Media ramped up effort to tie Trump to Project 2025 following Biden debate disaster, Harris embraces attack
As the nation focused on the implosion of President Biden's candidacy beginning last month, legacy media organizations jumped on a conservative group's plan they warn will be implemented in a hypothetical second term for former President Trump.
Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project and launched in April 2023 by the Heritage Foundation, is widely described as a conservative blueprint for a future Republican administration to overhaul various parts of the federal government. Trump has distanced himself from it, calling elements of the plan as "ridiculous" and "abysmal," but liberal pundits insist a vote for Trump is a vote for Project 2025.
Despite Project 2025 being in the public domain for more than 15 months, liberal media outlets trained an especially intense spotlight on it following Biden's infamous debate debacle, which was also when Democrats and their media allies embraced it as an anti-Trump talking point.
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Within 25 days, from June 1 to June 26, the day before the debate, Project 2025 was mentioned on CNN 36 times, according to Grabien transcripts, including reruns. But in the days following the debate from June 28 to July 24, CNN mentioned it a whopping 463 times.
MSNBC had already allotted ample coverage to Project 2025, mentioning it 288 times in the 25 days leading up to the debate, according to transcripts. But after the debate, MSNBC mentioned it an astonishing 1,614 times in less than a month, in near-uniformly negative fashion.
The New York Times made reference to Project 2025 seven times during the same time period pre-debate, according to its website's search results. After the debate, Project 2025 yielded 75 search results on the Gray Lady's website.
ABC News' "Good Morning America," "The View" and "World News Tonight" had only mentioned Project 2025 three times prior to the debate but have sounded the alarm 29 times since, while morning and evening newscasts on NBC and CBS have mentioned Project 2025 a handful of times since the debate after previously ignoring it.
Heritage Foundation public relations director Noah Weinrich feels the left is using Project 2025 to distract voters.
"It's no surprise that the Harris-Biden regime and allies in the left-wing media have ramped up their false attacks on Project 2025 since Biden's disastrous debate. They can't run on their failed policies, so to distract the American people they are lying about what's in Project 2025 and lying that we are connected to President Trump," Weinrich told Fox News Digital.
"Project 2025 is entirely independent from the Trump campaign, and it doesn't recommend the extremist proposals the left pretends it does," Weinrich continued. "This whole news cycle is fake news at its best."
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Project 2025 received roughly 63 media mentions per day during an entire year leading up to the debate, ranging from June 27, 2023 through June 27, 2024, according to Heritage Foundation internal research. The group found that media mentions of Project 2025 ballooned to 1,840 per day from the June 27 debate through July 25.
Google Trend also shows a significant spike in Project 2025 interest since Biden’s debate meltdown, which set off a chain reaction that led to him not seeking a second term and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. Both Biden and Harris have repeatedly lambasted it on social media.
Radio host Jason Rantz has noticed the significant uptick in Project 2025 coverage.
"The so-called threat of Project 2025 is being used by Democrats to fearmonger about Donald Trump because it sounds scary, so naturally left-wing media will amplify the lies about it to help Kamala Harris," Rantz told Fox News Digital.
"The media reluctantly destroyed Joe Biden after they couldn't cover for him anymore. They didn't force him out of honest and fair reporting. They went after him because he couldn't beat Donald Trump," Rantz continued. "Left-wing media has a singular mission when Trump is involved: keep him out of office. They see the Project 2025 smear as a winning strategy."
The rhetoric surrounding Project 2025, a brainchild of several conservative groups, as well as Trump allies and former Trump administration officials, has been extreme.
When Trump selected JD Vance as his running mate, CNN’s Van Jones called him a "scary dude" who would help implement the plan.
"If you’re worried about the Project 2025 and all type of stuff, this is a guy that’s going to really keep you up at night," Jones told CNN viewers.
MSNBC’s Joy Reid said she’d vote for a Biden "in a coma" if Trump was the alternative before evoking Project 2025.
"Yeah, Hitler, White House, we’re keeping him out. We’re keeping Project 2025 out — that’s all I care about," Reid said.
Harris has embraced the Project 2025 talking points since Biden stepped aside and left her as the presumptive Democratic nominee. The Biden-Harris campaigns and their media allies have said it will "rip away women’s freedom," lead to mass deportation of Latinos and "undermine" democracy, among other things.
"Their plans are extreme, and they are divisive," Harris recently said after tying Project 2025 to Trump and Vance.
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New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote that the plan offers "many things to object to" and that it "basically calls for replacing much of the federal work force, which consists mainly of career civil servants somewhat insulated from partisan pressures, with political appointees who can be hired or fired at will."
"It’s all too easy to imagine an unscrupulous president using the power this would give him to reward friends and punish opponents across the nation," Krugman wrote.
"For now, let’s just say that it’s every bit as menacing as critics report," he continued. "And despite Trump’s disingenuous attempts to distance himself from the project, it gives us a very good idea of what a second Trump term could be like."
Even after Trump began to distance himself from Project 2025, MSNBC host Katie Phang flatly called it the "blueprint" for a second Trump administration.
"It’s a far-right plan for destroying democracy that Trump’s team wants to implement on day one," ABC "The VIew" co-host Joy Behar said earlier this month.
"Let me count the ways: They want to ban abortion, starve school children, [eliminate] breakfast and lunch for school kids, they want to have mass deportations of immigrants, they want to gut healthcare, this is all just for starters," Behar continued. "This is part of their platform … it’s the blueprint for a fascist regime."
Before Biden was forced off the ticket, fellow "View" co-host Sunny Hostin said rather than throwing him "under the bus," Democrats should be focused on Project 2025.
"Democrats … need to start talking more about the Republican program which is Project 2025," she said. "I implore all of you who have not read it – it is 900 pages, it is not the easiest thing to get through, but it is the scariest thing you will ever read."
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Trump disavowed Project 2025 as it began making headlines, while his media critics have noted more than 100 Trump administration officials had a hand in its creation.
"I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "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."
Trump's campaign also took aim at the attempts to tie him to Project 2025, previously telling Fox News Digital that Agenda 47 and President Trump’s RNC Platform are the only policies endorsed by Trump for a second term.
"Team Biden and the DNC are LYING and fear-mongering because they have NOTHING else to offer the American people. Remember this is the same group that lied to Americans and hid Joe Biden’s cognitive decline all these years," a Trump campaign spokesperson said.
In reaction, Project 2025 said it does not speak for Trump.
"As we’ve been saying for more than two years now, Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign," a Project 2025 spokesperson previously told Fox News Digital. "We are a coalition of more than 110 conservative groups advocating policy and personnel recommendations for the next conservative president. But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement."
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox News' David Rutz, Kendall Tietz, Nikolas Lanum, Kyle Morris and Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.