This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 23 episode of "Velshi."
It was only a few months ago when Project 2025 was so toxic to Donald Trump’s presidential bid that he and members of his campaign team were forced to deny any connection to it — repeatedly. In July, Trump posted on TruthSocial:
I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. 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.
That politically expedient lie was repeated by Trump campaign officials so that the deeply unpopular Project 2025 wouldn’t derail his presidential campaign. But now that Trump has been elected, he is freely appointing the architects of Project 2025, figures who already had deep ties to the president-elect, to key Cabinet-level posts.
Case in point: Russell Vought, who was announced as Trump’s pick to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget, a role that he held in the first Trump administration. Vought is a proponent of Christian nationalism and is considered a lead architect of Project 2025.
He’s the author of one of its key chapters: Chapter 2, about how to enhance the powers of the executive office, in large part by dismantling the administrative state, slashing budgets and eliminating the independence of certain regulatory agencies.
Vought was also caught on camera by an undercover journalist revealing he’s been tasked with preparing a secretive playbook for the first 180 days of Trump’s second term, which involves overseeing executive orders that the incoming administration could implement beginning on Day One.
All of those plans are in service of making the powers of the presidency even stronger and more centralized. It’s earned Vought the backing of Trump and some of his staunchest allies. Stephen Miller praised Vought as a “transformative pick” for OMB director. He also described Vought as “the guy for the last four years who’s been developing the plan to take down the deep state.”
Miller is another supporter of Project 2025 who’s set to join the incoming administration, this time as deputy chief of staff for policy and as Trump’s Homeland Security adviser. A group that Miller founded, America First Legal, served on Project 2025’s Advisory Board — before it jumped ship this summer when the public began closely scrutinizing Project 2025.
Besides Vought and Miller, a handful of other key Project 2025 figures have been chosen by Trump to join his administration. There’s Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, who wrote the chapter in Project 2025 about the FCC.
One of the first people Trump appointed to his new administration was also a Project 2025 contributor: Tom Homan, who will serve as the “border czar” expected to lead the mass deportation effort. He was also the acting director of ICE who helped carry out the family separation policy during the previous Trump administration.
John Ratcliffe and Pete Hoekstra are also listed as contributors to Project 2025. They’ve been tapped as CIA director and ambassador to Canada, respectively. Incoming White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared in a training video associated with Project 2025 before she began working for Trump’s campaign.
NBC News is also reporting that Trump’s transition team is using the extensive personnel database created and vetted by Project 2025 — which has been referred to as a “conservative LinkedIn” — to look for potential hires to fill lower-level positions.
Plus, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the group behind Project 2025, has called Vice President-elect JD Vance, “one of the leaders — if not the leader — of our movement.”
Apparently, Project 2025 isn’t so nuclear anymore. Despite all of the Trump team’s denials and attempts to distance themselves from it, the architects of Project 2025 will soon be inside the White House.
Allison Detzel contributed.