Latest news with #TheProject:HowProject2025IsReshapingAmerica
USA Today
16-05-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Trump, Project 2025 and the plan to remake government
Trump, Project 2025 and the plan to remake government | The Excerpt On a special episode (first released on May 15, 2025) of The Excerpt podcast: For over 40 years, the conservative Washington think tank Heritage Foundation has issued a 'Mandate for Leadership' to guide incoming Republican administrations. The centerpiece of its latest version is Project 2025, a roughly 900-page blueprint created with input from more than 100 conservative groups. It outlines how President Donald Trump's second administration could reshape the federal government. What are the goals of Project 2025 and what roadmap does it lay out for deconstructing the administrative state? Author David A. Graham, a staff writer with The Atlantic, is out with a new book on this very topic. 'The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America,' is on bookshelves now. He joins us on The Excerpt to discuss whether or not Trump's policy choices align with Project 2025 so far and what might lie ahead. Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Dana Taylor: Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, May 15th, 2025, and this is a special episode of The Excerpt. For over 40 years, beginning with Ronald Reagan's presidency, the Conservative Washington Think Tank Heritage Foundation has issued a mandate for leadership to guide incoming Republican administrations. The centerpiece of its latest version is Project 2025, a roughly 900-page blueprint created with input for more than 100 conservative groups. It outlines how President Donald Trump's second administration could reshape the federal government. What are the goals of Project 2025 and what roadmap does it lay out for deconstructing the administrative state? During his campaign Donald Trump disavowed any ties to Project 2025, but have his policy choices so far aligned with it. Author David A. Graham, a staff writer with the Atlantic, is out with a new book on this very topic, The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America is on Bookshelves now. David, thank you for joining me. David A. Graham: Thank you for having me. Dana Taylor: What can you tell us about the Heritage Foundation and is what's proposed in this policy paper radically different from the traditional conservative push for limited government? David A. Graham: Heritage is, as you suggested, a long-running think tank. So it was founded in the mid-1970s. And at the time the founders believed that the Republican Party was too enthralled to a kind of Eisenhower Republicanism, which was fiscally conservative but not socially conservative enough. And they wanted to do both of those things. And it's waxed and waned over the years. And I think this Project 2025 was partly a bid to reclaim some influence in the movement by setting the agenda for the next Republican administration. Trump, Project 2025 and the plan to remake government The goals of Project 2025 and its roadmap for deconstructing the administrative state. I think if you look at the policies, some of them are in fact in line with a traditional Heritage Foundation approach. But I think what really sets this apart is the willingness to use government and use the power of government in ways that previous conservatives resisted. And in particular, that means empowering the executive branch and the president, which is something that a lot of conservatives have been wary of for really all of American history. Dana Taylor: There's a lot to unpack when looking at efforts to reduce the size of government. Does Project 2025 lay specific goals, for example, the number of Americans who should work for the government or the elimination of certain agencies? Is there a clear vision here in terms of overall reduction? David A. Graham: They have a few different avenues they pursue. So one of them is something that was called originally Schedule F at the end of the first term administration, which maybe people have heard of and has come back. And that's to convert 50,000 civil service appointments to political appointments. So that's one block. There are also plans to close, in particular the Department of Education, and to shrink some other departments of the government. And then the third big one is simply to reduce the number of civil servants, laying people off, firing them, slimming down. And that's something we've seen pursued in particular through Elon Musk's DOGE at the beginning of the second Trump administration. Dana Taylor: What about a specific goal for capping government spending? Which areas are in the cross hairs in Project 2025? David A. Graham: Across the board there's potential cuts. And they advocate for balancing the budget. They don't really lay out a plan for that or particular numbers. They simply say they would be a good thing. And in fact, they don't talk about Medicare or social security, which would be important probably for balancing the budget without raising taxes, which they do resist. But in a lot of ways they do want to cut spending. So they want to reduce the spending on education, they want to reduce spending on any number of programs, they want to cap spending on Medicaid. All of these things that would cut the spending, but they don't put numbers on most of those things. Dana Taylor: Does Project 2025 address the risk of instability caused by rapidly shrinking the size of government? Is instability part of the goal here more chaotic destruction than measured deconstruction? David A. Graham: They don't, and in fact, there's an interesting conflict where in some places they want to use the power of the federal government to