FIRST ON FOX: Within the warmth of the 2024 election cycle, the identify Challenge 2025 was on the lips of Democrats and mainstream media figures in all places, till it was not.
President Donald Trump’s win ushered within the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) and its de-facto chief, Elon Musk. On the similar time, Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, launched DOGE committees in Congress, and Challenge 2025 appeared to fall to the political wayside.
Trump himself repeatedly dispelled allegations he and Challenge 2025 – a thousand-page coverage proposal product of the conservative Heritage Basis – have been joined on the political hip.
In the meantime, Heritage leaders previous and current, like Reagan Lawyer Basic Edwin Meese and Heritage President Kevin Roberts, rejected claims there was something radical about Challenge 2025. The quadrennial work has been printed below numerous titles and compositions for the reason that 1980 presidential cycle, with some exceptions.
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Roberts, who wrote the foreword to Challenge 2025, mentioned voters’ collective voices ushered in Trump and DOGE’s present work, not essentially the coverage proposals of Washington’s conservative “do-tank” or students inside-the-beltway writ-large.
“The American folks delivered a transparent mandate in November: dismantle the bloated, unaccountable forms that’s the Deep State. And the newest polling – a 53% approval ranking – confirms overwhelming assist for President Trump’s efforts to do exactly that,” he mentioned.
When requested about liberals’ panic over Challenge 2025 and the way it has been muted with the rise of DOGE, Roberts prompt the left will latch onto something to make a problem out of it in the event that they consider they’ll make good points.
“The Left has no new concepts—simply unpopular ones. After they fail to win on substance, they merely select to assault. First, it was Challenge 2025. Now, it’s DOGE. Completely different identify, similar baseless fearmongering,” Roberts mentioned in a Monday interview. “However make no mistake: the American individuals are prepared for actual change, and we’re not backing down.”
Nonetheless, Challenge 2025 turned styled as a “right-wing boogeyman” speaking level on the left.
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Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., based the “Cease Challenge 2025 Process Drive” final 12 months, evaluating the venture to a “Blitzkrieg” and saying that lawmakers should perceive it and “put together ourselves accordingly.”
On the Democratic Nationwide Conference, each Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., and Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia, held up copies of Challenge 2025 on stage.
“It’s a radical plan to tug us backwards, bankrupt the center class, and lift costs on working class households like yours and mine,” mentioned Kenyatta, who has since been elected DNC vice chairman together with gun management activist David Hogg.
The Challenge’s rumored status turned fodder for constituents at city halls as nicely, together with in a single swing-seat congressional race the place a Republican’s incredulous response led to a viral second, based on Politico.
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New Jersey Rep. Tom Kean Jr. was requested about Challenge 2025 at such an occasion and responded he had by no means learn the doc.
“The primary time I’ve ever heard of being supportive of it was after I was accused of supporting it,” Kean reportedly replied.
One in every of Trump and Musk’s newer main endeavors – taking an ax to USAID – is extra a venture of DOGE, whereas Challenge 2025 suggests a extra measured method to rein within the company’s expenditures and politicization.
That venture part, authored by former company COO Max Primorac, describes USAID as having been “deformed” by the Biden administration to pursue a “divisive political and cultural agenda.”
Primorac suggests the subsequent administration “reduce” USAID’s world footprint and return it to pre-COVID price range ranges whereas “deradicalizing” its applications and chopping its worldwide affairs accounts.
Moreover, former Virginia Lawyer Basic Ken Cuccinelli wrote in Challenge 2025 that the president ought to “pursue laws to dismantle the Division of Homeland Safety” and that it has not “gelled into one DHS” as was its purpose when based after 9/11.
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DOGE Chair Elon Musk. (Getty)
Cuccinelli had argued that breaking apart DHS alongside “mission[-related] traces” would result in a more practical authorities equipment.
As an alternative, Trump and Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem have expanded DHS’ function versus the Biden administration, together with the addition of former ICE appearing Director Tom Homan as border czar.
DOGE’s ruminations about reforming or trimming the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau (CFPB) – which have enraged the likes of its proverbial “founder” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. – have been, nonetheless, mirrored within the coverage proposal anthology.
“Elon Musk and the man who wrote Challenge 2025, Russ Vought, are attempting to kill the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau,” Warren mentioned Monday. “In the event that they succeed, CEOs and Wall Avenue will as soon as once more be free to trick, entice and cheat you.”
Vought didn’t write Challenge 2025. He was credited because the writer for Chapter 2, which analyzes the chief workplace of the president.
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Former Chase-Manhattan Financial institution Vice President Robert Bowes known as CFPB “extremely politicized, damaging, and completely unaccountable” in a bit of the venture he authored.
“It’s unconstitutional. Congress ought to abolish the CFPB and reverse Dodd–Frank Part 1061, thus returning the buyer safety operate of the CFPB to banking regulators,” Bowes wrote.
Current media headlines have tried to tie DOGE to the venture, with vital tales headlined “Challenge 2025 Architect” in reference to folks like Vought.
Roberts mentioned Trump’s crew ought to be the beneficiary of such headlines, in that “he and his crew deserve the credit score” – and that it’s a welcome sight that individuals who embody Heritage’s guiding ideas are being tapped for high positions within the new administration.
“Heritage is thrilled to see President Trump appoint so many hardworking patriots who put America First. Russ is without doubt one of the nice statesmen of our age—a superb, principled chief with the imaginative and prescient and mind to tackle ‘The Swamp’ and win.”
“Between Russ on the helm of OMB and Elon on the helm of DOGE, they may rein in wasteful spending, restore fiscal self-discipline, and be certain that our authorities serves the folks—not the opposite method round.”
