[Pages S539-S540]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Project 2025

  Mr. President, they really are implementing Project 2025. And I have 
to say, back in the campaign, I was wary about making that accusation 
that they are going to implement this book, right. And I was trying to 
figure out if I could read the whole Project 2025 into the Record, and 
at least one of the--well, I will just say it: ChatGPT told me it would 
take 119 hours. So I am not going to do that this evening.
  But I will tell you that, if you read it, you will understand that 
they are actually really implementing Project 2025. And Trump was smart 
enough during the campaign to realize that Democrats had broken through 
and made it clear that they have a very specific plan. And part of the 
problem for Democrats was it was always about Trump and his 
personality, and that wore people down. It was: Tell me what you are 
going to do for me. Tell me what they are going to do for me or not for 
me.
  So this was an area where Democrats thought: Hey, this is policy. 
This is actually what is actually going to happen.
  And Trump was clever enough to say: Nah, I don't know anything about 
that. That guy? I just met him--that kind of thing.
  But I want you to understand that more than two-thirds of Trump's 
Executive orders and actions in his first week were inspired by that 
manifesto put together by The Heritage Foundation. And the reason for 
that is simple. Many of the authors of Project 2025 now hold or are 
nominated to hold senior roles in the Trump administration, and that 
includes OMB Director-nominee Russ Vought, FCC Commissioner Brendan 
Carr, Senior Counselor Peter Navarro, border czar Tom Homan.
  So it is worth examining in some detail this 900-page document that 
is the basis for the avalanche of chaos and pain and confusion from the 
Trump administration.
  I want to read the opener in Project 2025. I just want you to be 
clear; this is not me:

       History teaches that a President's power to implement an 
     agenda is at its apex during the Administration's opening 
     days. To execute requires a well-conceived, coordinated, 
     unified plan and a trained and committed cadre of personnel 
     to implement it. In recent election cycles, presidential 
     candidates normally began transition planning in the late 
     spring of election year or even after the party's nomination 
     was secured. That is too late. The federal government's 
     complexity and growth advance at a seemingly logarithmic rate 
     every four years. For conservatives to have a fighting chance 
     to take on the Administrative State and reform our federal 
     government, the work must start now. The entirety of this 
     effort is to support the next conservative President.
       In the winter of 1980, the fledging Heritage Foundation 
     handed to President-elect Ronald Reagan the inaugural Mandate 
     for Leadership. This collective work by conservative thought 
     leaders and former government hands--most of whom were not 
     part of Heritage--set out policy prescriptions, agency by 
     agency, for the incoming President. The book literally put 
     the conservative movement and Reagan on the same page, and 
     the revolution that followed might never have been, save for 
     this band of committed and volunteer activists. With this 
     volume, we have gone back to the future--and then some.
       It's not 1980. In 2023, the game has changed. The long 
     march of cultural Marxism--

  I am not really sure what that is. Those are my words.

     --through our institutions has come to pass. The federal 
     government is a behemoth, weaponized against American 
     citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty 
     under siege as never before. The task at hand to reverse this 
     tide and restore our Republic to its original moorings is too 
     great for any one conservative policy shop to spearhead. It 
     requires the collective action of our movement. With the 
     quickening approach of January 2025, we have two years and 
     one chance to get it right.
       Project 2025 is more than 50 (and growing) of the nation's 
     leading conservative organizations joining forces to prepare 
     and seize the day. The axiom goes ``personnel is policy,'' 
     and we need a new generation of Americans to answer the call 
     and come to serve. This book is functionally an invitation 
     for you the reader--Mr. Smith, Mrs. Smith, and Ms. Smith--to 
     come to Washington or support those who can. Our goal is to 
     assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared 
     conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the 
     Administrative State.