do things to implement large programs, and at the same time they want to cut it. And I don't think they really reckon with how that would work. They also don't reckon with what that impact would be. And in places they simply say we think private industry would handle this better or we think that nonprofit groups would handle this better or faith-based groups. But I don't think they really give a clear plan of how they think government services will be provided if you cut all these things. And it's particularly acute in the case, for example, of rural healthcare, which is something that rural voters have overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump and for conservative candidates in recent years, and they propose cutting these things, but they don't offer a real explanation of how they would provide any services to these people in their stead. Dana Taylor: You mentioned the Department of Government Efficiency, and I want to talk about the role that they play here, if any, and is what they're doing something that aligns with Project 2025 or does it go beyond? David A. Graham: I think it both aligns and goes beyond. So when Project 2025 was convened in 2022 and when the Mandate for Leadership document was published in 2023, Elon Musk was not even really in the Trump camp yet. So they don't contemplate that. But I think they've done a really good job of working with Musk. And in a way I think they see Trump as a means to their ends or as a vessel and in the same way. I think they've used Musk in the same way. So Musk doesn't know a lot about government, but the people who wrote Project 2025 and who are implementing it know a ton about it and have spent a lot of time thinking about government and serving in government. And so they've pointed Musk in directions and to do the work that they wanted to do. Sometimes he does a little bit more bluntly than they might have intended and a little bit more like a bulldozer, but they seem to have found a good working relationship. Dana Taylor: There's now a deep focus on our three branches of government and how government functions overall. We saw a flurry of executive orders at the start of President Donald Trump's second term. How does Project 2025 align with the policies Donald Trump push through with those orders? David A. Graham: The first thing I'd say about balance of powers is that Project 2025 declares early on that Congress is not working well and has yielded up too many of its powers to the executive branch, which I think is a statement that a lot of Americans would agree with and a lot of experts would agree with. But their prescription is a little bit strange, which is to give more power to the executive branch. And so we've seen Trump doing that in a variety of ways. It's taking powers that have traditionally been legislative like implementing tariffs. It's laying people off without using the congressionally mandated mechanisms for doing that. It's trying to seize control of the independent regulatory agencies, things like the FCC and FTC, which Congress has structured to be semi-independent and trying to mow through those things. And it's also using what's called the impoundment power, which is basically the power to not spend money that Congress has appropriated. That's very controversial, but the authors of Project 2025 believe that the president does have the power not to spend that money and basically to take any kind of spending and budgeting power away from Congress by doing that. Dana Taylor: Some political analysts have suggested that some of Trump's executive orders are really overreach in that he's already usurped some of the powers given to Congress, the power of the purse, for example. What does Project 2025 have to say on that front? David A. Graham: They believe that they are following their constitutional vision. So they look at some of these powers. They look, for example, at the law that bans impoundment or they look at the laws that create these independent regulatory agencies. And they believe that they're not constitutional. So this is something called the unitary executive theory, which is, if anything is part of the executive branch the president should have power over it. And so that means civil service employees should be subject to hiring and firing. That means these agencies in the executive branch should be subject to hiring and firing and follow his authority. And the same holds for the Justice Department. So in their eyes, what they're doing is in fact following the Constitution more directly than the status quo. Dana Taylor: David, you wrote in The Atlantic that the focus on heterosexual, married procreating couples is everywhere in Project 2025. Can you expound on that? David A. Graham: A lot of these moves to change executive power are in the service of a broader and larger agenda, which is to restructure American society and American life. The authors generally come from a very Christian and evangelical mindset. They believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and they believe that it's drifting away from that. They complain about, for example, a Marxist takeover of the government and society that has to be pushed back. And so they want to use all of these powers of government. They want to control the executive branch and use the departments and the agencies in order to further their vision of society. And that is this very traditional vision. They want men who are winners. They want women at home raising children. They want a very traditional boys in blue and girls in pink vision. They want to push trans people into the closet. They want to write them out of the very language of government, in fact, with policies. And we've seen Trump do that with executive orders. And they want