February 11, 2026

How Project 2025 Is Reshaping Our Country

Journalist David A. Graham says the policies from the conservative roadmap may be just the beginning.

A middle-aged woman with long reddish-brown hair, dressed in a blue blouse, looks over her right shoulder as she speaks into a microphone on a stage. She holds up an oversized book with the title, “2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.”

Michigan Sen. Mallory McMorrow holds up an oversized Project 2025 book as a warning for the nation during her speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call/Getty

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During the 2024 presidential campaign, a conservative playbook emerged. Created by the Heritage Foundation, this 900-plus-page document was a roadmap written for a future conservative president. And while some Republicans tried to distance themselves from Project 2025, the authors and the concepts they wrote about have been embraced by President Donald Trump.

Journalist David A. Graham did a deep dive analyzing the pages for his book, The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America. “I think at the heart of all of this is they want this Christian, conservative vision of society, and the way that they wanna achieve that is by dismantling many of the institutions of government as we know them,” he says.

On this week’s More To The Story, Graham sits down with host Al Letson to talk about how ideas and policies from Project 2025—like mass deportations, the replacement of federal workers with Trump loyalists, and the elimination of DEI initiatives—could be just the beginning. He says a lot of what has happened already is not reversible: “I think that a Democrat is going to have to rethink the way the government works…There’s no going back to January 19, 2025.”

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We can afford to take that time because we don’t report to an oligarch or corporation with a special agenda. We report to you, and for you. That’s why we unabashedly pursue the truth and relentlessly shine a light into the darkness.

In this month’s Summer Membership Drive, we’ve got to raise $200,000 to support more crucial investigations. This is a pivotal moment in our nation, with democracy on the line, and we can only do this work because readers like you step up. Every donation, of any amount, makes a difference here. We cannot do this work without you.

So, we’re asking: Will you support independent journalism that demands those in power answer for their actions?

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