What is Project 2025, and how could it impact the Pittsburgh region?

Vice President Kamala Harris wasted no time targeting Project 2025.

In her first campaign appearances as the likely Democratic nominee for president, Harris took aim at the conservative movement’s 922-page blueprint for remaking America, describing it in a speech Wednesday in Indianapolis as “a plan to return America to a dark past.”

Found in its pages is the conservative movement’s detailed road map for a second Donald Trump presidency, one backed by the influential Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, and dozens of other conservative groups with deep ties to Republican lawmakers.

“If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration,” according to the Project 2025 website. “This is the goal of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project.”

The tome that lays out the framework for a conservative presidential administration, called “Mandate for Leadership 2025,” establishes a goal “to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State.”

In 30 chapters penned by leading conservative scholars and policy experts, “Mandate for Leadership” sets out agendas and ways to remake the federal bureaucracy — its departments, regulatory agencies and the White House — and manage the economy.

It claims that it represents “the next conservative President’s last opportunity to save our republic.” And it addresses hot-button issues such as abortion, immigration, weaponizing the Justice Department and slashing the federal government.

The highly detailed wish list goes far beyond this year’s slim official Republican Party platform, which itself expanded on 2020’s one-page document.

This year’s glossy production has about 20 pages of vague policy descriptions and highlights goals such as sealing the U.S.-Mexico border, deporting a large number of immigrants, ending inflation, and making the U.S. the globe’s top energy producer.

It doesn’t delve into specifics like past platforms did, leaving unanswered questions about how the GOP’s policies would impact Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania.

Trump has claimed that he has nothing to do with the project.

But dozens of people in his circle are connected to Project 2025 — at least 140, according to CNN. His vice presidential pick, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has a close relationship with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, even drafting the foreword to Roberts’ new book, “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America.”

With the lines blurred between the Republican Party’s platform and Project 2025, abortion activists, immigration advocates, local Democrats and legal scholars are sounding the alarm on how Project 2025 might impact Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania.

“This will roll back Americans’ freedoms, hurt the middle class and raise costs on working-class families,” Pennsylvania Democratic Lt. Gov. Austin Davis said during a press conference in Pittsburgh that coincided with the last day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. “Project 2025 would virtually gut checks and balances to give Trump unchecked power.”

Sam DeMarco, chairman of the Republican Committee of Allegheny County, pooh-poohs such concerns.

DeMarco, who is also an Allegheny County councilman at-large, said Democrats are merely trying to distract from what he said is the Biden-Harris administration’s poor record on inflation, immigration and energy. He said liberals are trying to trick voters with a “shiny object” and are trying to turn Project 2025 into a bogeyman.

“Take their claims with a grain of salt,” DeMarco said.

Project origins

The Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation launched Project 2025 in April 2022.

The foundation has a long history of writing and releasing documents similar to Project 2025 that could be used as a guide for conservative administrations looking to craft legislation and policy. Its “Mandate for Leadership” series dates to 1981.

While Trump has tried to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 over the last month, Harris — now the presumptive candidate to replace President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket — seems to have no intention of backing off from linking the two. She said Monday she will fight to “defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.”

At a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on July 20, a week after Trump survived an assassination attempt in Butler County, Trump said he was not an extremist and called some of the Project 2025 policy positions “seriously extreme.”

He criticized the left for making him out to be a threat to democracy. “I’m saying, ‘What the hell did I do to democracy? Last week, I took a bullet for democracy,’ ” Trump told the crowd of supporters.

“I don’t know anything about (Project 2025),” Trump continued. “I don’t want to know anything about it.”

Still, during Trump’s first term, he relied heavily on Heritage Foundation-backed picks for key staff positions in his administration.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

In response to an inquiry from TribLive, the Heritage Foundationfurnished a statement it said was from Project 2025. The statement said the “Mandate for Leadership” does not speak for President Trump or his campaign.

“Project 2025 was stood up by the conservative movement in 2022 to assist the next conservative president. We started this project before any major candidate announced a campaign,” the statement said. “Project 2025 has brought together 110 respected conservative organizations in support of commonsense ideas that will restore our nation.”

Nearly two-thirds of Project 2025’s authors and editors served in the first Trump administration, according to CNN.

Trump’s attempt to put space between him and Project 2025 comes as “Mandate for Leadership” is still relatively unknown, according to polling this month by YouGov, an international online research firm, which said 42% of Americans had not heard of it.

Nearly half of Americans said they didn’t have an opinion about Project 2025, the poll found, while 39% held an unfavorable opinion and 13% viewed it favorably.

