Phase 2 of Trump's Project 2025

VIDEO:

MATT:

Project 2025 is a 920-page manifesto that cost 22 million dollars to write. It calls for the end of a democracy in the United States and Donald Trump to be named dictator. But the second phase of the project is much more secretive and that’s because it’s by far more scary.

INTRO

MATT:

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In a previous episode, we examined Project 2025, a 920-page manifesto written by the far-right, extremist hate group called the Heritage Foundation. They are a non-profit that through careful planning and the endorsement of former republican presidents including Donald Trump, has six of its own members on the US Supreme Court out of the nine members of that court. In that episode, we also examined Trump’s Agenda 47, listed on his official campaign website and saw tons of similarities between the two. 

Since that episode aired, we’ve heard from hundreds of Trump supporters who say Trump doesn’t even know what Project 2025 is and does not support it, even though he publicly endorsed “anything they do”. But you should know that there have been a lot of updates since our episode aired only a few weeks ago, including some info on Phase Two of their authoritarian plan. 

Firstly, we wondered why there were so many similarities between Project 2025 and Trump’s Agenda 47. But in a recent interview with the lead architect and writer of Project 2025 named Russ Vought, a former cabinet member, chief lieutenant, and director of the Office of Management and Budget for the Trump administration. 

RUSS VOUGHT:

“I am opposed to the Department of Education because I think it’s the department of critical race theory. I mean, you have grants after grant of culturally responsive learning where you’re funding essentially a cultural revolution, not just with teachers but with the students. That’s what all this ‘woke-ism’ is about.” 

STEVE BANNON:

“The Russ Vought. We’re comrades in arms.”

DONALD TRUMP:

“I want to thank Russ for doing an incredible job.”

MATT:

He’s been called the most dangerous MAGA diehard you’ve never heard of. He now runs a group called the Center for Renewing America, working with the Heritage Foundation. 

RUSS VOUGHT:

“An organization that I helped turn into the Death Star that is accomplishing all the debates that you are now reading about.”

MATT:

He admitted to also being the head writer for Trump’s Agenda 47 and the Republican’s official campaign strategy. 

RUSS VOUGHT:

“I think the best example is like, the campaign selecting me to be the platform because of their views on my policy ideas and they’re not running from all the negativity that I get from the press.”

CENTRE FOR CLIMATE REPORTING REPORTER:

“I see. So, they haven’t been spooked on you as a person, you don’t think?”

RUSS VOUGHT:

“No. I mean, no. I don’t think I’m gonna be their transition pick because then they have all these kinds of stories. But, no, the relationship is great.”

MATT:

Now, that name…Vought, might sound familiar if you watch Amazon Prime’s “The Boys” because Vought Enterprises is the name of the evil company behind everything bad that happens on that show. This includes their lead supervillain, Homelander murdering a fan on the street in front of their headquarters and his fans still cheering for him. This is strikingly similar to when Trump said:

DONALD TRUMP:

“...where I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay. It’s like incredible.”

MATT:

There’s also a striking number of references to the Trump campaign used on that show but Vought is the biggest clue. 

In recent weeks, you might have seen Trump and his campaign trying to distance themselves from Project 2025 as much as possible. 

DONALD TRUMP:

“I know nothing about Project 25. I haven’t seen the document. I don’t really intend on seeing the document.”

MATT:

In fact, on the same day we aired our episode on Trump, his campaign completely got rid of all 47 videos on Trump’s campaign website because too many people like us were noticing those videos were directly quoting Project 2025. But luckily, we had copies of those videos before they took them down. Not to worry though, behind the scenes, Vought himself says that while Trump might publicly distance himself from Project 2025, Trump is 100% supporting them: 

RUSS VOUGHT:

“I expect you to hear ten more times from the rally the president, you know, distancing himself from the left’s bogeyman of Project 2025.”

CENTRE FOR CLIMATE REPORTING REPORTER:

“And you’re not worried about that?”

RUSS VOUGHT:

“I’m not worried about it. He’s running against the brand. He is not running against any people. He is not running against any institutions. It’s interesting, he’s in fact not even opposing himself to a particular policy. He’s been at our organization, he’s raised money for our organization. He’s blessed it from the, you know - I remember walking into our last day in office and told him what I was going to do. So, he’s very supportive of what we do.”

MATT:

Project 2025 calls for the end of democracy, social security, end of gay marriage, transgender rights at any age, LGBTQ adoption, ending all regulations on what companies put in our water or in the air that we breathe. It outlines how to put a complete end to the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, the FBI,  and puts in place policies that will make it so Trump can get rid of any civil servant that is not a Trump loyalist. 

