Vice President Kamala Harris tried to pin Project 2025, the controversial right-wing handbook for how to run the country, on Donald Trump at the debate Tuesday night as the former president attempts to distance himself.
“What you’re going to hear tonight is a detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025 that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected again,” Harris, 59, said.
The former president, 78, denied any connection to the plan.
“I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” he insisted. “That’s out there. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it, purposely. I’m not going to read it.”
The 922-page “Mandate for Leadership” is a manifesto written by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation providing instructions for how the next Republican administration should lead the US – by overhauling the federal government.
The plan would dramatically increase presidential control and suggests firing as many as 50,000 federal government workers to replace with loyalists of the new president — ie. Trump.
It would also shutter the US Department of Education and Homeland Security, while the Department of Health and Human Services would be forced to promote an agenda of protecting “the fundamental right to life.”
Harris used the claim to lift her position.
“I believe very strongly that the American people want a president who understands the importance of bringing us together, knowing we have so much more in common than what separates us,” she added.
Democrats have repeatedly brought up Project 2025 during the Democratic National Convention, warning voters that a Trump administration would enact what they said was an extreme plan for an authoritarian government.
Harris claimed part of the plan would mean pregnancies and miscarriages would be monitored.
“American people believe that certain freedoms, in particular, the freedom to make decisions in my own body should not be made by the government,” she said.
The plan also calls for the prosecution of anyone distributing abortion pills through the mail, using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep data on abortions and even criminalizing pornography.
Democrats repeatedly brought up Project 2025 during the Democratic National Convention, warning voters that a Trump administration would enact what they said was an extreme plan for an authoritarian government.
Project 2025 was drafted by more than two dozen former Trump administration officials among others, but the ex-president said the book has no connection to his campaign.
Trump-Harris debate: What to know
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump previously wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
However, his running mate, JD Vance, wrote the foreword to an upcoming book by one of the Project 2025 authors and his close ally, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts.
Roberts — who previously claimed a “second American Revolution” led by Republicans is coming — has postponed the release of his book, which was set to be on shelves this month, after the Project 2025 backlash. He now plans to release it after the November election.
With Post wires
