of societal function rooted in the authors’ Christian nationalist values. It repeatedly calls for the punishment, even imprisonment, of those who do not conform to the think tank’s platform.
Project 2025’s proposed policies are based on four stated goals: restoring the family as the centrepiece of American life, dismantling the administrative state, defending the nation’s sovereignty, and securing God-given individual rights.
By restructuring the government holistically, it seeks to give Trump increased authority to enact his backers’ platform across every city and state, often encouraging the president to creatively circumvent congressional approval.
Firing Disloyal Government Personnel One of the most concerning expansions of presidential authority could occur if Trump reinstates an executive order titled Schedule F, strongly endorsed by Project 2025. Trump introduced Schedule F at the end of his first term, and President Biden quickly reversed it.
If Trump wins again, he could use Schedule F to transform the U.S. government into a MAGA machine by reclassifying thousands of nonpartisan federal employees as “at-will” workers who can be replaced through political appointment.
Project 2025 suggests applying Schedule F to discharge career civil service workers whom Trump deems “nonperforming” or those obstructing the administration’s reforms.
In practice, Schedule F could easily purge qualified subject experts from advisory positions at the first sign of disobedience, turning federal agencies into ultra-partisan arms of the Heritage Foundation’s mission.
Rolling Back Reproductive Rights Project 2025 urges Trump to “push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America,” by targeting abortion, contraceptives, and transforming the Department of Health & Human Services into the “Department of Life.”
“Conservatives should gratefully celebrate the greatest pro-family win in a generation: overturning Roe v. Wade, a decision that for five decades made a mockery of our Constitution and facilitated the deaths of tens of millions of unborn children,” the document reads. “But the Dobbs decision is just the beginning.”
The mandate suggests Trump lobby Congress to pass nationwide abortion restrictions and offers guidance on using federal agencies to limit abortions in the meantime. It also calls for the FDA to reverse its approval of abortion pills and criminalise their distribution, and directs the CDC to support anti-abortion studies.
In an effort to combat “woke culture warriors,” Project 2025 demands the terms abortion, reproductive health, and reproductive rights be deleted from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”
Eliminating LGBTQ+ Protections The Project 2025 mandate dismisses LGBTQ+ labels as a “bullying” product of “woke” politics and calls for discrimination based on “sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, sex characteristics, etc.” by “refocusing” sex discrimination laws to apply only to the “biological binary” of sex.
The document specifically targets the transgender community, proposing to ban trans women in sports, end gender-affirming care for minors, decrease accessibility for gender-reassignment surgeries, and reinstate Trump’s trans military ban. Trump has already incorporated these views into his 2024 platform.
Related terms such as sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, and gender-sensitive would be blacklisted in legislation and federal documents.
Banning Broadly Defined Pornography Project 2025 advocates outlawing pornography, with imprisonment for producers and consumers. This restriction, though seemingly unrelated to LGBTQ+ rights, has broader implications based on how Project 2025 defines pornography.
The authors claim the “omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology” is a modern-day example of pornography, alleging without merit that it harms children by infiltrating school libraries. They also label the “sexualisation of children” — a common Christian nationalist phrase for anything related to gay or trans people — as pornography.
This broad definition suggests the Trump administration could seek to imprison LGBTQ+ individuals, drag queens, librarians, teachers, and allies with little cause. Proposed Justice Department reforms would facilitate such prosecutions.
“[Pornography] has no claim to First Amendment protection,” the manifesto reads. “Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime.”
It continues: “Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”
Politicising the Justice Department and FBI Project 2025 suggests Trump take partisan control of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation to oversee a “top-to-bottom overhaul.”
Traditionally, the DOJ is insulated from the White House, and while attorney general appointees are likely to share many of the president’s views, they are expected to act in the best interest of the U.S. government. A section of the Project 2025 mandate, authored by a former Trump official, calls for increased communication between the White House and DOJ, stating “litigation decisions must be made consistent with the President’s agenda.”
Project 2025 criticises the FBI’s current effectiveness and recommends refocusing it to increase federal law enforcement presence in select areas of the U.S. It advises suing local government officials who don’t prosecute crimes to the administration’s satisfaction.
The mandate suggests the Trump administration immediately review all ongoing federal investigations and terminate those the president disapproves of, including those related to the January 6, 2021, insurrection. It encourages Trump to work with Congress on ending the FBI director’s 10-year term limit so the president can replace them at will if they refuse to serve his agenda.
Trump has already hinted at using the Justice Department to retaliate against his political rivals during his campaign.
New Immigration and Border Control Practices Project 2025 calls for consolidating various border enforcement and immigration agencies and for Trump to greatly increase their power if elected, aiming to achieve more than he did in his first term.
The mandate includes additional funding for completing the Mexico-U.S. border wall and urges militarisation of the border.
Temporary protected status would be stripped from nearly 700,000 individuals, many of whom settled in the U.S. decades ago, putting them at risk of deportation. Trump would be advised to dismantle the DREAM Act, limit the DACA program, reduce visas of various kinds, and attempt again to include a citizenship question on the national census.
American citizens would be barred from receiving federal housing subsidies if they live with any non-citizen.
Education Reform and Student Loans Project 2025, partnering with the far-right “parental rights” group Moms for Liberty, calls for the Department of Education’s elimination, pending congressional approval, and the dissolution of every teachers’ union, likely influenced by its anti-union partner, the Institute for Education Reform.
It guides the president on actions to dismantle the public education system and privatise education, with or without congressional approval.
Currently, federal education funding is provided to states with regulations ensuring it benefits
