Kaitlan Collins Presses Former Project 2025 Director on Trump Link: ‘How Can You Say That He Has Nothing to Do with It?’

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins interrogated the former director of Project 2025 and asked about links between it and the administration of former President Donald Trump.

Project 2025 is a 900-plus page document produced by the right-wing Heritage Foundation detailing an agenda for a second Trump term. Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats have made the enterprise a key pillar of their campaign against Trump and the GOP. Democrats’ efforts were so successful, that Trump has felt compelled to publicly disavow the project multiple times. However, Trump endorsed the work on Project 2025 while speaking at a Heritage dinner in 2022.

On Monday’s edition of The Source, Collins spoke with Paul Dans, who oversaw Project 2025 until the unwanted attention prompted his resignation in July. The host asked her guest if he’s concerned his efforts could hurt Trump in Tuesday’s presidential debate.

“Given what we’ve seen from the conventions, it’s almost inevitable that this will be brought up on the debate stage tomorrow night,” she said. “Are you worried that your work could be a liability for Trump when he’s onstage up there tomorrow?”

“No, not at all,” Dans replied. “And the breaking news is Trump has nothing to do with Project 2025. Sure, a lot of us have worked in the admin and came together, but this started long before he even announced for president. It was really a coming together of the conservative movement, and I think that’s what’s been so threatening to the left.”

Collins noted that Dans and others who worked on 2025 served in the Trump administration and asked if he could say that Trump has no relation to the Project whatsoever.

“Six of his cabinet secretaries helped collaborate or write on it,” she said. “I mean, you look at it and it’s full of names that people would recognize,” she said. “Chris Miller, Peter Navarro, Johnny McEntee. And so some people say, ‘Ok, well, 140 of his staffers worked on it. How can you say that he has nothing to do with it?”

“Well he personally didn’t have anything to do with it,” Dans responded. “Certainly, a lot of folks worked on it, came out of the Trump administration, but that’s natural for any Republican administration. You’re going to have the carryover for the next one.”

Watch above via CNN.

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