The fact that they put it all in writing and published it for free on their website means they’re not afraid if we all read it. But that manifesto, which should scare everyone around the world to their core, is just Phase One of their plan. 

Phase Two was never meant to be seen by the public. This includes 14 hours of training videos produced by the Heritage Foundation in preparation for the next conservative administration, whether it’s Trump or someone else. These seminars prove they didn’t just want a playbook, they wanted everyone that Trump or any future conservative president hired, to be fully trained and ready to implement their plan on day one. 

I just want to point out as the director of PBR, we produced training videos for our staff members to ensure we uphold our high standards for honesty and quality. But our short training videos were incredibly expensive to produce. Imagine how much it costs to produce 14 hours of seminars meant to train every staff member in the federal government, a body that makes up nearly 2% of the US workforce. And they wouldn’t produce those videos if they weren’t planning on using them.

Trump might say he knows nothing about Project 2025 but these 14 hours of seminars say otherwise. They include training by Trump’s former and current team members including: 

1. Spencer Chretien

   • Associate Director of Project 2025

   • Special Assistant to the President, Trump Administration

   • Associate Director of Presidential Personnel, Trump Administration

2. Ed Corrigan

   • Director of Domestic Policy Appointments, Donald Trump’s 2016 Transition Team

3. Dennis Dean Kirk

   • Associate Director of Project 2025

   • Office of Personnel Management, Trump Administration

4. Bethany Kozma

   • Deputy Chief of Staff, Agency for International Development, Trump Administration  

5. Katie Sullivan

   • Former Acting Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs, Trump Administration

6. Karoline Leavitt

   • White House Press Office, Trump Administration

   • Spokesperson, Trump’s 2024 Reelection Campaign 

7. Jeff Small

   • Former Senior Advisor to the Interior Secretary, Trump Administration

8. Alexei Woltornist

   • Former Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs, US Department of Homeland Security, Trump Administration 

9. Mike Howell

   • Director of Oversight, Heritage Foundation

   • Department of Homeland Security, Trump Administration

10. Michael Ding

    • American First Legal (one of the largest donors to the Trump 2024 campaign)

    • Department of Homeland Security, Trump Administration

11. Michael Duffey

    • Office of Management and Budget, Trump Administration

12. Paul Ray

    • Former Trump administration lawyer

    • Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Trump Administration 

13. Roger Severino

    • Vice President for Domestic Policy, Heritage Foundation

    • Former Director of the Office of Civil Rights, Department of Health and Human Services, Trump Administration

14. Steven G. Bradbury

    • Former counsel in the Department of Transportation, Trump Administration

15. Donald J. Devine

    • Former Director of the Office of Personnel Management, Reagan Administration

16. James Bacon

    • Former Special Assistant to the Personnel Office, Trump Administration

17. Dan Huff

    • Former legal advisor for the Office of Presidential Personnel, Trump Administration

18. Hugh Fike

    • Office of Management and Budget, Trump Administration

19. James Braid

    • Office of Management and Budget, Trump Administration

20. Paul Teller

    • Former Special Assistant to the President, Trump Administration

21. Sarah Makin

    • Former Deputy Assistant to the President, Trump Administration

22. Ben Friedmann

    • Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Digital Strategy, State Department, Trump Administration

23. Matthew Spalding

    • Vice President of Hillsdale College, a Christian liberal arts school in Michigan, best known for feeding staffers to the Trump administration. 

24. Christopher Malagisi

    • Executive Director of Outreach for Hillsdale College, a Christian liberal arts school in Michigan, best known for feeding staffers to the Trump administration. 

25. Erin Walsh

    • White House National Security Council, Trump Administration

All of these people currently work for Donald Trump and are helping train future staff members on how to implement Project 2025 or wrote the manifesto themselves.

But again, this is just part of a much bigger plan in Phase Two. According to the Heritage Foundation, they are already working with Trump’s team so if he gets elected, not only will they have a major say in who Trump hires to be a part of his administration, just like they did with Trump’s three nominations to the Supreme Court, plus they already have these videos to help train those staff members when they’re hired, but they have hundreds of other policy packets, executive orders, and agenda items ready to go for Trump’s next term. 

Just look at Micah Meadowcroft, another author on Project 2025 and a close aide to Russ Vought. In a recent interview with who he thought was a potential donor to give him even more money for Project 2025, he outlined that these packets on Phase Two are much more confidential because they include a “comprehensive, concrete transition plan for each federal agency.” But Meadowcraft says they’ve already planned for their worst case scenario, the public finding out about Phase Two. 

You see, the American public and the media are legally allowed to request any piece of information from the government in what is called a FOIA request, or the Freedom of Information Act Request. This constitutional right is the reason we know how much the government spends on building a bridge and how we investigate when fraud occurs in our local governments. 

