Republican Senate candidate warns of ‘absurd and dangerous’ Project 2025

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Larry Hogan called Project 2025 “absurd and dangerous” in an op-ed for The Washington Post on Friday.

The proposed presidential transition project is led by two officials from President Donald Trump’s former administration and is being overseen by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. It also includes an advisory board that includes many notable names from the Trump administration, including six of his former cabinet secretaries.

The controversial project aims to reduce federal regulations, reform government agencies and promote conservative economic, social and environmental values. It seeks significant change by 2025, if Trump, the Republican nominee, is re-elected.

Project 2025 also outlines dozens of proposed immigration actions in its nearly 1,000-page handbook. It calls for authorizing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to “conduct civil arrests, detention, and removal of immigration violators anywhere in the United States, without a warrant where appropriate.”

But earlier this month, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, contrary to our well-received Republican Platform, I had nothing to do with it.”

Hogan, a moderate former Maryland governor, wrote Friday that the “absurd and dangerous” policy, along with “the dissolution of the Department of Education, the possible abolition of the Federal Reserve and the withdrawal of the abortion drug mifepristone,” must be rejected.

“This radical approach is disconnected from the American people. Most Americans — regardless of party affiliation — have more in common than many realize. They want common sense solutions to address the cost of living, make our communities safer, and secure the border while fixing the broken immigration system. Instead of addressing these problems, Project 2025 is waging all-out war against the other side, making it impossible to find common ground,” wrote Hogan, who did not attend the Republican National Convention (RNC).

When reached via email Saturday morning, Hogan campaign spokesman Blake Kernen said Newsweek“Governor Hogan has never been afraid to speak out and call it exactly what he sees. In the Senate, he will be the same independent leader Marylanders know and trust. He will stand up to extremism and defend the core American values ​​that Project 2025 strives to uphold.”

Newsweek emailed The Heritage Foundation for comment on Saturday morning.

Hogan, who is running against Democrat Angela Alsobrooks in the U.S. Senate race, appeared to personally criticize Project 2025’s plans for a wholesale overhaul of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the federal bureaucracy.

This includes curtailing the FBI’s program to combat what it sees as misinformation; reinstating former military personnel who lost their jobs for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine; and dismantling the so-called “woke agenda” within the Pentagon.

“My father was an FBI agent who believed passionately that his work should not be tainted by politics. That approach gave him credibility when he became the first Republican in Congress to speak out in favor of impeaching President Richard M. Nixon. It is true that the ideal of impartial justice that my father embodied has not always been realized. But that does not mean it should be abandoned by design and choice,” Hogan wrote in his op-ed.

He also said the conservative plan poses a “threat to our way of life” as Americans.

Hogan noted that about 150,000 federal workers live in Maryland and said Project 2025’s plan to reform the federal bureaucracy also raises concerns.

The plan involves reclassifying tens of thousands of federal employees under a proposed “Schedule F” to facilitate the firing and hiring of personnel aligned with conservative values. The goal is to ensure that federal agencies are staffed by individuals who will implement the president’s agenda without resistance from civil servants.

“The goal is to remove nonpartisan public servants, most of whom do their jobs patriotically without fanfare or political agendas, and replace them with people loyal to the President,” the former governor wrote.

In an opinion piece for Newsweek Last week, Jeffrey H. Anderson, president of the American Main Street Initiative, which helped draft the proposals for Project 2025, dismissed recent alarmism about the proposed policy.

“These claims have turned things completely upside down. Project 2025’s proposals would strengthen our system of government, not detract from it. They would strengthen our checks and balances, not weaken them,” Anderson wrote.

In June, Hogan received a surprise endorsement when Trump said, “I’d like to see him win. I think he has a good chance of winning. I’d like to see him win. And we’ve got to get the majority.”

Asked if he would publicly reject Trump’s endorsement in an interview, Hogan replied: “Well, I just said I didn’t want it, I didn’t want it and I have no interest in it. It’s not something we’re going to promote, especially in a state where Donald Trump lost by 33 points. It doesn’t really sway a lot of voters to our cause, so I don’t think we have any interest in accepting it.”