Project 2025 disappears from liberal grievances amid Trump's frantic second-term pace

FIRST ON FOX: In the heat of the 2024 election cycle, the name Project 2025 was on the lips of Democrats and mainstream media figures everywhere, until it was not.

"The American people delivered a clear mandate in November: dismantle the bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy that is the Deep State. And the latest polling - a 53% approval rating - confirms overwhelming support for President Trump's efforts to do just that," he said.

When asked about liberals' panic over Project 2025 and how it has been muted with the rise of DOGE, Roberts suggested the left will latch onto anything to make an issue out of it if they believe they can make gains.

"The Left has no new ideas-just unpopular ones. When they fail to win on substance, they simply choose to attack. First, it was Project 2025. Now, it's DOGE. Different name, same baseless fearmongering," Roberts said in a Monday interview. "But make no mistake: the American people are ready for real change, and we're not backing down."

Meanwhile, Heritage leaders past and present, like Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese and Roberts himself have rejected claims there has been anything radical about Project 2025. 

"In the first one, in 1981, it was much more organizational, with information on structure and organizational norms, where - later on in 1989 - it was much more individual policy issues-based," he said. 

The quadrennial work has been published under various titles and compositions since the 1980 presidential cycle, with some exceptions.

Nonetheless, Project 2025 became styled as a "right-wing boogeyman" talking point on the left.

At the Democratic National Convention, both Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., and Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia, held up copies of Project 2025 on stage.

"It is a radical plan to drag us backwards, bankrupt the middle class, and raise prices on working class families like yours and mine," said Kenyatta, who has since been elected DNC vice chairman along with gun control activist David Hogg.

The Project's rumored reputation became fodder for constituents at town halls as well, including in one swing-seat congressional race where a Republican's incredulous response led to a viral moment, according to Politico.

New Jersey Rep. Tom Kean Jr. was asked about Project 2025 at such an event and responded he had never read the document.

"The first time I've ever heard of being supportive of it was when I was accused of supporting it," Kean reportedly replied.

"Elon Musk and the guy who wrote Project 2025, Russ Vought, are trying to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau," Warren said Monday. "If they succeed, CEOs and Wall Street will once again be free to trick, trap and cheat you."

Vought did not write Project 2025. He was credited as the author for Chapter 2, which analyzes the executive office of the president.

Former Chase-Manhattan Bank Vice President Robert Bowes called CFPB "highly politicized, damaging, and utterly unaccountable" in a section of the project he authored.

"It is unconstitutional. Congress should abolish the CFPB and reverse Dodd-Frank Section 1061, thus returning the consumer protection function of the CFPB to banking regulators," Bowes wrote.

Recent media headlines have tried to tie DOGE to the project, with critical stories headlined "Project 2025 Architect" in reference to people like Vought.

Roberts said Trump's team should be the beneficiary of such headlines, in that "he and his team deserve the credit" - and that it is a welcome sight that people who embody Heritage's guiding principles are being tapped for top positions in the new administration.

"Heritage is thrilled to see President Trump appoint so many hardworking patriots who put America First. Russ is one of the great statesmen of our age-a brilliant, principled leader with the vision and intellect to take on 'The Swamp' and win."

One of Trump and Musk's more recent major endeavors - taking an ax to USAID - is more a project of DOGE, while Project 2025 suggests a more measured approach to rein in the agency's expenditures and politicization.

That project section, authored by former agency COO Max Primorac, describes USAID as having been "deformed" by the Biden administration to pursue a "divisive political and cultural agenda."

Primorac suggests the next administration "scale back" USAID's global footprint and return it to pre-COVID budget levels while "deradicalizing" its programs and cutting its international affairs accounts.

Additionally, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli wrote in Project 2025 that the president should "pursue legislation to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security" and that it has not "gelled into one DHS" as was its goal when founded after 9/11.Cuccinelli had argued that breaking up DHS along "mission[-related] lines" would lead to a more effective government apparatus.

Instead, Trump and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem have expanded DHS' role versus the Biden administration, including the addition of former ICE acting Director Tom Homan as border czar.