Project 2025 and Libraries (Part 3)
The first step to understanding the current political upheaval around Project 2025, is to explore its history and the clear connections between the Heritage Foundation
In this continuing blog series, EveryLibrary’s goal is to provide the backstory of Project 2025 and the current dismissal by the Trump Campaign by providing the links that show connections that can’t be denied. While this series provides the larger picture, the EveryLibrary Institute has released a report that outlines the impact Project 2025 would have on libraries. How Will Project 2025 Impact Libraries details Project 2025’s plans to eliminate the Department of Education and cut Federal funding for programs—these plans dovetail with the Heritage Foundation’s longtime calls for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the only source of Federal funding for school and public libraries. The Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise also calls for the end of Title I, Title XI, and civil rights protections. In this next post, we explore the people behind efforts to staff the government with Trump loyalists on day one.
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Getting Personnel on Day One is No Lie, but There’s Video No One Can Deny
Project 2025’s plan to replace 50,000 Federal employees with political appointees gained attention because of its similarities to the Trump Administration’s Schedule F which removed civil service protections for any position deemed policy related. Now that Donald Trump and the Trump Campaign have disavowed Project 2025, many of the former aides and officials involved in the transition planning are denying their involvement including the former president’s own campaign spokesperson. However, ProPublica reporting of 23 videos—more than 14 hours of content—shows that 29 of the 36 speakers providing the training are former aides or staffers, with many working on his 2024 campaign or anticipating roles in a second Trump Administration.
The now former director of Project 2025, Paul Dans, himself the Trump Administration’s Chief of Staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, announced a key hire of another high profile former administration official just weeks after Project 2025 was released. John McEntee, the former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office (PPO), joined Project 2025 as a senior advisor when Heritage unveiled the Presidential Personnel Database in May 2023.
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At the time, McEntee, Donald Trump’s former body man before his elevation to the personnel office, said “we are doing a lot of the incoming work ahead of time.” The same release announced he was rejoining two of his former PPO employees who were now working on the personnel database for Project 2025.
As for McEntee, he has been open about how he will use the Project 2025 personnel database, saying the quiet part out loud more than once. In a podcast, he declared, “I work for the Heritage Foundation on their Project 2025 which is in charge of staffing the next administration should Trump win.” McEntee was also interviewed by Heritage Foundation’s president Kevin Roberts in January 2024 where he was referred to as a “field general” for Project 2025 and said:
“With Project 2025, the number one thing is I trust the people running it. They know what we’re looking for. They know how to vet the people. And we also have a part of it where people can be endorsed so we know whose vouching for who[m]. I think what we are doing with the personnel database with the training, the vetting, and the endorsing…I think gives us a huge leg up. I think if we tap into it the way I know we can, this project will help the transition and the administration be super successful.”
If “they” means the Heritage Foundation and “we” means the Trump Transition, there is not much he can deny given his role in the previous administration and his anticipated role if the Republican nominee wins in November.
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How you gonna keep him down on the foundation, after he’s seen his own press? Find out in part four…
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