Christianity to be a guiding force in a lot of government policy. So, for example, they want social welfare organizations to push a biblically based vision of the family and educate recipients in that vision. Dana Taylor: We've seen town hall meetings and other public protests where some voters have voiced their dissent of Trump administration policies. Is public dissent addressed in Project 2025 or is the focus more on internal dissent and the so-called deep state? David A. Graham: Most of the focus is on internal dissent, but I think there's an implicit recognition that many of these things may be unpopular. And in fact, in the summer of 2024, the Heritage Foundation did some polling on Project 2025, and what it found is that when people knew about it they didn't like it. It was polling in the mid-teens, which is quite bad. And so they say we need to move quickly when we take office. We need to get a lot of things done in the first 100 days. We need to get a lot of things done in the first two years before the midterm elections. Because they understand that once there is a chance for opposition parties or congressional Republicans or the courts to step in, it will slow a lot of these things down. But they're playing a long game. I think what they want to do is move the baseline for what government looks like so that when that public disapprobation comes, they're not going to be pushed back to where they were, but they're going to be starting from somewhere else. Dana Taylor: Staying with that, you read Project 2025 in its entirety. Given its size and scope, does it seem possible that it could be implemented in just four years? David A. Graham: I don't think they could implement everything in here in four years. And some of these policies I think they understand are not realistic. I mean, for example, they seek to eliminate the Federal Reserve and to replace the taxation system with a flat consumption tax. These are just such sweeping changes that they're unlikely to happen anytime soon, and they would require Congress to act. I think the most important thing for them is this shift in the executive branch? And then they have such a wide range of policies that they know they can get some of these things done and start moving government in that direction even if they don't get it all done in four years. Dana Taylor: And finally, David, what surprised you the most about Project 2025? David A. Graham: I think the two things that jumped out at me, one was, I had read a lot of Project 2025 during the campaign in bits and pieces, and it was only when I read it start to finish as a whole document that I understood what a complete vision it was for using the whole of government. The other thing that stuck out at me is where there are still cleavages in the conservative movement and in the MAGA movement, which I think are interesting. So for example, you have a difference of opinion about tariffs with one author arguing that tariffs are an important tool for taking on China and Peter Navarro, who's now in the Trump administration, but another contributor saying tariffs will impoverish America, they're not a useful tool, and a third contributor saying trade deficits are not important. So there are these places where the interesting dissents and those are important I think, for understanding what a post-Trump Republican Party might look like and where the big cleavages will be. Dana Taylor: David, thank you so much for being on The Excerpt. David A. Graham: Thank you for having me. Dana Taylor: Thanks to our senior producers, Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan for their production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts at Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘100-year timeframe': how Project 2025 is guiding Trump's attack on government
David A Graham doesn't say he read Project 2025 so you don't have to, but it might be inferred. The Atlantic staff writer's new book, The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America, is a swift but thorough overview of the vast far-right plan for a second Trump administration that achieved notoriety last year. Over just 138 pages, a passing dream next to the Heritage Foundation's 922-page doorstop, Graham considers the origins of Project 2025, its aims and effects so far. There's a reason Project 2025 came out so long. 'They're looking at a 100-year timeframe,' Graham said. 'They're looking at things from the New Deal and saying, 'This is where the government went wrong, and we need to fix these things. We need to change them permanently and reframe what the government does and what its relationship with every American is.'' The New Deal is the name given to the vast expansion of the federal government under Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1930s, in response to the Great Depression and laying the foundation of the modern US state. Project 2025 was published in 2023. As the 2024 election loomed, Democrats raised alarms about its hardline policy recommendations on issues including climate, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive healthcare and more. Incendiary rhetoric raised awareness too. Kevin Roberts, Heritage president and author of the Project 2025 foreword, said he and his allies were 'in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be', then peppered his own book with images of fire and destruction. In praise of Roberts, JD Vance, Donald Trump's running mate, said it was time to 'load the muskets'. To Graham, such bellicose rhetoric was 'terrifying' but also, in retrospect, a clear signpost to things to come. 