Donald Trump on Friday sought to distance himself from a closely-aligned conservative group’s plans to radically reshape the federal government and American life should the former president win a second term.

In a post to his social media site, Trump claimed, “I know nothing about Project 2025,” the name given to a playbook crafted by the Heritage Foundation to fill the executive branch with thousands of Trump loyalists and reorient its many agencies’ missions around conservative ideals.

“I have no idea who is behind it,” Trump continued on Truth Social. “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

. . . Trump’s campaign has sought for months to make clear that Project 2025 is not its official policy platform amid an intensifying effort by President Joe Biden and Democrats to tie Trump to its more controversial policies.

Yet those efforts are complicated by Trump’s extremely close relationship with many of the people who launched Project 2025 or helped contribute to it. Paul Dans, the head of Project 2025, was chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management during the Trump administration, and the group’s roadmap for the next administration includes contributions from others who have worked for the former president, including

  • his former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson,
  • former acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli
  • and former deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn.
  • John McEntee, Trump’s former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office and one of his closest aides while in office, is also a senior adviser for the project.

Yeah he has NO IDEA WHO IS BEHIND IT. Odds that the demented rapist himself wrote that . . . shit? 0%.

And “Abysmal”? No. Man wouldn’t know an abyss if it bit him in the girdle.

  • morphballganon@lemmy.world
    9911·
    4 months ago

    “Some of the things they’re saying are… abysmal”

    “I wish them luck”

    Pick one.

    As an aside, it seems OP is unfamiliar with the word abysmal. It’s a word. It means bad. Has nothing to do with an abyss; that would be abyssal.

  • RotatingParts@lemmy.mlEnglish
    72·
    4 months ago

    “I have no idea who is behind it,” Trump continued on Truth Social…“Anything they do, I wish them luck”

    If you don’t know anything about them, how/why would you wish them luck?

  • sndmn@lemmy.ca
    54·
    4 months ago

    Washington couldn’t tell a lie

    Nixon couldn’t tell the truth

    Trump couldn’t tell the difference

  • The Pantser@lemmy.world
    53·
    4 months ago

    So say which “things” you don’t agree with and which you do so your supporters know where you stand. He won’t because the only “things” he will support are “will I get paid for it?” He can’t even form a complete thought that wasn’t rehearsed.

  • kautau@lemmy.world
    341·
    4 months ago

    In a post to his social media site, Trump claimed, “I know nothing about Project 2025,”

    Claim no knowledge until the election so you capture the vote of those idiots who think “oh he’ll just be a good old fashioned hard lined president and drain the swamp”

    Once you’re elected, use your now legal ability to assassinate anyone in your way and rebuild the government as you see fit into a new theological autocracy/corporatocracy while those same people, influenced by russian and billionaire social propaganda just shrug casually because they have a room temperature IQ

    • Optional@lemmy.worldOP
      22·
      4 months ago

      More or less, yes.

      What I don’t understand is, what did they think he was doing from 2017-2021? Great things? It was absolute disaster after debacle after stunning disgrace. Over and over. Were they all just like “hooray infrastructure week”??

      • kautau@lemmy.world
        11·
        4 months ago

        They thought he was doing whatever social media programmed them to think. And he passed a tax cut that was 90% in the favor of the rich, but had a pittance for the middle class, so they felt that, while being uninformed, and their dopamine centers got a little warm and now they associate that with trump

  • Optional@lemmy.worldOP
    251·
    4 months ago

    So I just checked in with my lone remaining person who supports trump. He says “oh yeah, trump’s been trying to distance himself from that for awhile. Don’t be a sucker that’s all hard-right garbage”. Obviously the sports/talk radio is not concerned about it.

    So they’re just moseying along as if trump’s normal and just more conservative than Biden so they’re voting for him. He reads ‘moderate’ websites (CNN, BBC) and claims he just can’t abide “either side’s crazies” which. I mean, I get it. I think that’s pretty well the clearest indictment of our corporate news media there could be.

    They spent years pretending like it was all normal. And they will continue to do so. And now a message from our sponsor, Dawn dish detergent. It’s the quicker picker upper!

  • Davel23@fedia.io
    22·
    4 months ago

    Trump wouldn’t lie about that, right? I mean, what has he ever lied about? Not counting every single thing that’s ever come out of his mouth, of course.

  • BuckFigotstheThird@lemmy.worldEnglish
    161·
    4 months ago

    Ok, so I’ll just vote for the proven pedophile, traitor, racist, transphobe and convicted felon. /s

    Get this garbage outta here. Fuck Trump.

  • RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world
    3·
    4 months ago

    Of course he doesn’t want to be part of it. They would be going over his head to do everything.

    The nutsack likes his power in an absolut flavor.

