Former President Donald Trump's choice of Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate for the 2024 presidential race has led to questions about Project 2025 and how Vance could influence its implementation if Trump is elected.
This week, Vance will be at the Republican National Convention rubbing shoulders with The Heritage Foundation, architects of Project 2025, a controversial conservative policy document that is claimed by many to be the blueprint for a 2025 Trump government.
Trump has sought to distance himself from the document despite many of its proposals aligning with his plans should he be elected. In a post on Truth Social this month, Trump said he had "nothing to do with them."
However, with Vance now a named official in Trump's White House campaign, there may be another route for Project 2025's ideas to reach the ear of the Republican presidential nominee.
With Vance's influence in the Trump campaign cemented, Newsweek looked at how Project 2025's views align with Vance's.
What has Vance said about Project 2025?
Trump has denied associations with Project 2025 but said he is aware of it, calling some of its ideas "absolutely ridiculous and abysmal."
By comparison, Vance has said it contains both "good ideas" and "some things he disagreed with." Speaking with Newsmax's Rob Schmitt on July 10, Vance was asked what he thought of Democrats using it to attack the Republican campaign.
Vance responded: "This is the craziest fear tactic they're using right now. I think most Americans couldn't care less about Project 2025. I reviewed a lot of it, there's some good ideas in there, Rob, there's some things that I disagree with, but most importantly it has no affiliation with the Trump campaign.
"The left is trying to make a major news story about the fact that a conservative non-profit is engaging in public policy work even though the non-profit does not have an affiliation with the Trump campaign."
While Project 2025's coordinators previously told Newsweek that it "does not speak for any candidate or campaign," it was written in conjunction with a host of former Trump staffers, as many as 140, according to an analysis by CNN.
Last month, Vance posted on X, formerly Twitter, about writing a foreword for Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts' new book, Dawn's Early Light: Burning Down Washington to Save America, saying he was "thrilled" to have done so and that the book contained "a bold new vision for the future of conservatism in America."
Vance also contributed a review for the book ahead of its release in September, writing: "Never before has a figure with Roberts's depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism.
"We are now all realizing that it's time to circle the wagons and load the muskets.
"In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon."
There are topics from the blurb that echo Project 2025's proposals. For example, Roberts writes that the Department of Education (DOE) and the FBI are "too corrupt to save." Project 2025 states that the DOE should be shut down and describes overhauling the FBI, calling it a "bloated, arrogant, increasingly lawless organization."
Vance also has links through American Moment, a non-profit providing public policy training and intern opportunities to young conservatives. He supported American Moment from its launch and sits on its Emeritus Board.
American Moment has been a supporter of Project 2025 from its early development. In 2022, its president, Saurabh Sharma, said it would "work with the Presidential Transition Project to ensure that thousands of talented junior and mid-level appointees are ready on day one to serve the next President of the United States."
American Moment has also secured Project 2025 Director Paul Dans as a speaker for its trainees, has invited Dans to speak on its podcasts, and has hired former employees of Project 2025 to its staff.
While this does not mean that Vance tacitly supports Project 2025, his direct involvement with American Moment and that organization's tight ties with the Heritage Foundation's policy proposals suggest that if Trump wins the election, Project 2025 may have another line to the White House.
A spokesperson for Vance sent comments the senator made to NBC News this month about Trump and Project 2025.
"Well, Kristen [Welker], you asked about Project 2025, and I want to be clear here that Trump explicitly has said his own transition team runs the Trump transition and will run the Trump administration," Vance said. "Again, you have a whole host of organizations, some of which have good ideas, some of which have bad ideas, and some of which have both.
"And I'm sure the Trump administration will talk to a lot of people as it's crafting an agenda to bring back American manufacturing jobs, to lower inflation, and to bring peace and prosperity back to the world. That's the whole reason why me and so many others are trying to reelect Donald Trump is because the agenda actually worked. It was his agenda, and I think it'll work again for the American people....
"But again, on the Project 2025 issue, what the media and the Democrats are trying to do is attach its most unpopular elements to the Trump administration. It's a 900-page document. I guarantee there are things that Trump likes and dislikes about that 900-page document. But he is the person who will determine the agenda of the next administration. All he said very explicitly is, 'I am in charge of the next administration because I'm the person running for president.' It's just important to make that clarification."
Where do Project 2025 and Vance align?
Several of Vance's views echo policy proposals in Project 2025. He has opposed abortion rights, including in the case of rape and incest.
Project 2025 has proposed sweeping changes that would limit access to abortion care across the United States, including prohibiting abortion travel funding, ensuring that training for medical professionals is not being used for abortion training, reversing FDA approval of chemical abortion drugs, limiting the use of abortion pills, reinstatement of the Comstock Act to limit mail-order abortion pills, and proposing the removal of federal funding from providers who offer reproductive health services.
Vance, like Trump, has not called for a national abortion ban, something that Project 2025 has not explicitly called for.
Vance is also a strong supporter of oil and gas and has shown skepticism about the scientific basis for climate change. Again, this outlook can be found in Project 2025, which has called for an expansion of oil and gas production in the U.S. and scrutiny or repeal of government offices associated with promoting clean and renewable energy.
In lockstep with Trump, Vance has campaigned heavily against immigration, supporting the former president's plans to launch a mass deportation operation if elected.
"We have to deport people, we have to deport people who broke our laws who came in here and I think we start with the violent criminals," Vance told Fox News this week.
"President Trump has been very, very effective at communicating on this to the point where now a majority of Americans believe that we need to deport a large number of people who have come here illegally."
Project 2025 is similarly supportive of restrictions on immigration, proposing to reintroduce policies similar to Title 42, the expired public health law that allowed the authorities to stop people from entering the U.S. from foreign countries where there is "the existence of any communicable disease" that could spread to Americans.
It also states that it would make combating "alien smuggling, trafficking, and cross-border crime," as defined under Title 8 and Title 18 of U.S. Code, the focus of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's operations.
