The Trump campaign forced the architect of the ultraconservative Project 2025 manifesto out of his job on Tuesday as it sought political cover from a controversy dogging Republicans, the Daily Beast can report exclusively.
Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita “put the screws” to mastermind Paul Dans in an effort to force him out and shut down the right-wing shop behind Proejct 2025, a sprawling blueprint that sought to overhaul the federal government and implement an array of far-right policies for a potential second Trump administration, a well-placed source told the Daily Beast.
The president of Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that employed Dans and conceived of the controversial handbook, fired back on X, formerly Twitter, that Project 2025 is going nowhere.
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"Project 2025 will continue our efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels—federal, state, and local," Heritage President Kevin Roberts said, adding that he was "extremely grateful" for Dans' work on the policy platform and his "dedication to saving America."
Dans confirmed in an email to colleagues Tuesday that he is stepping down from his role at Heritage, saying he was leaving in order to focus his energy on “winning bigly” for conservative candidates this election cycle.
His departure hinted that Heritage was shutting down its work on the initiative more than a year after Project 2025 produced its cornerstone 900-page policy mandate that came to define the MAGA movement. The manifesto attracted widespread criticism in recent weeks over its extremist proposals that would demand fealty from federal workers, promote Christian nationalism and overhaul policies from abortion to civil liberties and climate and restructure the departments of Justice and Defense, among other agencies.
As the project backfired politically, Trump sought to distance himself from the group despite its naked ties to his first administration, with Project leadership boasting a number of senior Trump aides and close advisers.
The source told the Beast that the rift between the Trump campaign and the Heritage Foundation was not ideological, but rather was about power and who will ultimately control Trump World and make staffing decisions in a possible second Trump administration.
There’s just one glaring problem with the Trump camp’s attempt to distance itself from Project 2025: J.D. Vance’s fingerprints are all over the right-wing project.
In fact, Vance wrote the foreword to a forthcoming book based on Project 2025, Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, which outlines a “second American revolution” written by Roberts, the Heritage Foundation president who vows the work will continued.
Vance praised the book, saying, “We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.”
The Trump campaign insisted that neither the former president nor his 2024 presidential campaign was tied to Project 2025, although the handbook was featured prominently at the RNC in Milwaukee where Trump and Vance formally accepted their party’s nominations.
“President Trump's campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” campaign co-chairs Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement.
They ended with an ominous warning: “Reports of Project 2025's demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign— it will not end well for you."