For example, a news station I used to work for did a FOIA request for the credit card usage of a secretary in a local school district. The district fought the news station for months in court but ultimately had to hand over the financial records to our station. Our reporters then reviewed those records and found the secretary was using the school’s credit card for personal expenses. By the way, that reporter later won a Pulitzer prize for her investigation. 

But in this interview, Meadowcroft revealed their plans to meet with staff members in-person only to train them instead of emailing them documents or printing instruction manuals to hand out to everyone that would be found out by the media and subject to FOIA request under federal law. 

CENTRE FOR CLIMATE REPORTING REPORTER:

“It’s not going to be published?”

MICAH MEADOWCROFT:

“It’s a big, fat stack of papers that will be distributed during the transition period but not as part of the transition. Because obviously, you want as little of it to be FOIA-able, if you’re familiar with the FOIA process, as possible. Freedom of Information Act, yeah. So, yeah. The goal is to familiarize all the transition team people with these plans. But you don’t actually, like send them to their work emails because then, you know then they’re FOIA-able.

CENTER FOR CLIMATE REPORTING REPORTER:

“So, you hand them?”

MICAH MEADOWCROFT:

“Well, we’ll see what the end, like what the arrangement ends up being. But that is one of the problems that needs to be solved logistically. It’s like, you could just give the handbooks to everyone and be like: ‘This is the game plan for the admin’. But if the press knows that’s what you’re doing, then they’ll going to immediately just say like: ‘I request all of your emails from Heritage [Foundation] you government worker.’ So, we’ll see how that goes.”

MATT:

And as we all know, the government operates best without any oversight or checks and balances. That’s exactly what our founding fathers, the people whom republicans apparently admire the most, wrote in our first amendment: ‘Congress shall make no law prohibiting the freedom of the press, unless you’re Donald Trump. Then, then you’re a star and they let you do it. You can do anything.’ 

And that’s exactly why Vought spends 80% of his time working to create a shadow government so none of us can see what they’re actually doing.

RUSS VOUGHT:

“Eighty percent of my time is working on the plans of what’s necessary to take control of these bureaucracies. I want to be the person that crushes the deep state. I think there’s a lot of different ways to do that. It is defunding it. It’s impoundment, the ability to not spend money. It’s getting rid of their independence…"

RUSS VOUGHT:

"We are trying to create a shadow Office of Management and Budget, a shadow National Security Council, and a shadow Office of Legal Counsel. These are the main organs in government that you need outside to create the battle plan.”

CENTRE FOR CLIMATE REPORTING REPORTER:

“And you’re not going to publish those?”

RUSS VOUGHT:

“No. No.”

CENTRE FOR CLIMATE REPORTING REPORTER:

“They go straight to…”

RUSS VOUGHT:

“Yeah, they’re, a very, very close hold.” 

MATT:

While these internal documents have yet to be leaked, we do have some hints as to what Phase Two includes. For example, on Roe v. Wade, the 2nd Phase calls for a much deeper cut to women’s healthcare. 

RUSS VOUGHT:

“And he talks about rape, incest, and life of the mother. All, I actually don’t believe in those exceptions. I want to get to abolition. But I also, we got to win elections. And so, I want to get as far as we possibly can.”

MATT:

And Phase Two makes it so if you’re not a Christian Nationalist, you’ll simply be deported from this country.

RUSS VOUGHT:

“So, I want to make sure that we can say, ‘We’re a Christian nation.’ And my viewpoint is mostly that I would probably be Christian nation-ism. That’s pretty close to Christian nationalism. Can we, if we’re going to have legal immigration, can we get people that actually believe in, in Christianity? Is that something? Or do we have to have, you know, are we not allowed to have, ask questions about Sharia law?”

CENTRE FOR CLIMATE REPORTING REPORTER:

“What could we see America looking like, I guess, in an ideal world?”

RUSS VOUGHT:

“In an ideal world. I mean, I think we, we, we could save the country in a sense of, you know, the largest deportation in history.” 

MATT:

But it doesn’t stop there. You see, Vought already wrote memos and executive orders ready for Trump to sign once he gets in office.

CENTRE FOR CLIMATE REPORTING REPORTER:

“What is that exactly these 100 day plans? What do you want to see? It’s like policy or executive orders or just drafts - what is it?”

RUSS VOUGHT:

“So on one level it is specifically what to do. Not just, ‘Hey, we want to cut spending.’ But we want to - these are the directives on how we would go about doing it. And then you may say, ‘OK, alright, DHS, we want to have the largest deportation. What are your actual memos that a secretary sends out to do it?’ Like there’s an executive order, regulations, secretarial memos. Those are the types of things that need to be thought through so you’re not, you’re not having to scramble to do that later on.”

