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Column: Reports of the death of Trump's Project 2025 are greatly exaggerated

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Column: Reports of the death of Trump's Project 2025 are greatly exaggerated

This summer more and more voters have gotten to know the gist of Project 2025, the policy opus intended to guide a second Trump administration, and they thoroughly dislike it. Which explains the project’s purported demise in recent days at the Trump campaign’s hands, just as Democrats have jump-started the presidential contest behind Kamala Harris’ candidacy.

Opinion Columnist

Jackie Calmes

Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.

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The ruthlessness with which Donald Trump and his chief campaign lieutenants supposedly severed any ties to the agenda-setting endeavor gave me flashbacks to Trump’s presidency, when he’d abruptly announce a policy switch or Cabinet member’s firing with a tweet.

Just like that, someone or something that once had Trump’s favor was dispatched with the press of two thumbs on a smartphone’s buttons.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump wrote in a misnamed “truth” on his social media site last month. “I have no idea who is behind it. 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.” He reiterated that message several times throughout July, blaming “Radical Left Democrats” for “pure disinformation” about his ties to the effort.

As usual, that was all lies, but when the right-wing coalition behind the blueprint, including scores of former Trump advisors, continued to promote it, Trump’s enforcers finally brought out the shiv — a no-holds-barred statement on Tuesday from senior campaign consigliere Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita:

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“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way. Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.” (Emphasis mine.)

That same day the once-respected, now MAGA-fied Heritage Foundation, the power behind Project 2025, announced that director Paul Dans was out of his job and that the 2-year-old undertaking would throttle back. The Washington Post reported that some contributing authors, who once saw their involvement as a ticket to a job in Trump 2.0, were asking to have their names scratched from the final product. Theirs isn’t an idle fear: LaCivita had threatened an employment ban if Project 2025 collaborators continued to equate their work with Trump’s agenda.

So that’s the end of that? Be skeptical. Be very skeptical.

For one thing, Trump embraced the effort at its start. In a speech at a Heritage conference in 2022, he said it would “detail plans for exactly what our movement will do … when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.” CNN’s review of the contributors found at least 140 former Trump administration officials, including six Cabinet secretaries.

So, sure, Trump can badmouth the Heritage project now that it’s become a bogeyman. But should he win, he’ll surely make use of Project 2025’s policy prescriptions and its database of 20,000 vetted MAGAts to form a government and execute his stated agenda.

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Which gets to the second reason Project 2025 should be considered alive and well: Much of it is Trump’s agenda, just with flesh on the policy bones.

Most of the best known and least popular parts of the project’s 900-plus pages, the ones that media accounts and Democrats have spotlighted — “Can you believe they put that thing in writing?” Harris mockingly asks rally crowds lately — are in fact ideas that Trump himself calls for.

Among them: Abolish the Department of Education. Gut the civil service system and return to a spoils system rewarding MAGA loyalists with federal jobs. Tear down the ethics wall that’s blocked White House interference in Justice Department prosecutions and FBI investigations since Watergate so that Trump can deep-six the criminal cases against him and order up new ones against his enemies.

And more: Mount immigration raids nationwide, with the military’s help, and deport millions living and working here without authorization. Repeal climate change mitigation programs and other environmental regulations. End affirmative action. Undo President Biden’s student loan relief program.

Trump has talked about them all. Where he and Project 2025 mainly diverge is on abortion. Like the rest of us, the former president has seen the decisive power of abortion rights voters in every election since his Supreme Court appointees enabled the reversal of Roe in 2022. He’s desperate to duck talk about further federal abortion restrictions and insists he’d leave the issue to the states. Project 2025, however, proposes a number of federal limits on abortion and contraception, and a ban on shipping the pills that account for nearly two-thirds of abortions.

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Let’s say Trump, as president, does leave abortion issues to the states. As we’ve seen already, his antiabortion appointees to the federal courts almost certainly wouldn’t hesitate to rule in ways that affect us all. And that still leaves all those other policy areas where Project 2025 reflects his policy wish list.

Get familiar with Project 2025, if you’re not. Trump’s advisors can welcome the reports of its demise, as they say. But the truth is, reports of its death are greatly exaggerated. The only way to put a stake through the thing is to make sure Trump isn’t returned to the White House.

@jackiekcalmes

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Fetterman unleashes on ‘dirtbag’ wing of Dems after far-left victories: ‘Orgy of socialism’

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Fetterman unleashes on ‘dirtbag’ wing of Dems after far-left victories: ‘Orgy of socialism’

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Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., unloaded on his own party on Sunday evening, blasting a series of victories for progressives he called “anti-America.”

“Big night for the dirtbag left,” Fetterman said, referring to New York’s recent primaries, where two members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won primaries.

“I’ve said the party is becoming an orgy of socialism. Clearly anti-America, anti-Western Civilization,” Fetterman said.

Fetterman’s striking calls give a rare look at how some moderates may view the developments on their far-left flank that have dominated the party’s momentum in recent months, sparking concern that their high visibility is dragging the party further and further left.