  Under State Department civil servants:

       Since the U.S. Founding, the Department of State has been 
     the American government's designated tool of engagement with 
     foreign governments and peoples throughout the world. Country 
     names, borders, leaders, technology, and people have changed 
     in the more than two centuries since the Founding, but the 
     basics of diplomacy remain the same. Although the Department 
     has also evolved throughout the years, at least in the 
     modern era, there is one significant problem that the next 
     President must address to be successful.
       There are scores of fine diplomats who serve the 
     President's agenda, often helping to shape and interpret that 
     agenda.
       At the same time, however, in all of the Administrations, 
     there is a tug-of-war between Presidents and bureaucracies--
     and that resistance is much starker under conservative 
     Presidents, due largely to the fact that large swaths of the 
     State Department's workforce are left-wing and predisposed to 
     disagree with a conservative President's policy agenda and 
     vision.

  I just want to stop here, and I want everyone to understand what they 
are saying, which is: They are targeting a Department of the Federal 
Government because they have assessed--I don't know if it is true or 
not, because I don't actually think like that--that it has got like a 
liberal lean.
  And I have got to tell you, I am sure the FBI membership has a 
conservative lean. My guess is ICE has a conservative lean. I don't 
know about the Department of the Interior and what their political lean 
is, and I am just actually confused as to why anybody thinks it is 
legitimate to try to dismantle a Department of the Federal Government 
because there is a point of view about the politics of the individual 
employees.
  Now back to the 2025:

       It should not and cannot be this way: The American people 
     need and deserve a diplomatic machine fully focused on the 
     national interest as defined through the election of a

[[Page S540]]

     President who sets the domestic and international agenda for 
     the nation.

  Well, listen, the law as it relates to the State Department is made 
by Congress, and many smart people have described the Constitution in 
the area of foreign policy as an invitation to struggle. It was 
intentionally vague. We were supposed to have a tug and pull. And it is 
true that the President of the United States is the Commander in Chief 
and has broad foreign policy authorities. It is not true that any 
President can ignore a duly enacted Federal law. And that is what is 
being asked for us to tolerate.
  And, look, I was prepared on election night to say: I hate this 
result. We lost the trifecta. As a party, we have got to do some soul-
searching and figure out why we didn't just lose the electoral college, 
we lost the popular vote.
  So I was prepared to do some thinking and say we are in for some 
conservative outcomes, we are in for some policy outcomes that I am 
absolutely going to hate.
  But what is happening right now is unlawful. Like, I know we are 
outnumbered 53 to 47 in the Senate and like a 2- or 3-vote margin in 
the House, and we lost the Presidency. Fair enough. So there will be 
conservative policy for 2 or 4 years, and I don't like it, but that 
is--you know, that is the way the ball bounces sometimes politically.
  What is happening right now is not the ball bouncing a particular way 
politically but someone just deciding that they are in charge of the 
American Government and they don't care what the law says. And I just 
don't think anybody should be willing to tolerate that.
  I want to quote Project 2025 on Medicare because I want everybody to 
understand: They came for the State Department first because everybody 
understands that until there is an Ebola outbreak that reaches our 
shores, until there is international disorder that reaches our borders, 
until our reputation is damaged, until you see it on your screen--large 
or small--most people are not actively tracking the foreign aid 
question.
  But I want you to understand that Project 2025--I mean, you heard me 
read the preamble. It is a really--give them credit; it is an ambitious 
vision. It is an ambitious document. And so they are also coming after 
Medicare. Medicare and Medicaid ``operate as runaway entitlements that 
stifle medical innovation, encourage fraud, and impede cost 
containment, in addition to which their fiscal future is in peril. Both 
programs should be managed so that the individuals enrolled are 
empowered to make decisions for themselves and have quality options 
with affordable prices driven by competition and innovation. Providers 
who participate should retain (or have restored) the freedom to 
practice medicine and take care of their patients according to their 
patients' unique needs. . . . The Affordable Care Act has made 
insurance more expensive.''
  Now, that is just flatly not true. You can hate it, and you can say 
it is an expansion of government, and you can say that it is an 
inefficient way to do it, but it is flatly not true that people are 
paying more in premiums. You might hate the fact that it is a big 
subsidy for people.
  I yield the floor to the majority leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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