Project 2025 director to step down after ‘pressure from Trump campaign’

The leader of Project 2025 is stepping down from his role amid a power struggle over potential government staffing if Donald Trump wins in November.

Paul Dans, the director of the project housed at the Heritage Foundation, “will be departing the team”, according to a statement to the Guardian from Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage Foundation.

The departure could indicate the project’s work is ending or at least will not be taking such a public role in the lead-up to the November election, though the policy ideas outlined in its extensive conservative roadmap remain public. “Project 2025” has become a shorthand term for its manifesto of conservative policies, but the project includes multiple pillars designed to influence a conservative president.

Dans is leaving “after pressure from Trump campaign leadership” and an “ongoing power rift over staffing control” for a second Trump administration, Roger Sollenberger, a reporter for the Daily Beast, wrote on Twitter/X.

Dans, a Trump loyalist, worked in personnel-related roles in the first Trump administration, including as chief of staff at the office of personnel management.

In an internal email obtained by Semafor, Dans said the work of the project “was due to wrap” after the political parties’ nominating conventions, which for Republicans was earlier this month.

“Our work is presently winding down, and I plan later in August to leave Heritage,” he wrote. “Electoral season is upon us, and I want to direct all my efforts to winning, bigly!”

Roberts claims the change was always intended and followed a set timeline.

“When we began Project 2025 in April 2022, we set a timeline for the project to conclude its policy drafting after the two party conventions this year, and we are sticking to that timeline,” Roberts said in the statement. “Paul, who built the project from scratch and bravely led this endeavor over the past two years, will be departing the team and moving up to the front where the fight remains. We are extremely grateful for his and everyone’s work on Project 2025 and dedication to saving America. Our collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels – federal, state, and local – will continue.”

It is not immediately clear what “winding down” its work entails, given that the policy playbook is already written and a personnel database already compiled.

The departure underscores the unpopularity of Project 2025 for Trump, who has for weeks attempted to distance himself from it.

Earlier this month, Trump claimed to “know nothing about Project 2025” and have “no idea who is behind it”. The disavowal from Trump came after Roberts said: “We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be.”

At a recent rally in Michigan, Trump quipped about the project, “I don’t know what the hell it is” and “they’re seriously extreme.” But the project includes many former Trump administration officials and its aims often align with Trump’s policy ideas, albeit with far more detail.

Democrats have seized on the project as a stand-in for what Trump could do if he wins a second term, bringing it up at events, in interviews and in billboard ads around the country. They have called out some of the project’s provisions, like further restrictions to abortion and an end to policies that protect LGBTQ+ rights and diversity.

Kamala Harris’s campaign said in a statement: “Project 2025 is on the ballot because Donald Trump is on the ballot. This is his agenda, written by his allies, for Donald Trump to inflict on our country. Hiding the 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real – in fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding.”

Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, Trump’s campaign leaders, have dinged the project publicly and noted how it doesn’t speak for Trump. LaCivita called the project “a pain in the ass”.

“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,” Wiles and LaCivita said in a statement on Tuesday. “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.”

Project 2025’s four pillars started with a lengthy roadmap. Alongside the document, the group is creating a database of potential personnel for an incoming Trump administration, as well as training them on how the government should work as part of a “Presidential Administration Academy”. The final step will be a presidential transition playbook that seeks to help the next president hit the ground running once he takes office.

The personnel piece, in particular, has led to some infighting among Republicans, though so have policy ideas that are unpopular in a general election, like restricting abortions. Trump doesn’t want to be seen as outsourcing any element of his administration to an outside group. And the foundation’s bold, public move to do so may not have endeared the thinktank to Trumpworld.

Hiring staff after winning the presidency is always a huge undertaking, but if Trump and Project 2025 get their way, it would be herculean. Both Trump and the project want to drastically expand the number of political appointees in the federal government, firing civil servants whose roles typically have remained nonpartisan regardless of who is in office. Doing so would require thousands, if not tens of thousands, more political hires who are beholden to the president. Despite the clash, it’s likely there’s some overlap between candidates the project has vetted and would recommend, and the Trump administration’s picks. Many of Trump’s allies, like Steve Bannon, have praised or supported the project.

While the project skews Trumpian, its goals represent generational changes in policy and how the government works that would last far beyond the next presidency. Roberts said on Bannon’s show that the project was building “not just for 2025, but for the next century in the United States”. The project has the left so upset, he added, because “they’ve never seen the political right be this organized, this focused, this rational about taking power and actually using it appropriately, as the constitution says.”

In a Guardian profile on Roberts earlier this month, sources noted his ability to grab attention for conservative causes – a skill that could lead to backlash. One critic of Heritage’s Trumpian turn warned: “It’s not at all clear to me that the bet that Kevin is making is going to pay off.”

Dans has appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room show to boost the project and encourage War Room listeners to get involved as potential appointees in a second Trump administration. He called himself a “true-blooded deplorable” and explained how the project’s goal was about “infusing America First” in the conservative movement.

“We need a new culture, we need this War Room audience to come to work in Washington,” he said in an appearance on the show last year.

This week, he was back on the show, seeking to debunk the left’s narratives about the project and again imploring conservatives to help staff the government.

“The swamp isn’t going to drain itself, we need outsiders coming in to do this,” he said, emphasizing that the project was not Trump’s, but had built a way to vet candidates for federal roles.

In another video that resurfaced in recent weeks, Dans said that the project had a great relationship with Trump and that “Trump is very bought into this,” though emphasized that the project is intended to be “candidate-neutral”.