Project 2025 Part 6: 2025 vs Agenda47

On the 21st of March, 2023 Donald Trump revealed his “Agenda47” manifesto^[1]Donald Trump: Agenda47: President Trump’s Plan to Dismantle the Deep State and Return Power to the American People . It’s a series of 10 bullet points outlining his plans if he returns to office and while Trump hasn’t officially endorsed the contents of Project 2025, as we’ve seen in Part 5 with Trump enacting his “Schedule F” Executive Order, he’s certainly aligned with it.

So what is his 10 point plan and how does it match up with the goals of Project 2025?

Point 1 – Remove “Rogue” Bureaucrats

On Day One, re-issue 2020 executive order restoring the president’s authority to fire rogue bureaucrats

This is at the heart of his policies and directly aligns with the mandates set out by Project 2025. By re-enacting Schedule F via executive order on Day One, a Trump Administration would be able to effectively gut the entire civil service in one fell swoop^[2]Jared Dees: Which is Correct: One foul or fowl swoop? (Neither: It’s one fell swoop.).

With the Project 2025 training program and personnel database they would immediately be able to fire a large portion of the “unelected rogue bureaucrats” that Trump believes makes up the “deep state” and replace them with people schooled in Trump ideology.

Point 2 – Shake Up Federal Departments

Overhaul federal departments and agencies, firing all of the corrupt actors in our National Security and Intelligence apparatus

This is at the heart of Project 2025 as we saw in Part 2. They plan to gut the entire Administrative Branch, seeding a large portion of control away from the Federal Government and onto the individual States and private companies. Some departments would be abolished completely (see Part 4 on Education)

Point 3 – Reform FISA

Fundamentally reform the FISA courts, ensuring that corruption is rooted out

Project 2025 briefly covers FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and understands its importance but says that sometimes it is used inappropriately. I think this point comes more from Trump himself as he’s still mad at being investigated by the FBI over campaign ties to Russia^[3]AP News: Durham report on Trump-Russia investigation: What led to it and what happens next and this “reform” would allow him to establish immunity from future investigations.

Point 4 – Establish A Deep State “Commission”

Establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to declassify and publish all documents on Deep State spying, censorship, and abuses of power

Interestingly, the Mandate For Leadership text does not mention the “deep state” once but it does mention “woke” 33 times in the main text so I think this one is all Trump.

In 2016 he ran on a platform of “draining the swap^[4]Metro: What does ‘drain the swamp’ mean and why did Donald Trump say it?” but instead he seemed to paddle around in it^[5]ProPublica: \What We Found in Trump’s Drained Swamp: Hundreds of Ex-Lobbyists and D.C. Insiders.

While Project 2025 states that there should be investigations into how some departments handled matters when Trump was President (the FBI is the main one), there is no mention of a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” anywhere in the text at all so I think this is more Trump pandering to the QAnon side of MAGA rather than an actual policy.

Point 5 – Crackdown On Leaks

Launch a major crackdown on government leakers who collude with the media to create false narratives, pressing criminal charges when appropriate

This is a rather ironic one, isn’t it?

Trump is due to go to court over retaining classified documents and after being asked to return them he hid them in a bathroom instead^[6]NBC News: Here are 11 key takeaways from the Trump classified documents indictment.

He’s shown classified documents to people^[7]The Guardian: Prosecutors have evidence Trump showed classified papers to people – report and chatted to an Australian billionaire about America’s nuclear submarine capabilities^[8]ABC News: Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources so maybe this is one point he should think about dropping.

Project 2025 does make some mention of leaks: regarding the US Immigration service they say “Leaks must be investigated and punished as they would be in a national security agency^[9]Mandate For Leadership, Page 147” and say that the CIA should “refer for prosecution any employee who is suspected of leaking information, and penalties should include the removal of pension benefits for those who are found guilty^[10]Mandate For Leadership, Page 214”.

I think this point is just Trump trying to scare people into not feeding campaign info or his love of hurling ketchup bottles at the wall^[11]Huffington Post: Trump Broke Dishes, Splattered Wall With Ketchup During Election Fit, Aide Says to the press.