'To say that publicly before the election is really a strange public relations choice. It's such a chilling thing to say. But you know, it told us what they wanted.' Amid controversy, Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025 and its authors. But then he won the election. At the outset of his second term, he duly unleashed slashing cuts to federal staffing and budgets and a barrage of executive orders advancing policies directly linked to Project 2025 or firmly in its spirit. ••• Graham is an award-winning reporter, used to working fast. He started writing The Project 'at the very end of November', weeks after Trump defeated Kamala Harris, 'and turned the book in in mid-January'. He wrote the book, he said, because 'we the press, we the American public, had talked a lot about Project 2025 during the election, and it felt like it had kind of gone away – but it remained really relevant. And I felt like there was a lot in it that I didn't understand, and a lot that had been missed.' During the 2024 election, experts did indeed advise that such policy plans for possible administrations have existed for decades but have rarely been enacted. The sheer size of Project 2025 might also have lulled some into a false sense of security. Like many reporters, Graham 'had dabbled in parts of it'. Unlike many, he found 'it was a different experience to read the whole thing altogether. 'I think it is both more radical in some ways than it came across – like, when you're just reading atomized policies, you don't get what a social program it is – [but] one of the other things that I think is interesting is how there are ideas that I think are either [only] fairly objectionable or might have widespread appeal, right next to ones that are totally out in right field. You'll be in the same paragraph or in the same chapter. 'And the third thing I think is interesting is the way there are disagreements within the text, either between the authors or between the authors and Donald Trump. Those cleavages within the right I think are worth paying attention to now.' Trump opponents looking for cleavages will not find them in the influential office of management and budget, now directed by Russ Vought, a Christian nationalist, advocate of 'traumatizing' political enemies, and Project 2025 co-author. The original director of Project 2025, Paul Dans, fell victim to political necessity in 2024, forced out of the Heritage Foundation as Trump came under pressure – but remains a true believer, recently declaring Trump's actions in office to be beyond his 'wildest dreams'. But there is also Elon Musk. The world's richest man has led Trump's so-called department of government efficiency, or Doge, in attacking federal agencies and departments with startling speed and recklessness. 'This is one of the places I have been most surprised,' Graham said, 'because I think the methods that they lay out [in Project 2025] are really important. I thought that an important part of this was going to be how deeply people like Russ Vought had thought about, 'OK, how can we work within the bounds of the law to achieve these things? How can we rework the bureaucracy?' And in fact, Musk came in and just blasted right through it and made it a lot easier for them, and a lot faster. I certainly didn't expect that. It's not contemplated in the book or in the original document.' Nor are Trump's beloved tariffs much loved by Project 2025 and its free-trade-loving authors. Graham said: 'There are these big differences within Project 2025. The most obvious place is the chapters on tariffs … they [also] disagree with Trump on Ukraine. They're much more hawkish on Ukraine, and anti-Russia. You have this sort of standard, 'We stand up for Israel, We oppose Iran,' sort of thing, but foreign policy is barely mentioned. It's all about China. And Trump talks the talk on China, but then many of the things he's doing, like tariffs, which are discussed in Project 2025 but not as a major priority, are alienating the rest of the world, which makes it very hard to take on China. 'But then, even something as small as how to handle childcare, you have different people having different views [within Project 2025]. One of the things that jumps out at me is they did a really good job of figuring out how to meld these longstanding social and religious conservative priorities on to Maga. They find places where they can work with Trump. Trump is very interested in talking about trans rights and Democrats, and men are very interested in fighting back much more broadly on gender norms, LGBTQ+ rights, and so … Project 2025 becomes sort of like a tip of the spear to get Trump's attention. They care about 'wokeness', and DEI, maybe for different reasons than he does, but they'll attack that, and it gets him onboard. On another key issue of Trump's second term, Graham sees the White House and the ideologues of Project 2025 much more closely aligned. Project 2025 is 'very focused on illegal immigration, but also on legal immigration. Overall, the point is to have fewer people who are born overseas in the US, by whatever means necessary. And so they talk about mass deportation, and they talk about detention centers, but they also talk about reducing the number of visas that people get and trying to … find people who have lied on their citizenship applications, to revoke citizenship, denaturalization. 'There are things where you see maybe not a direct correlation but the same spirit. So we see in Project 2025 an argument that we need to crack down on student visas from quote, unquote, unfriendly countries, and use student visas as a sort of tool of political warfare.' ••• Trump may not be implementing Project 2025 word for word but its authors have much to delight them. Conversely, Graham's book is sprinkled with lines that prompt grim laughter. Consider the case of James Sherk, a Trump adviser on civil service and labor issues in the first term who drafted 'Schedule F', a proposal to reclassify about 50,000 civil service jobs as political, thereby allowing a president to fire such people at will. Under Joe Biden, Schedule F was shelved. Ahead of Trump's second term, Project 2025 advocated putting it swiftly to use. Last year, Sherk spoke to ProPublica. 'The notion we're going to can 50,000 people is just insane,' he said. 'Why would you do that? That would kneecap your ability to implement your agenda.' Under Trump, more than 260,000 government workers have been fired, taken buyouts or retired early. The Project is published in the US by Random House