CENTRE FOR CLIMATE REPORTING REPORTER:

“And they’re coming from you? Those…”

RUSS VOUGHT:

“Those ideas, those are…and we’ve got a big team that’s working, not just our organization. But what we bring to it is, I think, a sense of what Trump would do, an art of the possible that is expansive, but still tethered to grass, right? Like it can be done. We’ve had to go and get confirmed, like politics is real. So like you have to be able to sustain something politically. And so that’s what we bring to it.”

MATT:

In the coming weeks leading up to the election, Trump will no doubt try to publicly distance himself even more from Project 2025 since this new footage is out there. But make no mistake, Trump and Vought are great friends. Donald Trump completely trusts Russ Vought to get this done and make him an authoritarian dictator within the first 100 days. And most importantly, Trump and Vought are still currently working together.

RUSS VOUGHT:

“...if a battle plan is out there that will do what he wants there are the people like me that have his trust that will be able to get it to him in whatever position we’re at. I could be at Center for Renewing America but the relationships will be there, the trust level will be there.” 

MATT:

Trump himself has even started leaking some of these plans in his campaign speeches, telling Christian nationalists that they will only ever have to vote in this year’s election and never have to do it again because by then, he’ll be dictator.

DONALD TRUMP:

“Christians, get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore my beautiful christians. I love you christians. I’m a chrisitan. I love you. Get out. You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’re going to have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”

DONALD TRUMP:

“He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said, ‘No. No. No. Other than day one.’”

MATT:

For the record, that’s straight out of the Project 2025 manifesto. But just in case you think JD Vance will save the day like Mike Pence did on January 6th, 2021…we all remember the day Trump refused to accept the results of a free and fair election to elect Joe Biden as President and told his Vice President to overturn democracy. Then when Pence didn’t do it, Trump told his mob to go storm the capital and that mob had a noose ready to hang Mike Pence for being a traitor to Donald Trump. But I guess this is another of those times there were ‘very fine people on both sides’, right Donald?. Anyway, JD Vance is a great pick according to Russ Vought.

RUSS VOUGHT:

“So, I am very happy with the JD pick. I think it’s transformative, for sure. Think of him as a member version of what we do. So, there’s no think tank, no policy organization, no battle plan creator other than us for the worldview that I think Donald Trump has and that JD has.”

MATT:

But while the manifesto or Phase Two might scare you, because frankly, it should scare anyone who wants democracy to survive anywhere in the world, please know that election day is coming in November and more independents and republicans are turning against Trump by the day because of his authoritarian plan here. While all of the polls currently show Kamala Harris is in the lead and her crowd sizes are much larger than Trump’s rallies currently - polls are not the election. 

By the way, think about his insecurity over crowd sizes for just a moment. Ever since Kamala has taken over the election, Trump is spending thousands of campaign dollars at each stadium to cover up entire balconies of seating so pictures don’t show empty seats (williamlegate) - you know, just the kind of pettiness you love to see from someone fighting for the chance to have the nuclear codes. 

To be fair, Trump’s audience isn’t used to seeing black curtains. His audience is more used to seeing white fabric with holes cut out of it. I mean just look at his recent campaign stops where he’s strictly visiting cities best known for their abundance of KKK groups.

• York, PA

• Howell, MI

• Asheboro, NC

• Phoenix, AZ

• Glendale, AZ

Look, I’m just glad that black fabric survived with the close proximity to so many burning crosses. Or maybe it got shot in the back on the way home. I don’t know. 

And what was with the lies he spread about Kamala using AI to fake images of her rally in Detroit then immediately Trump used AI himself to make it seem like Taylor Swift, a woman who hates Donald Trump, is suddenly endorsing him. 

Anyway, please remember the polls are not the election itself. If you don’t want this evil villain and his lunatic sidekick to undo everything in government, to take control of your body, your rights, and your freedoms, you have to make a plan to vote on November 5th, 2024. 

If you live in the U.S. and turn 18 on or before November 5th, you can register to vote and make a plan to take all of your friends with you to vote using the unbiased link in the description or the pinned comment. If you don’t live in the U.S. or if you won’t be 18 by November 5th, there are still plenty of ways you can help make sure Project 2025 never gets implemented. We outlined some of the ways you can do that in this video here which is linked in the description. 

Again, the scariest part of Trump’s Project 2025 plan is that they wrote it all down and they’re doing interviews trying to get more funding for it. They’re not afraid of you knowing their plan so it’s up to us to take this knowledge and as the great Michelle Obama says, ‘do something’ to stop it. 

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