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A series of leaked training videos provide new insights into Project 2025, including appearances by officials and allies of former President Donald Trump, who has distanced himself from the proposal despite numerous direct ties to the effort.
In 14 hours of video footage obtained by ProPublica and Documented, 36 speakers have their say, more than two-thirds of whom worked for the Trump administration or one of Trump’s campaigns.
Project 2025 is a think tank proposal for policies and efforts under Trump should he win in November. Many of these proposals are right-wing extremist in nature and aim to cut Social Security, eliminate abortion rights, and numerous other goals.
The videos, part of the program’s Presidential Administration Academy initiative for members of a new administration, feature one guest raising concerns about climate change and gender equality, while others offer advice such as avoiding reading mainstream newspapers or not leaving behind government documents to avoid future public scrutiny.
In “Hidden Meanings: The Monsters in the Attic,” a video about buzzwords and key concepts to know, activist Bethany Kozma, a former deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development during the Trump administration, describes climate policy as part of an “ultimate goal to control people.”
“Climate change is supposedly everywhere, and if the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eliminate references to climate change absolutely everywhere,” she says in the video.
“When I think of climate change, I immediately think of population control, don’t you?” she adds. “I think of the people who don’t want you to have children because they ‘harm the environment.'”
In the same video, Katie Sullivan, a former deputy attorney general under Trump, argues that a new president should target curricula on LGBTQ+ issues and roll back Joe Biden’s initiatives to promote gender equality in government.
“The harmful tenets of critical race theory and gender ideology should be removed from the curriculum of every single public school in this country,” Sullivan says in the video.
Other videos contain advice for future employees to avoid reading The New York Times or Washington Post and choose conservative media sites instead. Others suggest handling sensitive matters in person to avoid creating documents that could later be subject to the Freedom of Information Act or published by the press.
The Independent has reached out to Kozma, Sullivan and the Heritage Foundation, the founder of Project 2025, for comment.
The Trump campaign team has consistently stressed that it has no connection to the project and that its campaign program is Trump’s only official agenda, although there are numerous connections between Trump, his vice-presidential colleague JD Vance and the right-wing wish list.
At a recent rally, Trump dismissed the project as “seriously extreme.”
“Some of the right, the far right, came up with this Project 25. I don’t even know, I know some of them, but they are very, very conservative,” Trump said. “They are kind of the opposite of the radical left.”
“But I don’t know anything about it, I don’t want to know anything about it.”
The denial came after Democrats had increasingly issued warnings about Project 2025 during the election campaign and refuted numerous connections.
Vance wrote the foreword to a forthcoming book about the project by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, calling the agenda an “indispensable weapon.”
In 2022, Trump flew with Roberts on a private jet to a Heritage conference, and Roberts told The Washington Post This month: “I spoke personally with President Trump about Project 2025.”
Paul Dans, a former Trump adviser who led Project 2025, resigned from the initiative in July, and the publication of the book about Project 2025 was postponed until after the election.
“There is a time for writing, reading and touring – and a time to put down the books and fight with all your might to take back our country,” said RobertsThe Independent in a statement. “For this reason, I have decided to postpone the publication and promotion of my book until after the election.”
