Warning about the far-right Project 2025 agenda for a Donald Trump White House, a group of House Democrats has launched a task force to start fighting the proposal and stop it from taking hold if the Republican former president returns to power. Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman of California is unveiling The Stop Project 2025 Task Force on Tuesday, the latest sign that congressional Democrats and outside groups are treating Trump’s campaign seriously in the expected rematch against Democratic President Joe Biden this fall.
Quick Read
- Democratic Initiative: A group of House Democrats has launched The Stop Project 2025 Task Force to combat the far-right Project 2025 agenda for a potential Donald Trump White House.
- Leadership and Motivation: Led by Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the task force aims to counter the sweeping blueprint from the conservative Heritage Foundation, which plans to staff a new GOP administration and dismantle aspects of the federal government.
- Preemptive Action: Huffman emphasized the need to be proactive, likening the Project 2025 agenda to a “Blitzkrieg” that requires preparation well in advance.
- Core Concerns: The task force is particularly alarmed by the plan to replace thousands of civil servants with loyalists and reverse setbacks from Trump’s first term.
- Broad Coalition: The task force is part of a larger effort, including the ACLU and other organizations, to counter threats to democracy and address concerns such as mass deportations, reproductive rights, and the rise of Christian nationalism.
- Educational Mission: The group plans to brief lawmakers, hold forums on Capitol Hill, and inform voters about Project 2025’s various policy proposals.
- Informed Strategy: By providing a central hub of information, the task force aims to help lawmakers and voters understand and respond to the proposals effectively.
The Associated Press has the story:
A group of House Democrats steps up to try to stop Project 2025 & a Trump White House
Newslooks- WASHINGTON (AP) —
Warning about the far-right Project 2025 agenda for a Donald Trump White House, a group of House Democrats has launched a task force to start fighting the proposal and stop it from taking hold if the Republican former president returns to power.
Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman of California is unveiling The Stop Project 2025 Task Force on Tuesday, the latest sign that congressional Democrats and outside groups are treating Trump’s campaign seriously in the expected rematch against Democratic President Joe Biden this fall.
“The stakes just couldn’t be higher,” Huffman told The Associated Press.
Huffman said the Project 2025 agenda will hit “like a Blitzkrieg” and lawmakers need to be ready.
“If we’re trying to react to it and understand it in real time, it’s too late,” he said. “We need to see it coming well in advance and prepare ourselves accordingly.”
The Democratic-led task force comes as groups on and off Capitol Hill are increasingly alarmed over Project 2025, a sweeping blueprint from the conservative Heritage Foundation that is preparing to quickly help staff a new GOP administration with plans for dismantling aspects of the federal government and installing loyalists for a second Trump term.
While the Trump campaign has repeatedly said the outside groups do not speak for the former president, Project 2025’s 1,000-page proposal was drafted with input from a long list of former Trump administration officials who are poised to fill the top ranks of a potential new administration.
Core to the Project 2025 plan is ousting thousands of civil servants and replacing them with personnel from a database of applicants, an effort to reverse the setbacks of Trump’s first term, when many of his more extreme ideas were thwarted and blocked by those refusing to break norms, violate laws or overextend presidential powers.
Huffman’s group is the latest to take on the Project 2025 proposal and plans for a Trump White House.
Last week, one of the nation’s leading civil rights organizations, the American Civil Liberties Union, announced it was preparing potential legal action to stop Trump’s campaign promise to launch mass deportations of immigrants on the first day of his presidency if elected. It’s the first of several memos the ACLU is rolling out, offering a blueprint on how it plans to respond to a second Trump or Biden term.
And others are detailing the threats to democracy if Trump’s attacks on the justice system, plans to pardon those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and threats of vengeance on political enemies take hold.
Huffman’s group is made up of about a half-dozen House Democratic lawmakers in a loose coalition separate from party leadership. It plans to begin briefing fellow lawmakers about Project 2025, hold a forum on Capitol Hill and inform voters about the ideas.
The idea is for the group to provide a central hub of information for lawmakers, voters and organizations about the various policy proposals, including immigration, reproductive rights and others.
As a founder of the Freethought Caucus on Capitol Hill, Huffman said he has particularly been alarmed about the rise of Christian nationalism within GOP ranks and efforts to push more conservative theology into government.
“We were able to beat back some of the worst of this Christian nationalist agenda, this authoritarian agenda, in the first Trump presidency, because they didn’t really know what they were doing,” Huffman said. “The fact that they have been putting all of this forethought and research and planning into a second Trump presidency means we’ll be dealing with a much more formidable foe, if it comes to that this time around.”