Abortion Restrictions

Project 2025 does not call for a nationwide abortion ban but instead lays out aggressive proposals to prevent abortions and restrict certain contraceptive coverage.

They include ending the mandate for insurance to cover morning-after pills; using an 1873 law to prosecute people who send abortion pills through the mail; and revoking federal approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, which was used in about 55% of Pennsylvania’s 18,370 abortions in 2021, according to state Health Department data.

The Project 2025 plan encourages conservatives to celebrate Roe v. Wade being overturned and said that decision is “just the beginning” for the anti-abortion movement.

Signe Espinoza, director of Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates, said if it were to be implemented, Project 2025 would have an enormous impact on abortion access.

Pennsylvania had 145 abortion providers when Roe v. Wade became law in the 1970s, but that number is now down to 17 providers, including just two in the Pittsburgh region. Since Roe was struck down in June 2022 and abortion bans were implemented in neighboring Ohio and West Virginia, increased pressure has been put on Pennsylvania clinics, she said.

Project 2025 calls for a crackdown on people traveling to states without bans to seek abortions by requiring states to report where women seeking abortions live and cutting federal funds if they refuse.

The Republican Party platform is decidedly softer than Project 2025’s wish list. The platform removed mention of a nationwide abortion ban this year and says instead it will oppose “late-term abortions” but doesn’t define what that means. The GOP platform says it supports prenatal care and access to birth control and fertility treatments.

Vance, Trump’s running mate, may be more in line with Project 2025’s thinking. In a 2022 interview with a Virginia-based podcast, Vance said he was open to a “federal response” to blocking people from traveling out of state to seek abortions.

Pennsylvania will pick a new attorney general this year, and that could determine how the state decides to address out-of-state abortion seekers.

Democratic candidate Eugene DePasquale of Pittsburgh, a former state legislator and auditor general, has pledged to protect abortion rights and not prosecute people seeking abortions from out of state.

The Republican candidate, York County District Attorney Dave Sunday, has not shared his personal thoughts on abortion and has said he will follow state law on the matter.

Last year, Allegheny County’s district attorney pledged to defend abortion rights and has said he would not prosecute abortion seekers that come from states with bans.

Immigration Cuts

Project 2025 criticizes State Department immigration guidelines as “a global welfare program” and seeks to curtail refugee admissions into the U.S. It urges the repeal of Temporary Protected Status designations, which provide protection and work authorization to nationals of certain countries due to armed conflict, natural disasters and other emergencies.

There were nearly 12,000 such recipients in Pennsylvania, as of March 2024, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Project 2025 also would endanger the legal status of Pennsylvania’s 3,800 recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created in 2012 under President Barack Obama, said Monica Ruiz of Beechview-based immigrant service group Casa San Jose.

She said going after so-called Dreamers, or children brought to the U.S. illegally, and those with a Temporary Protected Status designation would have adverse effects on Pittsburgh’s economy.

Ruiz said many undocumented immigrants with protected status work as nurses and in other health care jobs in the region, and she notes hospitals and health care facilities are already suffering from a nursing shortage that is draining workers’ energy and driving up costs at hospitals.

“The Pittsburgh immigrant population tends to be younger, which is good for our workforce since we have one of the higher percentages of elderly people in the country,” Ruiz said.

The Pittsburgh region’s labor force is shrinking. The region shed 48,000 workers between 2019 and 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Project 2025 also proposes barring U.S. citizens from qualifying for federal housing subsidies if they live with anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.

Ruiz said there are many immigrant families that have split households of citizens and non-citizens, and taking away subsidies will not only make their lives more difficult but have a chilling effect on their communities.

She said it will generally discourage immigration into the region at a time when Pittsburgh is struggling to find any positive population growth. She noted the region’s influx of residents from other states is easily overwhelmed by the amount of native-born Pittsburghers who leave.

The one demographic seeing positive growth in the Pittsburgh region is immigrants, said Ruiz.

Between 2020 and 2023, the Pittsburgh region saw 24,748 more U.S. citizens leave than move in. At the same time, 6,530 immigrants settled in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

“When we live in a region that is losing population, we need people,” she said. “ When we look at other U.S. cities that are thriving, it is because they have diversity. People are still leaving en masse.”

Federal losses

A large section of Project 2025 is dedicated to carrying out the longtime conservative priority of cutting federal spending, which would affect programs dedicated to aiding low-income Americans.

Pittsburgh Controller Rachael Heisler, a Democrat, said the city has relied on millions in federal aid to maintain services as it recovers from the pandemic.

