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President Trump‘s early barrage of executive orders may seem familiar to anyone who paged through the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
Why it matters: The conservative organization’s blueprint to expand executive power and reshape American life became a campaign trail headache that Trump tried to distance himself from. But his new administration has already seemingly taken a few pages out of it.
- As Democrats lobbed attacks over Project 2025 last year, Trump said he had “no idea who is behind” it. He also said he disagreed with some details of the blueprint, calling them “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.”
- “As President Trump has said many times, he had nothing to do with Project 2025,” White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields said in a statement to Axios this week.
Reality check: Several of Trump’s Cabinet and agency picks, including Brendan Carr and Russ Vought, wrote parts of Project 2025 or contributed to the text.
- Tom Homan, John Ratcliffe and Pete Hoekstra are listed among the dozens of Project 2025 contributors who aided in “development and writing.”
- A review of Trump’s early executive orders shows clear parallels with Project 2025 on key proposals, such as dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; loosening environmental regulations; and ending certain international agreements.
Trump orders mirror Project 2025 recommendations
Project 2025 called for rescinding a 1965 executive order signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in order to eliminate the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP).
- Trump nixed Johnson’s effort by signing an executive order dashing decades of diversity and affirmative action policy in the federal government, stripping the OFCCP of one of its core authorities.
- The bedrock Civil Rights order barred federal contractors from employment discrimination and required them to take affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity “based on race, color, religion, and national origin.”
- Trump targeted the OFCCP in his executive order, saying it must stop promoting diversity and affirmative action.
Zoom in: Project 2025 also recommended the repeal of executive order 14020, which Biden signed to establish the White House Gender Policy Council. Trump rescinded the Biden order on day one.
- Trump also signed an executive order declaring there are “two sexes, male and female” and that “sex” is not a synonym for gender identity — echoing a section of the Heritage Foundation’s plan.
- Project 2025 says the Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary “should never conflate sex with gender identity or sexual orientation” in anti-discrimination policy statements and “should proudly state that men and women are biological realities.”
- He also rescinded Biden-era protections allowing transgender Americans to serve in the military, a throwback to his first term that Project 2025 also called for.
Trump adopts Project 2025 energy, climate policies
Project 2025 urged the expansion of oil and gas drilling in Alaska, noting “national energy security interests in the region including rare earths, oil, and natural gas.”
- Trump signed an executive order promoting the use of “Alaska’s vast lands and resources” on his first day in office.
Additionally, Project 2025 echoed Trump’s pledge to eliminate what he called Biden’s “electric vehicle mandate,” which Trump fulfilled with a day-one executive order.
- The plan also called for the repealing a Biden-era executive order promoting offshore wind energy development, which it said was “being used to advance an agenda to close vast areas of the ocean to commercial activities.”
- Trump on day one paused offshore wind leasing in federal waters.
Project 2025 immigration, refugee policies
One of Trump’s day one executive orders called for troops to be sent the southern border, including the National Guard.
- That mirrors Project 2025’s proposal for “use of active-duty military personnel and National Guardsmen to assist in arrest operations along the border.”
- Additionally, Project 2025 suggested that addressing the influx of migrants at the southern border would necessitate the “indefinite curtailment of the number of USRAP refugee admissions.”
- Trump signed an order Monday suspending U.S. Refugee Admissions Program resettlements “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”
Paris Climate, WHO and Schedule F executive orders
Zoom out: Trump also reinstated several policies from his first term that Project 2025 wanted reinstated.
- He signed orders to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO). Project 2025 called for him to again leave the Paris agreement and withdraw from WHO.
- Project 2025 recommended reinstating Trump’s Schedule F order — and it was. Trump signed an order Monday that effectively reclassifies certain federal workers as political appointees and makes it easier to fire federal employees deemed to be disloyal.
Trump executive orders not in Project 2025
Yes, but: Trump also took steps Project 2025 did not explicitly mention, like declaring an energy emergency and attempting to end birthright citizenship.
- There are scores of recommendations in the Heritage Foundation plan, like outlawing pornography, that Trump hasn’t touched so far.
Go deeper: National Security Council staffers grilled about loyalty to Trump