In a report on the struggles of Donald Trump's campaign since Vice President Kamala Harris became his presidential opponent, the New York Times is reporting that, for some conservative donors , running mate Sen. J.D.
Vance has become an object of great concern . As the Times' Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan are reporting, during Trump's meetings with donors he has been forced to defend the Ohio Republican, whom he has reportedly described as "political athlete," amid worries the controversial Ohio Republican is dragging the ticket down. With the report noting that the former president pressed his inner circle over whether they were aware of Vance's previous comments about women — particularly his attack on "childless cat ladies" — donors are also questioning the selection and fretting the label of "weird " won't go away.
ALSO READ: Bombshell secret training videos detail how a second Trump administration would operate "Mr. Trump dismissed out of hand donors’ suggestions that he replace Mr. Vance on the ticket," the Times is reporting before adding that at a separate donor meeting one participant "asked about Democrats trying to paint the Republican ticket as 'weird.
" According to sources, the former president replied, "Not about me. They’re saying that about JD.” You can read more here .
DEEP STATE BATTLE: Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could fight the so-called deep state on behalf of a future Trump administration remains on track. NEW VIDEOS: Dozens of never-before-published videos created for Project 2025 were provided to ProPublica and Documented by a person who had access to them. ADVICE GIVEN: “If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.
” These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story. Project 2025, the controversial playbook and policy agenda for a right-wing presidential administration, has lost its director and faced scathing criticism from both Democratic groups and former President Donald Trump. But Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could battle against the so-called deep state government bureaucracy on behalf of a future Trump administration remains on track.
One centerpiece of that program is dozens of never-before-published videos created for Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy. The vast majority of these videos — 23 in all, totaling more than 14 hours of content — were provided to ProPublica and Documented by a person who had access to them. The Project 2025 videos coach future appointees on everything from the nuts and bolts of governing to how to outwit bureaucrats.
There are strategies for avoiding embarrassing Freedom of Information Act disclosures and ensuring that conservative policies aren’t struck down by “left-wing judges.” Some of the content is routine advice that any incoming political appointee might be told. Other segments of the training offer guidance on radically changing how the federal government works and what it does.
In one video , Bethany Kozma, a conservative activist and former deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Trump administration, downplays the seriousness of climate change and says the movement to combat it is really part of a ploy to “control people.
” “If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere,” Kozma says. In the same video, Kozma calls the idea of gender fluidity “evil.” Another speaker, Katie Sullivan, who was an acting assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice under Trump, takes aim at executive actions by the administration of President Joe Biden that created gender adviser positions throughout the federal government.
The goal, Biden wrote in one order, was to “advance equal rights and opportunities, regardless of gender or gender identity.” Sullivan says, “That position has to be eradicated, as well as all the task forces, the removal of all the equity plans from all the websites, and a complete rework of the language in internal and external policy documents and grant applications.” Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, falsely saying that he knew nothing about it and had “no idea who is behind it.
” In fact, he flew on a private jet with Kevin Roberts , president of the Heritage Foundation , which leads Project 2025. And in a 2022 speech at a Heritage Foundation event, Trump said, “This is a great group and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.” A review of the training videos shows that 29 of the 36 speakers have worked for Trump in some capacity — on his 2016-17 transition team, in the administration or on his 2024 reelection campaign.
The videos appear to have been recorded before the resignation two weeks ago of Paul Dans, the leader of the 2025 project , and they are referenced on the project’s website . The Heritage Foundation said in a statement at the time of Dans’ resignation that it would end Project 2025’s policy-related work, but that its “collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels — federal, state, and local — will continue.” The Heritage Foundation and most of the people who appear in the videos cited in this story did not respond to ProPublica’s repeated requests for comment.
Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign who features in one of the videos, said, “As our campaign leadership and President Trump have repeatedly stated, Agenda 47 is the only official policy agenda from our campaign.” Project 2025’s 887-page “Mandate for Leadership” document lays out a vast array of policy and governance proposals, including eliminating the Department of Education, slashing Medicaid, reclassifying tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be more easily fired and replaced, giving the president greater power to control the DOJ and further restricting abortion access. Democrats and liberal groups have criticized the project’s policy agenda as “extreme” and “authoritarian” while pointing out the many connections between Trump and the hundreds of people who contributed to the project.
“Trump’s attempts to distance himself from Project 2025 have always been disingenuous,” said Noah Bookbinder, president of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “The discovery that the vast majority of speakers in Project 2025 training videos are alumni of the Trump administration or have other close ties to Trump’s political operation is unsurprising further evidence of the close connection there.” Several speakers in the videos acknowledge that the Trump administration was slowed by staffing challenges and the inexperience of its political appointees, and they offer lessons learned from their stumbles.
Some of the advice appears at odds with conservative dogma, including a suggestion that the next administration may need to expand key government agencies to achieve the larger goal of slashing federal regulations. Rick Dearborn, who helped lead Trump’s 2016 transition team and later served in the Trump White House as deputy chief of staff, recalled in one video how “tough” it was to find people to fill all of the key positions in the early days of the administration. The personnel part of Project 2025 is “so important to the next president,” Dearborn says.