The Guardian
26-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘100-year timeframe': how Project 2025 is guiding Trump's attack on government
David A Graham doesn't say he read Project 2025 so you don't have to, but it might be inferred. The Atlantic staff writer's new book, The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America, is a swift but thorough overview of the vast far-right plan for a second Trump administration that achieved notoriety last year. Over just 138 pages, a passing dream next to the Heritage Foundation's 922-page doorstop, Graham considers the origins of Project 2025, its aims and effects so far. There's a reason Project 2025 came out so long. 'They're looking at a 100-year timeframe,' Graham said. 'They're looking at things from the New Deal and saying, 'This is where the government went wrong, and we need to fix these things. We need to change them permanently and reframe what the government does and what its relationship with every American is.'' The New Deal is the name given to the vast expansion of the federal government under Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1930s, in response to the Great Depression and laying the foundation of the modern US state. Project 2025 was published in 2023. As the 2024 election loomed, Democrats raised alarms about its hardline policy recommendations on issues including climate, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive healthcare and more. Incendiary rhetoric raised awareness too. Kevin Roberts, Heritage president and author of the Project 2025 foreword, said he and his allies were 'in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be', then peppered his own book with images of fire and destruction. In praise of Roberts, JD Vance, Donald Trump's running mate, said it was time to 'load the muskets'. To Graham, such bellicose rhetoric was 'terrifying' but also, in retrospect, a clear signpost to things to come. 'To say that publicly before the election is really a strange public relations choice. It's such a chilling thing to say. But you know, it told us what they wanted.' Amid controversy, Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025 and its authors. But then he won the election. At the outset of his second term, he duly unleashed slashing cuts to federal staffing and budgets and a barrage of executive orders advancing policies directly linked to Project 2025 or firmly in its spirit. Graham is an award-winning reporter, used to working fast. He started writing The Project 'at the very end of November', weeks after Trump defeated Kamala Harris, 'and turned the book in in mid-January'. He wrote the book, he said, because 'we the press, we the American public, had talked a lot about Project 2025 during the election, and it felt like it had kind of gone away – but it remained really relevant. And I felt like there was a lot in it that I didn't understand, and a lot that had been missed.' During the 2024 election, experts did indeed advise that such policy plans for possible administrations have existed for decades but have rarely been enacted. The sheer size of Project 2025 might also have lulled some into a false sense of security. Like many reporters, Graham 'had dabbled in parts of it'. Unlike many, he found 'it was a different experience to read the whole thing altogether. 'I think it is both more radical in some ways than it came across – like, when you're just reading atomized policies, you don't get what a social program it is – [but] one of the other things that I think is interesting is how there are ideas that I think are either [only] fairly objectionable or might have widespread appeal, right next to ones that are totally out in right field. You'll be in the same paragraph or in the same chapter. 'And the third thing I think is interesting is the way there are disagreements within the text, either between the authors or between the authors and Donald Trump. Those cleavages within the right I think are worth paying attention to now.' Trump opponents looking for cleavages will not find them in the influential office of management and budget, now directed by Russ Vought, a Christian nationalist, advocate of 'traumatizing' political enemies, and Project 2025 co-author. The original director of Project 2025, Paul Dans, fell victim to political necessity in 2024, forced out of the Heritage Foundation as Trump came under pressure – but remains a true believer, recently declaring Trump's actions in office to be beyond his 'wildest dreams'. But there is also Elon Musk. The world's richest man has led Trump's so-called department of government efficiency, or Doge, in attacking federal agencies and departments with startling speed and recklessness. 