Project 2025 supporters react to Donald Trump’s ‘extreme’ attack

Right-wing figures have reacted to Donald Trump’s distancing himself from Project 2025 after he described the controversial policy proposals as “radical” and “really extreme”.

At his first campaign rally since the assassination attempt on him last week in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Republican presidential candidate said on Saturday that Democrats were trying to link him to the Heritage Foundation’s policy proposals in order to portray him as an extremist.

“And you know the other side is trying to make me sound extreme, like I’m an extremist,” he said. “I’m not, I’m a person with a lot of common sense, I’m not an extremist at all.”

Created by the right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a 900-page document of policy proposals for a future Republican administration. Many of the proposed measures are unpopular with voters.

Trump said the contributing authors and the Heritage Foundation were on the “extreme right.”

“Some of the right, the far right, came up with this Project 25, and I don’t even know, I mean, I know some of them, but they are very, very conservative,” he said. Some viewers booed at this point.

“They’re kind of the opposite of the radical left, okay; there’s the radical left and the radical right, and they come with, I don’t know what the hell it is, ‘It’s Project 25!’ ‘He’s involved in Project,’ and then they read some of the things, and they’re extreme, I mean, they’re really extreme. But I don’t know anything about it, I don’t want to know anything about it,” he said.

Newsweek The Heritage Foundation has asked for comment via email.

Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that he was skeptical that Trump would condemn Project 2025.

“I’m not sure what he’s referring to. But I suspect he’s not responding to Project 2025. He’s responding to the unfair characterization of Project 2025 by progressive Democrats,” he wrote.

Conservative commentator – and Newsweek Opinion writer Richard Hanania wrote on X that Trump no longer needs to negotiate with other conservative factions.

“Trump is getting the crowd to boo Project 2025, putting it in the same category as the radical left. The cult of personality has become so strong that he no longer feels the need to negotiate with other factions,” he wrote. “If they inconvenience him, he just crushes them.” The post had been viewed 3.6 million times as of Sunday.

Far-right commentator Nick Fuentes, who once claimed that only 200,000 or 300,000 people died in the Holocaust and said of Jews, “We will let them die in a holy war,” condemned Trump’s rejection of Project 2025 as overly moderate, writing, “This will not be a right-wing administration.” His post had been viewed 2 million times by Sunday.

Although they appear to have different views on Project 2025, Trump said he was “really impressed” with Fuentes when they had dinner together in 2022.

The project’s policies, developed by dozens of contributors and authors, aim to eliminate public employment protections for thousands of federal employees.

They also propose sweeping changes to the federal government, including abolishing the Department of Education, limiting the scope of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, rolling back renewable energy programs to create a regulatory environment that favors the fossil fuel industry, restricting mail-order sales of abortion pills and removing diversity, equity and inclusion hiring policies from federal programs.

Although Trump distanced himself from Project 2025, a total of 31 of the people involved served at various levels of his presidential administration.