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    417·
    4 months ago

    Call me crazy but I think he might be telling the truth. His main priority is self-aggrandizement and he has no respect for any institution that stands in the way of that, but his political positions were actually fairly mainstream for a Republican. I don’t see Romney, McCain, or GWB giving the speeches (or provoking the mobs) that Trump did because they acted with respect for America’s democratic institutions, but I can see them supporting similar laws and policies. My guess is that Trump doesn’t actually care much about the practical reality of governing a country and in 2016-2020 the existing Republican establishment did most of the policy work. Now extremists are putting a lot of effort into becoming the ones who influence him, and maybe they will (which certainly frightens me) but that doesn’t mean that he currently cares much about their policies.

    • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)@badatbeing.socialEnglish
      17·
      4 months ago

      Trump cares about one thing, Trump. If these policies will hurt people he sees as an enemy, he’ll be all for it. He doesn’t want to run a country, or do any work, he wants to be the “strong man” at the top everyone “respects/fears”. He gives zero shits about anyone or anything besides himself. This election is 100% about getting elected to keep himself out of jail, and of course his revenge on everyone trying to hold him accountable for his ever growing crime list.

      • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        I’m not sure that you and I actually disagree. I’m just saying that maybe he really doesn’t know (or care much) about the ideology of Project 2025. If you asked him to explain what their policy goals are, I don’t think he would be able to. If so, he’s actually telling the truth here.

        • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)@badatbeing.socialEnglish
          1·
          4 months ago

          He absolute knows about it. He has spoken at the Heritage Foundation, and Project 2025 is founded by people that were in his prior administration. It’s been all tailored to his presidency. He also knows, as does his campaign, how toxic the whole thing is - and it’s the only reason he is trying to distance himself (poorly) from it.

    • Optional@lemmy.worldOP
      51·
      4 months ago

      To your point, you’re right he probably doesn’t care about it; it’s a sure thing he hasn’t read it, whichever poor bastards have tried to explain it to him have undoubtedly been thwarted by his legendary incuriousness.

      But by that same token, it doesn’t even matter. All he wants is to golf and yell at people. He’ll totally leave the keys with whoever to implement fascism while he babbles on about his greatness to room-fulls of Ivanka clones shipped to him by maneuvering billionaires. Nothing will stop them and no one will try.

      • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        I don’t think that Trump is easy to control. The Republican party in 2016 totally failed to do so, and so did members of his administration (both the extremists and the ones trying to be a voice of reason). He’s not interested in the day-to-day business of governing but he is interested in power and I think he has good intuition about people who would try to limit his power or have power over him. He uses people; people don’t use him.

          • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            3·
            4 months ago

            Trump seems to admire Putin and there is reason to think that Putin wants Trump to be elected, but despite all the accusations there is no evidence that Putin has any sort of control over Trump. And I haven’t even heard anyone else claim that Salman or Kim control him.

            • Optional@lemmy.worldOP
              1·
              4 months ago

              Besides all the obvious things, you’re right. There is no hard evidence that putin controls trump.

              Trump announced, on stage with putin, that he rejects the entirety of the United States Intelligence Apparatus’ conclusions that russia interfered in the election, and instead believes putin.

              Sure.

              • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                1·
                4 months ago

                Trump also rejects the conclusion that he lost the 2020 election. I think he would reject any conclusion that implied he wasn’t actually as popular and admired as he claims to be. The conclusion about Russian interference isn’t unusual in that context.

                • Optional@lemmy.worldOP
                  1·
                  4 months ago

                  It’s hard evidence he is manipulated by putin.

                  I mean, one of many examples. The collusion is old. There’s a mountain of circumstantial evidence. If one wants to hew close to “no amount of coincidences will constitute proof”, well then, there’s still direct connections. The meeting at trump tower, the mayflower hotel meeting jeff sessions perjured himself over. Mike flynn admitted to twice and was convicted of lying to the FBI about putin’s influence. Influence is control.

                  Jared’s $2B sweetheart deal is payment for services rendered by MBS. You think trump isn’t going to get a huge chunk of that? That’s controlling interest.

                  The first time Trump paid attention to any of this was when he read about it in the newspaper. The story revealed that Trump’s very own transition team had raised several million dollars to pay the staff. The moment he saw it, Trump called Steve Bannon, the chief executive of his campaign, from his office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, and told him to come immediately to his residence, many floors above. Bannon stepped off the elevator to find Christie seated on a sofa, being hollered at. Trump was apoplectic, yelling: You’re stealing my money! You’re stealing my fucking money! What the fuck is this?

                  Seeing Bannon, Trump turned on him and screamed: Why are you letting him steal my fucking money? Bannon and Christie together set out to explain to Trump federal law. Months before the election, the law said, the nominees of the two major parties were expected to prepare to take control of the government. The government supplied them with office space in downtown DC, along with computers and rubbish bins and so on, but the campaigns paid their people. To which Trump replied: Fuck the law. I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money. Bannon and Christie tried to explain that Trump couldn’t have both his money and a transition.

                  Shut it down, said Trump. Shut down the transition.