'This is one of the places I have been most surprised,' Graham said, 'because I think the methods that they lay out [in Project 2025] are really important. I thought that an important part of this was going to be how deeply people like Russ Vought had thought about, 'OK, how can we work within the bounds of the law to achieve these things? How can we rework the bureaucracy?' And in fact, Musk came in and just blasted right through it and made it a lot easier for them, and a lot faster. I certainly didn't expect that. It's not contemplated in the book or in the original document.' Nor are Trump's beloved tariffs much loved by Project 2025 and its free-trade-loving authors. Graham said: 'There are these big differences within Project 2025. The most obvious place is the chapters on tariffs … they [also] disagree with Trump on Ukraine. They're much more hawkish on Ukraine, and anti-Russia. You have this sort of standard, 'We stand up for Israel, We oppose Iran,' sort of thing, but foreign policy is barely mentioned. It's all about China. And Trump talks the talk on China, but then many of the things he's doing, like tariffs, which are discussed in Project 2025 but not as a major priority, are alienating the rest of the world, which makes it very hard to take on China. 'But then, even something as small as how to handle childcare, you have different people having different views [within Project 2025]. One of the things that jumps out at me is they did a really good job of figuring out how to meld these longstanding social and religious conservative priorities on to Maga. They find places where they can work with Trump. Trump is very interested in talking about trans rights and Democrats, and men are very interested in fighting back much more broadly on gender norms, LGBTQ+ rights, and so … Project 2025 becomes sort of like a tip of the spear to get Trump's attention. They care about 'wokeness', and DEI, maybe for different reasons than he does, but they'll attack that, and it gets him onboard. On another key issue of Trump's second term, Graham sees the White House and the ideologues of Project 2025 much more closely aligned. Project 2025 is 'very focused on illegal immigration, but also on legal immigration. Overall, the point is to have fewer people who are born overseas in the US, by whatever means necessary. And so they talk about mass deportation, and they talk about detention centers, but they also talk about reducing the number of visas that people get and trying to … find people who have lied on their citizenship applications, to revoke citizenship, denaturalization. 'There are things where you see maybe not a direct correlation but the same spirit. So we see in Project 2025 an argument that we need to crack down on student visas from quote, unquote, unfriendly countries, and use student visas as a sort of tool of political warfare.' Trump may not be implementing Project 2025 word for word but its authors have much to delight them. Conversely, Graham's book is sprinkled with lines that prompt grim laughter. Consider the case of James Sherk, a Trump adviser on civil service and labor issues in the first term who drafted 'Schedule F', a proposal to reclassify about 50,000 civil service jobs as political, thereby allowing a president to fire such people at will. Under Joe Biden, Schedule F was shelved. Ahead of Trump's second term, Project 2025 advocated putting it swiftly to use. Last year, Sherk spoke to ProPublica. 'The notion we're going to can 50,000 people is just insane,' he said. 'Why would you do that? That would kneecap your ability to implement your agenda.' Under Trump, more than 260,000 government workers have been fired, taken buyouts or retired early. The Project is published in the US by Random House
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump signals support for 'baby bonuses' to convince women to have children
The Trump administration appears poised to pursue another major goal of the conservative policy blueprint, Project 2025 —restoring traditional families. And it may start with convincing women to have more children. Author David Graham joins The 11th Hour to discuss his new book, "The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America."
Axios
15-04-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Local Limelight with The Atlantic's David A. Graham
Every day, journalist and Durham resident David A. Graham gets up and tries to make sense of the world of politics as a staff writer at The Atlantic and writer of the magazine's daily newsletter. Driving the news: His new book, " The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America," out on April 22, attempts to unpack how President Trump's second term in office could reshape the U.S. The book takes a deep dive into Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page document published by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, and its influence on the White House. What they're saying: Graham said he doesn't believe most voters knew much about Project 2025 when they voted. "Democrats basically treated it as a talking point (and in some notable cases misrepresented it)," Graham told Axios. "Donald Trump tried to hide from it. But the full scope of what Project 2025 wanted to achieve and the methods it laid out to do so never really broke through." You can read an excerpt from the book over at The Atlantic. You can also catch Graham chatting about the book with New York Times columnist Frank Bruni at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill on April 29. We talked with Graham for our latest Local Limelight conversation. The Q&A has been edited for Smart Brevity. 🎓 How did you end up in the Triangle? I went to Duke and left after graduation but returned for my wife's job. 🐝 What's your first read in the morning? Axios Raleigh! (Well, really The New York Times Spelling Bee, but after that…) 🍽️ Favorite place to eat in the Triangle? Ideal's for lunch and Littler for dinner. (RIP Honey's.) 🍻 How do you unplug at the end of the day? A good beer and hanging out with my kids ✈️ What do you think the Triangle is missing? Direct public transit from RDU to Durham, and some really good pho.
