CHICAGO (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic allies have turned Project 2025 into one of their most consistent tools against the campaign of former President Donald Trump. Now, they've taken the fight over the conservative-written handbook to a bigger new scale.
Mallory McMorrow, a 37-year-old state senator from Michigan, brought out a giant copy of the roughly 900-page “Mandate for Leadership” on Monday night, the first evening of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. She slammed it on the lectern, then made an expression to signal how heavy it was as she opened to start reading.
“They went ahead and wrote down all the extreme things that Donald Trump wants to do in the next four years,” McMorrow said from the stage. “We read it."
Trump says Project 2025 is not related to his campaign and has denied knowing about the Heritage Foundation, which is overseeing its own transition effort with the help of dozens of his allies and former aides. Democrats have for months tried to pin Trump to Project 2025's most sweeping proposals.
DNC officials plan to talk about Project 2025 every night of the convention. McMorrow said in an interview Tuesday that there is a “keeper of the book” and that the book would be handed off to a new speaker each night.
On Tuesday night, Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta trotted the book back out. “Usually Republicans want to ban books, but now they are trying to shove this down our throats,” he said.
Project 2025 was created by the Heritage Foundation as a handbook for the next Republican administration, and has caught a lot of attention because it was drafted by longtime allies and former officials of the Trump administration.
The document outlines a dramatic expansion of presidential power and a plan to fire as many as 50,000 government workers to replace them with presidential loyalists. It calls for the U.S. Education Department to be shuttered, and the Homeland Security Department dismantled, with its various parts absorbed by other federal offices.
The plan says the Department of Health and Human Services should “pursue a robust agenda” to protect “the fundamental right to life.”
Democrats have falsely claimed that it also proposes to “gut Social Security.” The document contains no proposals to cut Social Security, even though the Heritage Foundation that oversaw it has long pushed for changes to the entitlement.
The idea to create an oversized version of Project 2025 first came about several weeks ago when Harris’ campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, contacted McMorrow about speaking about Project 2025 at the convention, McMorrow said.
McMorrow said that she had never spoken to an arena full of people before and wanted to create a moment that would “play well both at home and in the arena.”
In an interview, she joked the book weighs as much as her 3-year-old daughter and is filled entirely with the actual text from Project 2025.
“Dropping the book on the podium played a big part in what we wanted to do,” said McMorrow.
On Wednesday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is expected to haul the book out, followed by U.S. Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, according to a person familiar with the plans who disclosed them on condition of anonymity.
Some of the people involved in Project 2025 are former senior administration officials with deep GOP ties. The project’s former director, Paul Dans, served as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under Trump.
Trump's former White House budget chief, Russell Vought, was a key architect of the plan and was also appointed to the Republican National Committee’s platform writing committee.
John McEntee, a former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office in the Trump administration, was a senior adviser. McEntee told the conservative news site The Daily Wire earlier this year that Project 2025’s team would integrate a lot of its work with the campaign after the summer when Trump would announce his transition team.
Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025 and has denied knowing who is behind the plan.
Tom Homan, who oversaw U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration, has cautioned against blowing the project out of proportion, arguing Washington think tanks prepare plans for new administrations that aren't always followed.
Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, a key Trump supporter, criticized how much Democrats are talking about the plan.
“It’s not a problem for the president because the president is already on the record saying that he has nothing to do with it,” Donalds said. “Their focus on Project 2025 is insanity.”
The decision to make Ohio Sen. JD Vance his running mate was taken by some as one more connection to Project 2025. Heritage’s President Kevin Roberts has said he’s good friends with Vance and that the Heritage Foundation had been privately rooting for him to be the VP pick.
Vance penned the foreword to Roberts' own new book, which was set to be out in September but has now been postponed as Project 2025 hits turmoil. Roberts is holding off the release of his potentially fiery new book until after the November presidential election.
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Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard and Brian Slodysko in Chicago contributed to this report.