“Establishing all of this, providing the expertise, looking at a database of folks that can be part of the administration, talking to you like we are right now about what is a transition about, why do I want to be engaged in it, what would my role be — that’s a luxury that we didn’t have,” referring to a database of potential political appointees. Dan Huff, a former legal adviser in the White House Presidential Personnel Office under Trump, says in another video that future appointees should be prepared to enact significant changes in American government and be ready to face blowback when they do. “If you’re not on board with helping implement a dramatic course correction because you’re afraid it’ll damage your future employment prospects, it’ll harm you socially — look, I get it,” Huff says.
“That’s a real danger. It’s a real thing. But please: Do us all a favor and sit this one out.
” “Eradicate Climate Change References” The project’s experts outline regulatory and policy changes that future political appointees should prepare for in a Republican administration. One video, titled “Hidden Meanings: The Monsters in the Attic,” is a 50-minute discussion of supposed left-wing code words and biased language that future appointees should be aware of and root out. In that video, Kozma says that U.
S. intelligence agencies have named climate change as an increasingly dire threat to global stability , which, she says, illustrates how the issue “has infiltrated every part of the federal government.” She then tells viewers that she sees climate change as merely a cover to engage in population control.
“I think about the people who don’t want you to have children because of the” — here she makes air-quotes — “impact on the environment.” She adds, “This is part of their ultimate goal to control people.” Later in the video, Katie Sullivan, the former acting assistant attorney general under Trump, advocates for removing so-called critical race theory from public education without saying how the federal government would accomplish that.
(Elementary and secondary education curricula are typically set at the state and local level, not by the federal government.) “The noxious tenets of critical race theory and gender ideology should be excised from curriculum in every single public school in this country,” Sullivan says. (Reached by phone, Sullivan told ProPublica to contact her press representative and hung up.
A representative did not respond.) In a different video, David Burton, an economic policy expert at the Heritage Foundation, discusses the importance of an obscure yet influential agency called the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The Trump administration used OIRA to help roll back regulations on economic, fiscal and environmental issues.
Under Biden, OIRA took a more aggressive stance in helping review and shape new regulations , which included efforts to combat housing discrimination, ban the sale of so-called ghost guns and set new renewable fuel targets. Burton, in the Project 2025 video, urges future political appointees to work in OIRA and argues that the office should “increase its staffing levels considerably” in service of the conservative goal of reining in the so-called administrative state, namely the federal agencies that craft and issue new regulations. “Fifty people are not enough to adequately police the regulatory actions of the entire federal government,” Burton says.
“OIRA is one of the few government agencies that limits the regulatory ambitions of other agencies.” (Burton confirmed in a brief interview that he appeared in the video and endorsed expanding OIRA’s staffing levels.) Expanding the federal workforce — even an office tasked with scrutinizing regulations — would seem to cut against the conservative movement’s long-standing goal of shrinking government.
For anyone confused by Project 2025’s insistence that a conservative president should fill all appointee slots and potentially grow certain functions, Spencer Chretien, a former Trump White House aide who is now Project 2025’s associate director, addresses the tension in one video. “Some on the right even say that we, because we believe in small government, should just lead by example and not fill certain political positions,” Chretien says. “I suggest that it would be almost impossible to bring any conservative change to America if the president did that.
” A Trump Government-in-Waiting The speakers in the Project 2025 videos are careful not to explicitly side with Trump or talk about what a future Trump administration might do. They instead refer to a future “conservative president” or “conservative administration.” But the links between the speakers in the videos and Trump are many.
Most of those served Trump during his administration, working at the White House, the National Security Council, NASA, the Office of Management and Budget, USAID and the departments of Justice, Interior, State, Homeland Security, Transportation and Health and Human Services. Another speaker has worked in the Senate office of J.D.
Vance , Trump’s 2024 running mate. Sullivan, the former DOJ acting assistant attorney general in charge of the department’s Office of Justice Programs, which oversees billions in grant funding, appears in three different videos. Leavitt, who is in a training video titled “The Art of Professionalism,” worked in the White House press office during Trump’s first presidency and is now the national press secretary for his reelection campaign.
A consistent theme in the advice and testimonials offered by these Trump alums is that Project 2025 trainees should expect a hostile reception if they go to work in the federal government. Kozma, the former USAID deputy chief of staff, says in one video that “many” of her fellow Trump appointees experienced “persecution” during their time in government. In a video titled “The Political Appointee’s Survival Guide,” Max Primorac, a former deputy administrator at USAID during the Trump administration, warns viewers that Washington is a place that “does not share your conservative values,” and that new hires will find that “there’s so much hostility to basic traditional values.
” In the same video, Kristen Eichamer, a former deputy press secretary at the Trump-era NASA, says that the media pushed false narratives about then-President Trump and people who worked in his administration. “Being defamed on Twitter is almost a badge of honor in the Trump administration,” she says. Outthinking “the Left” The videos also offer less overtly political tutorials for future appointees, covering everything from how a regulation gets made to working with the media, the mechanics of a presidential transition process to obtaining a security clearance, and best practices for time management.
