What is Project 2025, and what does it mean for Florida?

Former President Donald Trump wants to distance himself from Project 2025, the much-discussed conservative policy platform that has divided Republicans and enraged Democrats.

The plan is a blueprint for a hoped-for Republican presidency in 2025. Organized by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and dozens of other conservative organizations, Project 2025 calls for an overhaul of the executive branch and a dramatic expansion of presidential power.

Trump says he knows little of the project, though many of his allies contributed. The Biden campaign, meanwhile, has worked to tie Trump to the conservative plan as it tries to shift attention away from growing concerns over the leader’s age.

Here’s what to know about the proposal.

What is Project 2025?

Project 2025 is a roadmap for the GOP’s transition to the next Republican president. It includes a 900-page policy agenda, a roster of personnel who could serve in the administration, training tools and a playbook for the first 180 days in office.

The Heritage Foundation, which led the effort, has shaped Republican policies and personnel since the 1980s. More than 100 conservative organizations contributed to the new proposal, Heritage said.

Kevin D. Roberts, the group’s president, said he thinks the country is becoming more conservative.

“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts said in July on Real America’s Voice, a right-wing cable channel. The “radical left” are “losing their minds daily … because our side is winning,” he said.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, said attempts to tie him to Project 2025 are “pure disinformation.”

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump said in a Truth Social post last week. “I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it.”

But dozens of people in Trump’s orbit are involved.

Top advisers during his first term in the White House, including six Cabinet secretaries and his first deputy chief of staff, worked on the policy document. Russell T. Vought, Trump’s former budget director and the policy director for the Republican National Convention, authored a section on executive orders.

What does Project 2025 propose?

Project 2025 claims four broad goals: Restore family as the centerpiece of American life, dismantle the administrative state, defend the country against global threats and “secure our God-given individual rights to live freely.”

The plan rejects abortion as health care and decries “woke extremism” in government agencies, corporations and schools. It recommends restructuring the U.S. tax code, deploying the military along the U.S.-Mexico border and banning pornography.

Project 2025 also seeks to disband federal agencies like the Commerce and Education departments and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which it dubs “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”

In addition to hot-button policy proposals, Project 2025 recommends that the entire executive branch, including the Department of Justice, fall under direct control of the president.

Are there Florida-specific proposals?

The 900-page agenda doesn’t lay out federal proposals that would specifically target Florida. Instead, in numerous instances, it proposes the opposite: Florida laws that have passed that the authors want to see enacted federally.

For example, Project 2025 recommends national legislation modeled after Florida’s Parents’ Bill of Rights, which was used during the 2021 fight over mask mandates in schools. Project 2025 also proposes a “pro-fatherhood messaging campaign” similar to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2022 fatherhood bill, which includes education and mentorship programs to encourage involved fatherhood in Florida.

The Sunshine State is mentioned by name about a dozen times in the document.

What do Florida politicians think?

Florida Democrats say Project 2025 is a dangerous and oppressive measure.

“The most concerning part is this far-right neo-fascist lens of how government should work,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost, an Orlando-area Democrat. “What they want to do is tear apart the federal government.”

To Democrats like Frost, the conservative vision for governing is aimed at consolidating power. If crucial parts of the government are privatized, they leave the realm of public accountability, Frost said.

That idea is in line with the Biden campaign. Biden on Thursday posted an ad on X that said Project 2025 would “dismantle democracy as we know it.”

The Democratic National Committee paid for several billboards across South Florida that denounced Project 2025 ahead of a Trump rally in Doral on Tuesday. Towering above I-95 and the Palmetto Expressway, the signs declared the plan “Donald Trump’s blueprint for revenge and retribution.”

“Project 2025 is Republican’s diabolical blueprint to destroy everything we’ve fought for: healthcare, environmental protections—EVERYTHING,” said U.S. Rep. Federica Wilson, a Miami-area Democrat, in a post on X Wednesday. “WE CANNOT ALLOW this heinous agenda to become reality!”

Evan Power, chairperson of the Republican Party of Florida, said the party is “focused on endorsing the Republican Party platform at our convention in Milwaukee and President Trump’s agenda that will ensure a safer and prosperous future for our country.”

The Republican National Committee adopted a new policy platform ahead of the convention next week. It includes some overlap with Project 2025. For example, both platforms call for more aggressive deportation of people living in the country illegally.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, reportedly on Trump’s vice president shortlist, distanced the candidate from Project 2025 in an interview on CNN earlier this week.

“Think tanks do think tank stuff. They come up with ideas, they say things,” Rubio said. “But our candidate for president is Donald Trump.”

Times staff writer Kirby Wilson contributed to this report.