She said the city received $335 million in federal funding to offset severe cuts in city revenue following the pandemic. Federal funds totaling $79 million have been used to help the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority replace lead pipes.

“Think about what the federal government has done to support municipalities across the country to emerge from the covid-19 pandemic,” Heisler said. “I am not confident that that money would continue under Project 2025.”

Project 2025 calls for repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, which cut health care costs for seniors on Medicare. Repealing that law would eliminate newly established caps that allow seniors to access insulin for no more than $35.

The conservative wish list also proposes eliminating Head Start, claiming the program to help low-income families pay for preschool is “fraught with scandal and abuse.” It would also add more strings to eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps, potentially reducing the number of recipients.

Pennsylvania funds over 30,000 kids through Headstart. More than 2 million Pennsylvanians receive SNAP benefits, including about 130,000 people in Allegheny County.

Allegheny County provides half-off public transit fares to working-age adults who receive SNAP benefits as part of its Allegheny GO program. That program currently serves over 3,500 households, with the goal of reaching 15,000 households.

Allegheny GO would likely see corresponding cuts if the number of SNAP beneficiaries shrinks, said Abigail Gardner, spokeswoman for Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato.

Trump enemies

In June, Trump indicated a desire to seek political revenge against Biden, telling Fox News he would “have every right” for revenge because he is facing criminal prosecutions.

Later in the month, when psychologist and TV personality Phil “Dr. Phil” McGraw suggested seeking revenge might be unwise, Trump said “sometimes revenge can be justified.”

Project 2025 channels some of that grievance mentality into its rhetoric. The project’s manifesto says if Trump is elected, “Conservatives have just two years and one shot to get this right. With enemies at home and abroad, there is no margin for error. Time is running short. If we fail, the fight for the very idea of America may be lost.”

For more than 50 years, there has been a separation between the White House and the Justice Department, even though presidents pick who runs the nation’s law enforcement arm.

Project 2025 lays out proposals to reconsider that status quo, potentially giving a Trump presidency more direct control over criminal investigations, said New York University law professor Peter M. Shane.

Shane, a former dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a past faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, is a leading scholar in U.S. constitutional and administrative law, with a special focus on the American presidency and the separation of powers.

He said it’s typical for presidents to speak to their attorney general about broad policy initiatives, but since the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, presidents have avoided weighing in on individual cases the Justice Department is investigating.

If this barrier is broken down under a future Trump administration, Shane said Trump could direct his attorney general to investigate his political adversaries for any reason.

Shane said potential Pennsylvania targets that already have drawn Trump’s and Republicans’ ire include Secretary of State Al Schmidt, liberal members of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court and numerous county election officials.

“It could be the governor, it could be members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, it could be any election official that he thinks defrauded him in 2020,” Shane said.

Schmidt, a Republican former Philadelphia commissioner and member of that city’s election board, came under attack from Trump and his allies following the 2020 election. Trump claimed, without evidence, that 8,000 dead voters cast ballots in Philadelphia, said Schmidt during a congressional hearing on the Jan. 6, 2021 riot on the U.S. Capitol.

The state Supreme Court has made several decisions over the years that have come under intense criticism from Republicans, most notably a ruling that required the state to redraw its congressional districts to avoid partisan gerrymandering.

Shane said opening up investigations won’t necessarily lead to criminal prosecution or convictions of these state officials, especially if there is no real evidence of wrongdoing, but it could have a chilling effect.

“Opening an investigation doesn’t push them off their roles, but it raises the personal cost of opposing Trump,” he said.

Republicans object

Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, said this week that she was not aware of Project 2025 and couldn’t say how it might impact the region.

She said she does believe Trump will help Southwestern Pennsylvania because he will help boost energy production.

“We have an abundance of resources here in Western Pennsylvania, and President Biden by executive order closed down our pipelines,” Ward said, referring to a pause Biden ordered on natural gas exports that was recently overturned by a federal judge.

“President Trump will open those up and we will again prosper and create a lot of good paying jobs.”

DeMarco, the Allegheny County GOP chairman, said Trump and the Republican Party stand for cutting regulations to promote business, strengthen national security, and alter immigration policies to prevent “open borders.”

DeMarco said numerous conservative groups put out wish lists and blueprints to try to influence presidential administrations, but that doesn’t mean Trump will follow them.

“That is why Trump pushed to consolidate the official GOP platform, to focus on the bullet points of the things we stand for, and not focus on these ideas that are far from the center of power,” he said.