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FETTERMAN WARNS DEMOCRATS ‘DRIFTING FIRMLY INTO COMMUNISM’ AFTER SOCIALIST PRIMARY WINS

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., speaks to reporters outside the Senate Chamber during votes on Nov. 10, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

His comments come on the heels of a handful of key progressive victories.

In Maine, Graham Platner, a controversial Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, has attracted controversy for denying knowledge of the meaning behind a Nazi-linked tattoo, for off-color comments about race and calling himself a “communist” in a deleted Reddit post.

In New York, one DSA member, Claire Valdez, won a primary on a platform of abolishing ICE and a Green New Deal-style approach to climate change. Similarly, Darializa Avila-Chevalier, another DSA candidate, beat out incumbent Rep. Adriano Espillat, D-N.Y., a high-ranking Democrat and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

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WINNERS AND LOSERS EMERGE AFTER SOCIALIST EARTHQUAKE ROCKS NYC PRIMARIES

Graham Platner, Democratic Senate candidate for Maine, speaks at a primary election night event at the Blue Hill YMCA in Blue Hill, Maine, on June 9, 2026. Platner won the party’s Senate primary after a campaign marked by accusations of past misbehavior and voter concerns. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Both Chevalier and Valdez had the backing of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, himself a socialist.

The wins have captured national attention and drawn criticisms from Republicans who have pointed to their success as emblematic of the direction of the Democratic Party.

Fetterman, who has not shied away from confrontations, has been one of the few Democrats to express alarm about the kind of candidates carrying the party’s banner.

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“I mean, you look at some of the things that people have said. Abolish prison, abolish the border, abolish ICE, I mean these crazy people — I have colleagues in my caucus that refuse to even call this out,” Fetterman said.

FETTERMAN REACTS TO MAMDANI’S REFUSAL TO ACCEPT SUPREME COURT’S IMMIGRATION RULING

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., walks through the Senate Subway during the Senate War Powers vote on April 22, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

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“Between P-hustle in Maine and some of the other winners in New York, they should form their own party and run on all the things that they’ve had to delete on social media,” Fetterman said, referring to Platner.

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“That’s where our party has moved,” he added.

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Supreme Court limits police use of cellphone data to find crime suspects

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Supreme Court limits police use of cellphone data to find crime suspects

The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on whether police may obtain cellphone data to find crime suspects.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices said this location information showing where a cellphone user has traveled is personal and private and subject to the protection of the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.

Justice Elena Kagan said these “records serve as a personal journal of a user’s movements.”

She said the information “resembles other private materials — think of emails, documents, photographs, or calendars—that even if stored on Google’s servers, a user reasonably views as his own…and reasonably expects to be shielded from the inquisitive eyes of the government.”

Because an “individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his cellphone location data,” she said police investigators need a valid search warrant from a magistrate.

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The court stopped short of deciding the proper basis for a search warrant in such cases. Instead, the justices sent the case back to judges in Virginia.

But the outcome casts doubt on “geofence warrants.”

In recent years, police have gone to Google and cellphone companies seeking tracking data on cellphones that were at a crime scene. Sometimes, they have had a warrant from a magistrate.

Civil libertarians say the use of this tracking data raises the specter of mass surveillance on innocent people.

Police and government lawyers say no one has a reasonable right to privacy when they are walking on a sidewalk or driving down the street.

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The case before the court arose from the armed robbery conviction of a Virginia man who stole $195,000 from a credit union in a small town near Richmond.

By the time police arrived, the robber had fled. But surveillance cameras showed he was carrying a gun and a cellphone.

Lacking other leads, detective Joshua Hilton asked a judge to issue a special type of warrant seeking information from Google.
Referred to as a “geofence warrant,” it seeks data from phones in a particular area at a particular time.

The detective sought data on phones that were within 150 yards of the credit union within one hour of the late afternoon robbery.

After examining and paring down the data, the detective asked for the phone records of Okello Chatrie. Then, with a search warrant of his home, investigators found two robbery-style demand notes, a semi-automatic pistol and about $100,000 in cash.

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A judge refused to suppress the evidence from an allegedly unconstitutional search, and Chatrie entered a conditional guilty plea.
The full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals split evenly on the legality of the geofence warrant, and the Supreme Court agreed to decide the issue in Chatrie vs. U.S.

Usually investigators obtain warrants to search the home or vehicle of a known crime suspect.

The new and disputed geofence warrants seek to find a suspect by examining data on the cellphones that were at the scene of a crime.

The FBI used this cellphone data in 2021 to identify suspects who broke through police barricades on Jan. 6, 2021, and pushed their way into the Capitol to disrupt the official counting of electoral votes.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed on the outcome in Chatrie vs. U.S.

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In a 21-page dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the court had “carefully set the stage for its planned performance: striking a pose as a great champion of privacy in the digital age. I cannot support this irresponsible escapade.”

Justice Clarence Thomas agreed.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed in a one-paragraph dissent. “Chatrie had no reasonable expectation of privacy in data about his public movements that he voluntarily disclosed to Google,” she said.

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Supreme Court Expands Presidential Powers to Fire Independent Regulators

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The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that President Trump could fire independent regulators for any reason. But the justices carved out an exception for the Federal Reserve, preventing the immediate removal of Lisa D. Cook, a Federal Reserve governor.

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