Point 6 – Make Agency Heads Independent

Make every Inspector General’s Office independent from the departments they oversee, so that they do not become protectors of the deep state

As far as I can tell (it’s a long book folks, please cut me some slack if I miss something) Project 2025 doesn’t explicitly state this but it goes along with their plans to gut government agencies and put their own staff in positions of power so Trump and Project 2025 are aligned on this one.

Point 7 – Independent Auditing Of Security Agencies

Establish an independent auditing system to continually monitor our intelligence agencies to ensure that they are not spying on our citizens or running disinformation campaigns against the American people

Trump really has it in for the FBI, doesn’t he^[12]The Guardian: Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officials? This is pretty much an extension of Point 3 and is all about reining in the FBI, CIA and NSA so they are brought under the President’s direct control – which means of course they can’t investigate him (or her).

As we saw in Part 2, Project 2025 is not a fan of the FBI either so this policy is shared between the two camps.

Point 8 – Drain The Swamp

Continue Trump administration effort to move parts of the federal bureaucracy outside of the Washington Swamp, just like President Trump moved the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado

Project 2025 states that Washington is full of “globalist elites^[13]Mandate For Leadership, Page 1” and that the Mandate For Leadership aims to “rescue the American people from Washington dysfunction^[14]Mandate For Leadership, Page 2”.

While I can’t find anything that explicitly says they will move particular bureaus out of Washington, the fact that they want to “send power away from Washington and back to America’s families, faith communities, local governments, and states^[15]Mandate For Leadership, Page 44” is close enough to confirm they’re not happy with Washington D.C’s consolidation of power and would certainly back Trump’s plan to move agencies elsewhere.

Point 9 – Ban Bureaucrats From Taking Certain Jobs

Ban federal bureaucrats from taking jobs at the companies they deal with and regulate, such as Big Pharma

It’s not specified what Trump means exactly by this. I am not sure how, after he’s fired everyone, he can ban them from going to work for a particular company – I’m sure that some Constitutional lawyers would have fun with that one.

Also, has he looked at what his son-in-law is up to^[16]CBS News: Jared Kushner defends his equity firm getting $2 billion from Saudis after he left White House?

I can’t find mention of this in Project 2025’s manifesto but I am sure they agree with this point too.

Point 10 – Term Limits On Congress

Push for a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress

This one is an interesting one considering Trump himself said he should get a third term^[17]CNN: Believe it or not, Donald Trump says he should get a third term (assuming he would win a second term which, spoiler alert: he didn’t) because the FBI “spied” on his campaign.

I am guessing this is to be able to get rid of any Senator or Representative who no longer backs him, freeing him up to install a supporter in their place^[18]NBC News: Trump intensifies attacks on McConnell with ‘death wish’ remark on his social media platform.

While Project 2025 does mention term limits for some positions, it doesn’t directly mention Congress and I’m not sure it would be in their interests to have a diehard Republican they can trust ousted because of a term limit. The public vote is fickle and they couldn’t guarantee that one of their “yes men” would get voted in to replace them

Are Trump And Project 2025 Aligned?

On this, I would have to say in the main “Yes”.

While there are some differences in approach – and Trump’s plan is only 10 points whereas Project 2025’s weighs in at 920 pages, you can certainly see where they are both influencing each other.

Project 2025 has certainly been influenced a great deal by Trump’s time in office between 2017 and 2021 but Trump himself doesn’t seem to have moved on from his “But Hillary Clinton’s Emails^[19]Poynter: Comparing Hillary Clinton’s emails and Donald Trump’s boxes of files^[20]CNN Politics: Fact check: Trump’s self-serving comparison to Hillary Clinton’s classified email scandal Drain The Swamp Era^[21]Viceo: Trump Did One Thing While in Office To ‘Drain the Swamp.’ He Just Revoked It..”

In Part 7 we’ll take a look at the role of religion in Project 2025’s manifesto and how it will have far reaching consequences for how the whole of America works as a country.

Katy Whitton

Katy is the editor-in-chief of FlippingHeck.com a blog about Self-Improvement, Productivity and Small Business Tips. When she’s not working, she enjoys gaming, making music and Reviewing Things.

www.katywhitton.co.uk