CHRIS CRUCIAL: Donald Trump and Project 2025

PLUS: The Biden-ABC interview!

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1. Project 2025

On Friday, Donald Trump publicly distanced himself from “Project 2025,” the document produced by a conservative think tank in Washington, DC expressly aimed at providing a blueprint for his 2nd term.

Here’s Trump on Truth Social:

From a purely political standpoint, this is smart by Trump. “Project 2025” has drawn increasingly negative headlines — capped by recent comments by the president of the Heritage Foundation, the organization behind the document.

“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” said Kevin Roberts in a conversation on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast. Roberts was specifically referring to the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity earlier this week.

Having to answer for a document you didn’t write — and is not from your campaign — is not something ANY candidate should do.

The question, of course, is whether Trump really “know[s] nothing” about “Project 2025 and believes that “some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.”

Before we get to that question, it’s worth taking note of some of the things “Project 2025” does say. (It’ an almost-900 page document so I am not going to go through everything here!)

Here’s the New York Times’ Carlos Lozada on the document, which he read IN FULL:

“Mandate for Leadership,” which was edited by Paul Dans and Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation, is not about anything as simplistic as being dictator for a day but about consolidating authority and eroding accountability for the long haul. It calls for a relentless politicizing of the federal government, with presidential appointees overpowering career officials at every turn and agencies and offices abolished on overtly ideological grounds. Though it assures readers that the president and his or her subordinates “must be committed to the Constitution and the rule of law,” it portrays the president as the personal embodiment of popular will and treats the law as an impediment to conservative governance. It elevates the role of religious beliefs in government affairs and regards the powers of Congress and the judiciary with dismissiveness.

So, yeah. Pretty radical.

For more on what’s in “Project 2025,” check out this video I made:

Now for a harder-to-answer question: Is this really a working blueprint for what a 2nd Trump term would look like?

What I can say is that there are, without question, a number of Trump-adjacent people involved in the “Project 2025” effort.

Johnny McEntee, a close confidante of the former president, is a senior adviser to the effort. Of “Project 2025” and the Trump campaign, McEntee said in April: “Obviously, there will need to be coordination and the president and his team will announce an official transition this summer, and we're gonna integrate a lot of our work with them.”

And three of the top officials for “Project 2025” also held jobs in the Trump administration:

The left would have you believe this is proof positive that “Project 2025” is a shadow Trump project — if not with his explicit blessing than with a clear understanding of who they are really working for.

I think the connection is a little more tenuous. McEntee was, without question, an inner circle Trumper. The other three? Less so.

Still, it is not credible for Trump to say he has never heard of it. He absolutely has heard of it and knows at least the broad strokes of what “Project 2025” is trying to do.

Now to the hardest — and most important — question about “Project 2025”: Would Trump actually use it — if not as a blueprint than as an idea factory if he wins a second term this fall?

I have two contradictory thoughts about that — both of which I think are true:

1. Trump doesn’t like to take directions or orders from anyone. He also likes to believe that he is solely responsible for all good ideas.

2. Trump doesn’t have a policy bone in his body. He tends to have broad senses for things — We need to secure our border! We need to strengthen the economy! We need to make America great again! — but lacks any real policy expertise or ideas to back those sentiments up.

If you read only #1, you’d think “Project 2025” is a no-go for Trump. Some think-tank eggheads telling him how to run his White House? No way!

If you read only #2, you’d think “Project 2025” will be heavily relied on by Trump and his inner circle to put policy flesh on his “vibes” bones.

If you believe both — as I do — then I am not totally sure what to conclude. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that Trump will implement every (or even many) of the policies in “Project 2025.” At the same time, it’s a mistake — to my mind — to think the proposals in “Project 2025” will never cross a President Trump’s desk.

What do you think? How do you view “Project 2025?”

2. The ABC interview

The political world is waiting with bated breath for 8 pm eastern tonight — when ABC releases its interview with President Joe Biden, the first sit-down he’s done with a national news outlet since his disastrous debate eight days ago.

I will — obviously — be all over the interview and make sure you see what you need to see from it. (ABC has said they will released a full transcript of the interview.) Stay tuned either later tonight or tomorrow for my take on the interview.

But, let me say this before we know how it went: I think the political world is OVERRATING how much this interview matters when it comes to whether Biden can remain the Democratic nominee.

I mean, if he is bad, it’s over. Sure.

I doubt he will be bad. He might even be good! I am just very wary of drawing too many conclusions about how much that matters.

Let’s say Biden looks totally with it in this interview. Does that erase — or even begin to erase — in peoples’ minds what they saw in the debate last Thursday?

I don’t think so.

First of all, the debate was 90 minutes of live TV. The interview will be shorter than that — maybe considerably shorter — and be taped and, therefore, edited. As someone who has done a lot of live and taped TV, I can tell you they are not the same thing.

Second, the question isn’t whether Biden can be lucid and able some times. It’s whether he can be lucid and able at all times. And we have 90 minutes of recent evidence that suggests he can’t be. I don’t see how one interview — or even 10 interviews — changes that.

I’ll report back on what Biden says, how he says it and what it all means! Make sure to subscribe to get it delivered to your inbox!

3. Answering ALL your questions

Every Friday, I do a livestream on my YouTube channel where I spend an hour (or so) answering questions — mostly about politics but about other stuff too. This Friday — for the second week in a row — we had more than 500 people concurrently watching the stream. Which is awesome. You can watch the whole chat below.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“Kill them! Some liberal somewhere is gonna say that sounds awful. Too bad! ... Some folks need killing! It's time for somebody to say it.” — North Carolina gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson

ONE GOOD CHART

The United States created over 200,000 jobs in June. While the Biden administration touted the news, the New York Times’ Jim Tankersley noted that “April, May and June are now officially the weakest three-month stretch of job growth in Biden’s presidency. Today’s numbers, including revisions, show average job gains during that stretch were a bit under 180,000 per month.”

SONG OF THE DAY

The new Zach Bryan record — “The Great American Bar Scene” — is officially out today. You can listen to all 19(!) tracks here:

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