Project 2025 leader Paul Dans resigns from Heritage Foundation

The director of Project 2025 – a controversial policy blueprint for the next Republican administration – has stepped down from his role at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

Project 2025, a 900-plus-page proposal, featured sweeping governmental reforms including expanding the powers of the US president and eliminating thousands of civil servants.

Paul Dans “built the project from scratch and bravely led this endeavour over the past two years” but is now “moving up to the front where the fight remains”, said Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation.

Trump has repeatedly disavowed Project 2025, though critics point out it is led by his former administration officials.

Mr Dans served as chief of staff and White House liaison at the Office of Personnel Management during the Trump administration.

In his role as head of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project at Heritage, he organised policy and personnel recommendations and training for appointees in the next presidential administration, according to the think tank’s website.

“Project 2025 has completed exactly what it set out to do: bringing together over 110 leading conservative organisations to create a unified conservative vision, motivated to devolve power from the unelected administrative state, and returning it to the people,” Mr Roberts said.

“This tool was built for any future administration to use,” he added.

Mr Roberts said Project 2025, which was launched in April 2022, was always scheduled “to conclude its policy drafting after the two party conventions this year, and we are sticking to that timeline”.

It is not uncommon for Washington DC think tanks of all political stripes to propose policy wish lists for potential governments-in-waiting, but there is much overlap between Project 2025 and the Republican Party’s official platform as well as the rhetoric of its elected officials.

The think tank’s defining document – its so-called Mandate for Leadership – has drawn intense media scrutiny and liberal opposition since Trump became the Republican nominee.

The 922-page wish list sets out four main policy aims: to restore the family as the centrepiece of American life; dismantle the administrative state; defend the nation’s sovereignty and borders, and secure God-given individual rights to live freely.

Among its proposals are dismantling the Department of Education and the Department of Homeland Security; bringing the entire federal bureaucracy under direct presidential control; slashing federal money for research and investment in renewable energy; halting sales of the abortion pill, and sweeping tax cuts.

Trump has publicly distanced himself from these ideas, recently writing on social media: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.”

But many of his surrogates have frequently championed the ideas behind Project 2025 and the team that created the wish list is full of former Trump advisers.

In a video to young voters on Monday, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris warned of Trump’s “extreme and divisive agenda for a second term”.

“There is so much at stake this November, our most fundamental freedoms,” she added.

This is a breaking news story. More updates to follow.