Republicans Have No Idea What to Do About Trump and Project 2025

Project 2025, the conservative manifesto put together by the Heritage Foundation, is starting to worry Republicans, including Donald Trump, who see it as a political liability.

These Republicans are trying desperately to figure out how to handle the negative attention from the project, which Democrats have seized on in effective attacks against Trump and the GOP.

“There came a point at which people realized, ‘Oh, you might have actually done something that jeopardizes Heritage’s influence in the next administration,” one source close to the conservative organization told NOTUS .

When Democrats started to attack Project 2025, Heritage staff saw it as “fun” initially, but that was short-lived after Trump, fed up with the negative association with his presidential campaign, disavowed the project.

“People are legitimately worried,” the source said.

The foundation tried to downplay the plan, only to find that it didn’t help in the face of Democratic attacks, which have continued unabated. One Democratic group has even started to specifically target certain House Republicans by tying them to the manifesto.

The fallout of Trump’s frustration with being tied to the project led to the resignation of Project 2025’s director, Paul Dans , who some conservatives see as taking the fall for Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts. Roberts marketed the plan much more heavily than the foundation normally would for its projects.

As more and more revelations come out about the project, Democrats have more avenues to attack it, especially as Roberts continues to defend it and even brag about his associations with Trump. A photo revealed that the two even took a private flight together in 2022. And Trump’s vehement denial of having anything to do with the manifesto has drawn the ire of some of his biggest supporters . No matter what they do, conservatives are stuck.