The Heritage Foundation's set of conservative policy proposals known as Project 2025 includes a 900-plus-page vision for the future of the GOP and the next Republican presidency and has quickly become a lightning rod for controversy.
Former President Donald Trump, set to accept the party's nomination next week, seems to have little interest in adopting the tome.
The Wall Street Journal reported that he has privately expressed annoyance that the policy project has received so much attention and resents the narrative that the group is writing policy and choosing high-level candidates for theoretical administrative roles.
"I know nothing about Project 2025," Trump posted on Truth Social on July 5. "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."
Paul Dans, the project's director, told the Journal "the task at hand is to reinfuse political control over the bureaucracy."
Dans, a former Trump administration official, said the federal government had grown into a "living organism."
"The presidency is the way that the people can exercise control over this organism; otherwise, it's an apparatus that ... continues to sprawl out of control," he said.
Behind the scenes, the project's affiliates are drafting executive orders and agency regulations that could be used to quickly implement the policies that the project is advocating once Trump takes office.
Project 2025's policy suggestions range in topic from foreign affairs to education.
Biden said this week that "Project 2025 will destroy America," and his campaign has created a web page dedicated to the project. The Democratic National Committee is rolling out a billboard campaign in several major cities in an attempt to link Trump to the program.
The Trump campaign, in turn, continues to emphasize that the project's proposals are separate from the campaign's official policy platform.
In a statement to Reuters, a campaign official accused the Democrats of fearmongering and said only the official Republican platform and a series of proposals from the campaign known as Agenda 47 should be taken as official.
"Team Biden and the DNC are lying and fearmongering because they have nothing else to offer the American people," said Danielle Alvarez, a campaign spokesperson.
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
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