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Trump's Project 2025 Denial Proves He Is The Sergeant Schultz Of American Politics

Submitted by Robin Messing on Fri, 07/12/2024 - 2:56am

The Republicans are chomping at the bit to implement Project 2025 if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election. I had previously written that Project 2025 dovetails into Trump's plan to seek revenge against his enemies. I am not going to go into detail here about Project 2025's radical agenda, but I will point you to this video by Beau of the Fifth Column as a starting point to learn more. Beau is one of the most astute political commentators I know of, and it's a damn shame he doesn't have a show on one of the major networks. (Here is Beau's main Youtube channel.)

 

Project 2025 is about as popular among people who have more than a passing knowledge about it as root canals or cockroaches. Donald Trump is smart enough to know it is wildly unpopular, so he is doing his best to distance himself from it.

Trump says he has NO IDEA about who is behind it. Really? Really?? REALLY????? It takes a 10-second Google search to find Project 2025's website. It takes another minute to click on <About> at the top of the page and click on "About Project 2025" to find the three leaders of Project 2025's team. Click on <About> and <Advisory Board> and you will learn that Project 2025 is organized by the Heritage Foundation and is backed by over 100 conservative organizations.

The three leaders listed on Project 2025's website all have one thing in common: they all worked in the Personnel office of the Trump Administration. Troup Hemenway was a a former Associate Director of the Presidential Personnel Office (PPO) under President Donald Trump. Spencer Chretien was a former Special Assistant to the President and associate Director of Presidential Personnel, and Paul Dans was the Chief of Staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

There is one more person associated with Project 2025 who we need to pay attention to. He is not listed on their website, but Trump knows him VERY well. John McEntee, a former Director of the Trump White House Presidential Personnel Office, is a senior advisor to Project 2025. He started out as Trump's body man and saw Trump daily before Trump appointed him to be the Director of the White House Personel Office where he enforced loyalty to Trump above all else. I highly recommend reading this article about him in The Atlantic. Unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall, so if you can't read it, then watch Chris Hayes's report which is at least partially based on the article.

 

So what has the former head of Trump's "loyalty police" been doing for Project 2025? He has doing pretty much what he did for Trump while Trump was in office. He has been collecting resumés and vetting potential hires to make sure they would be MAGA enough for President Trump. If their loyalty to the Constitution or their loyalty to the rule of law, or even their loyalty to downright decency conflicts with their loyalty to Trump, you can be sure that McEntee is doing his best to screen them out. Judging by this video of McEntee bragging about trying to get homeless people arrested by framing them for passing counterfeit bills, it looks like he will be screening out anyone with too much decency.

 

I know many of Trump's supporters consider themselves to be good Christians. But John McEntee is the type of guy who makes Christ wish He was still dead so He could roll over in His grave. And he is the guy who is likely to have a large say in who gets appointed to the Trump Administration. Unfortunately, McEntee's influence will affect more than just the jobs that you would normally associate with the president's administration. Every new president gets to fire political appointees from the previous administration and replace them with new appointees of their choosing. There have traditionally been about 4,000 such political positions. But if Trump is re-elected he is almost certainly going to reclassify 50,000 jobs held by career federal employees to remove their job security and make them at-will political employees. McEntee, the guy who enjoys sticking his boot in the face of the weakest among us, will enable Donald Trump to hire tens of thousands of "yes" men and women. And as I have written before, surrounding yourself with no one but "yes" men and women can lead to disaster. [To be fair, McEntee later said he was just joking in the video. I don't know if he was lying in the video about trying to frame the homeless, or if he was lying when he said he was joking, but the BEST case scenario for him is that he is a liar who enjoys mocking those who most need help.]

The three Trump appointees listed on Project 2025's "About" page and John McEntee are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to former Trump Administration officials who are working on Project 2025.  This thread by Judd Legum starts out with the names of 31 former Trump officials who have been working on Project 2025. It reveals that the links between Trump and Project 2025 are much more numerous than Trump would have us believe. Read all of Legum's thread, or better yet, read his article where he explores those ties more deeply.

 

 

As I mentioned, the Heritage Foundation is the leading entity behind Project 2025. I'm willing to bet that in addition to distancing himself from Project 2025, Trump would like to distance himself from Kevin Roberts, the President of the Heritage Foundation--especially after Roberts made what looks like a veiled threat of violence against the left.

 

 

Click on the video in the above tweet and you can watch Roberts say:

But number three, let me speak about the radical left. You and I have both been parts of faculties and faculty senates and understand that the left has taken over our institutions. The reason that they are apoplectic right now, the reason that so many anchors on MSNBC, for example, are losing their minds daily is because our side is winning.

 

And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.

 

Trump will have a hard time if he tries to distance himself from Roberts and the Heritage Foundation. We've got Trump on video shaking hands with Roberts. And Trump has praised Roberts TWICE this year.

 

Oh, and Donald Trump gave the Heritage Foundation's keynote address in 2017. But I'm SUUUUUURE he doesn't know who is behind 2025.

 

Now you may be saying to yourself, "2017, 2017???? How is that relevant? The Heritage Foundation was not even beginning to think about Project 2025 in 2017." Don't worry. I've got you covered. This video contains a clip of a speech Trump gave praising the Heritage Foundation in 2022 for laying the groundwork and developing detailed plans for what the MAGA movement will do when the American people give Donald Trump a mandate to save America in the 2024 election. Pay very close attention to 1:50 - 2:33.

 

OK--so clearly Trump is lying when he says he doesn't know who is behind Project 2025. But what about THIS part of his "truth"?

I know nothing about Project 2025. . . . I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.

Well, I can't disagree with Trump that some of the things they are saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. But, WHAT EXACTLY does he find ridiculous and abysmal? He doesn't say. And perhaps more importantly, HOW COULD HE POSSIBLY KNOW THAT HE DISAGREES WITH PARTS OF 2025 IF HE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT IT??? Obviously, Trump must know SOMETHING about Project 2025 if he knows he doesn't like parts of it. Trump's claim that he knows nothing about Project 2025 proves he is the Sergeant Schultz of American politics.

 

 

It is also interesting that Trump wished Project 2025 luck, despite his statement that they have some ridiculous and abysmal ideas. Does he often wish organizations with ridiculous and abysmal ideas well? I don't know. But I do know someone else who Trump wishes well. Ghislaine Maxwell.

Update 7/15/24: Thanks to @LorellYan1900 for poting this meme.

 

 

Update 8/28/24: Donald Trump knows just how toxic Project 2025 is. He's been trying to distance himself faster from Project 2025 than a snake piloting an F16 distances himself from an eagle. Read this column by Ahmed Baba. The ties between Donald Trump and Project 2025 are deeper than I had imagined, and he does a remarkable job laying it out. His website is largely devoted to revealing what Project 2025 will do to our country if Donald Trump was elected. Anyone interested in learning more about Project 2025 should visit it.

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