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Why Trump Is Distancing Himself From Project 2025

“They’re holding themselves out as part of the official or semiofficial transition team, and they’ve been warned to knock it the fuck off. They didn’t,” one source close to Trump told NOTUS.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Road to Majority conference.
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

After Donald Trump tried to distance himself from The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 on Friday, Democrats were all too happy to take a victory lap, claiming it was proof that their effort to hype up the far-right playbook for a second Trump term was working with voters.

The truth is that it was Project 2025 leaders’ own efforts that set him off, a source close to Trump told NOTUS.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump said on Truth Social. “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.”