Will US President Trump govern according to Project 2025? – DW – 12/23/2024

Donald Trump isn’t even president yet, and there have already been many controversies surrounding his incoming administration. Many of the people he has chosen to serve in his Cabinet and in other important positions have sparked heated discussions on Capitol Hill as well as in the US media.

In November, Trump’s first nominee for Attorney General, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his nomination after outrage and disbelief. Media reported that Donald Trump had told Gaetz that he could not muster enough votes in the Senate to confirm him. This is no surprise, given that Gaetz had also alienated some Republicans with political attacks — and was investigated because of an alleged sexual encounter with a minor.

Critics say that some cabinet members were not selected because of their outstanding qualifications, but because of their ties to the newly elected president.

“The Cabinet has highlighted the importance of loyalty to Trump before or during the campaign,” Michelle Egan, a professor of politics, governance and economics at American University in Washington, DC, told DW via email.

Project 2025 – a right-wing conservative wish list

Many people elected to Trump’s Cabinet have ties to this project 2025Ultra-conservative manifesto for the future of the United States published by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank

Objectives detailed in Project 2025 include shrinking the size of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and cutting references to climate change from government documents, admitting fewer refugees, and limiting abortion rights.

“The 900-page report sets out policy plans that are based on a very conservative social outlook,” Stormi-Anika Mildner, executive director of the Aspen Institute Germany, a Berlin-based transatlantic think tank, wrote in an email to DW. “Many of the report’s proposals aim to expand the power of the president.”

During the 2024 US election campaign, Donald Trump distanced himself from the right-wing wish list. “I don’t know anything about Project 2025,” he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social. “I disagree with some of the things he says and some of the things he’s saying are absolutely ridiculous and disgusting.”

Following his election victory, Trump’s team continued to emphasize the distance between the incoming president and the hard-right conservative manifesto.

News agency AP quoted Trump’s incoming press secretary Carolyn Levitt as saying, “President Trump never had anything to do with Project 2025.” “All of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and appointees are fully committed to President Trump’s agenda, not the agenda of outside groups.”

But the fact is that many people associated with this project are on the staff list of Trump’s new administration.

Trump selected for top positions among Project 2025 contributors

Russ Vought is Trump’s choice for director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a position that would have to be confirmed by the Senate – if Trump were to go through that process. (More on that in a bit.)

The OMB Director is in charge of preparing the President’s proposed budget and generally implementing the administration’s agenda across all agencies.

Watt, who was previously OMB director in the final months of the Trump administration and could potentially step into this influential role again, wrote a Project 2025 chapter on presidential authority, which he believes extended Should go. Watt sees his role in the administration as crucial to making that happen.

Watt wrote, “The director should view his work as the best, most comprehensive estimate of the president’s mind.” According to him the Office of Management and Budget “is the President’s air-traffic control system” and should be “involved in all aspects of the White House policy process.”

Ideally, Watt added, it would become “powerful enough to dominate the bureaucracy of implementing agencies.”

He is not the only author of Project 2025 who may soon become part of the US government at Trump’s behest.

Brendan Carr was nominated by the President-elect to serve as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, a position that does not require Senate confirmation.

Carr actually wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the FCC. In it, he has called for limiting the immunity of technology platforms from content posted by third parties. This means that, for example, YouTube can be held responsible for a video that was uploaded by a user and contains content that violates the law.

‘High probability’ of Trump implementing Project 2025 proposals

Other Project 2025 contributors Trump wants in his administration include press secretary Carolyn Levitt, who appeared in a Project 2025 training video for conservatives interested in jobs in the right-wing presidency, and Thomas Homan, Trump’s future Listed as “Border Jar”. Was a Project 2025 contributor and visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

With so many connections between Trump’s future administration and the Project 2025 team, it seems unlikely that the incoming president wouldn’t want to implement at least some of the right-wing policies outlined in the manifesto.

“The likelihood is high that the Trump team will attempt to implement many of these proposals,” said Mildner, an international economic relations expert.

Can Trump avoid the Senate confirmation process?

Nominees for positions such as ambassadors, Cabinet secretaries and Watts typically must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, where Republicans have a slim majority of 53 seats to the Democrats’ 47 seats.

However, there is a way to avoid this process.

Trump can make so-called “recess appointments”, appointing Cabinet members when Congress is not in session. He has already called on Republicans to approve his unusual plan in a post on the social media platform X.

“The discussion is whether the Senate will go into recess to allow the president to appoint his Cabinet without Senate approval,” Nolan McCarty, a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University, told DW shortly after Trump’s election victory. “

“We have never really had a situation where recess appointments have been used on such a large scale. They are generally used for one or two appointments here and there, but the entire administration is being used by people with recess appointments. It would be worrying to appoint.”

Edited by: Kate Hairsine