One recurring theme in the videos is how the next Republican administration can avoid the mistakes of the first Trump presidency. In one video, Roger Severino, the former director of the Office of Civil Rights in the Trump-era Department of Health and Human Services, explains that failure to meticulously follow federal procedure led to courts delaying or throwing out certain regulatory efforts on technical grounds. Severino, who is also a longtime leader in the anti-abortion movement , goes on to walk viewers through the ins and outs of procedural law and says that they should prepare for “the left” to use every tool possible to derail the next conservative president.
“This is a game of 3D chess,” Severino says. “You have to be always anticipating what the left is going to do to try to throw sand in the gears and trip you up and block your rule.” (In an email, Severino said he would forward ProPublica’s interview request to Heritage’s spokespeople, who did not respond.
) Operating under the assumption that some career employees might seek to thwart a future conservative president’s agenda, some of the advice pertains to how political appointees can avoid being derailed or bogged down by the government bureaucrats who work with them. Sullivan urges viewers to “empower your political staff,” limit access to appointees’ calendars and leave out career staff from early meetings with more senior agency officials. “You are making it clear to career staff that your political appointees are in charge,” Sullivan says.
Other tips from the videos include scrubbing personal social media accounts of any content that’s “damaging, vulgar or contradict the policies you are there to implement” well before the new administration begins, as Kozma put it. Alexei Woltornist, a former assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, encourages future appointees to bypass mainstream news outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post. Instead, they should focus on conservative media outlets because those are the only outlets conservative voters trust.
“The American people who vote for a conservative presidential administration, they’re not reading The New York Times, they’re not reading The Washington Post,” Woltornist says. “To the contrary, if those outlets publish something, they’re going to assume it’s false. So the only way to reach them with any voice of credibility is through working with conservative media outlets.
” And in a video about oversight and investigations, a group of conservative investigators advise future appointees on how to avoid creating a paper trail of sensitive communications that could be obtained by congressional committees or outside groups under the Freedom of Information Act. “If you need to resolve something, if you can do it, it’s probably better to walk down the hall, buttonhole a guy and say, ‘Hey, what are we going to do here?’ Talk through the decision,” says Tom Jones, a former Senate investigator who now runs the American Accountability Foundation. Jones adds that it’s possible that agency lawyers could cite exemptions in the public-records law to prevent the release of certain documents.
But appointees are best served, he argues, if they don’t put important communications in writing in the first place. “You’re probably better off,” Jones says, “going down to the canteen, getting a cup of coffee, talking it through and making the decision, as opposed to sending him an email and creating a thread that Accountable.US or one of those other groups is going to come back and seek.
” Do you have any information about Project 2025 that we should know? Andy Kroll can be reached by email at [email protected] and by Signal or WhatsApp at 202-215-6203.
Videos prepared by Lisa Riordan Seville and Chris Morran . Mariam Elba contributed research. According to a report from the New York Times, Donald Trump has put his relationship with one of his top campaign donors on shaky ground after he deluged her with a series of " angry texts " as his campaign was partially derailed by Vice President Kamala Harris becoming his new presidential opponent .
At issue, according to the Times' Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, was Trump accusing billionaire supporter Miriam Adelson, the widow of the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, of allowing the PAC she has funded with millions of dollars, Preserve America, to be run by "Republicans in Name Only," also known as RINOs. As the report notes, the former president instructed aide Natalie Harp to "fire off a series of angry text messages to Mrs. Adelson in Mr.
Trump’s name," according to three sources who claim those messages left his wealthy benefactor "stunned." ALSO READ: Why ‘vanilla’ Tim Walz is the ingredient to beat Trump: Dem lawmakers "The texts were particularly jarring because Mrs. Adelson and Mr.
Trump had a friendly meeting just a week earlier at the Republican National Convention, according to a person briefed on the matter," the report notes before adding that Trump was manipulated into attacking Adelson by another donor, Ike Perlmutter, who "had hoped in vain that Mrs. Adelson would contribute to a rival super PAC that he backs." The Times is reporting, "The text messages prompted concerns — as yet unrealized — that Mrs.
Adelson might scale back her support of Mr. Trump." You can read more here .
Fresh off her Tuesday night victory in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, U.
S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) rallied alongside retiring U.
S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) throughout the state, with the lawmakers reaching their final stop Friday in Lansing.
After joining U.S. Hillary Scholten (D-Grand Rapids) and Michigan Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) in Grand Rapids earlier in the day, Slotkin and Stabenow brought their “Thelma and Louise” tour to an end alongside former State Sen.
Curtis Hertel (D-East Lansing), who is looking to succeed Slotkin in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. “I’ve been lucky in my career to follow strong, powerful women,” Hertel said. “I got to follow Gov.
[ Gretchen] Whitmer into the state Senate and hopefully, with all of your help, I get to follow Congressman Slotkin in Congress.” Hertel praised both Stabenow and Slotkin for working across the aisle, saying there’s a need for more politicians who can work with people they disagree with to deliver results. He blasted Slotkin’s opponent, former U.
S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake), arguing Rogers had consistently put his pocketbook before the needs of the people.
“[Rogers] left the U.S. House and moved to another house in Florida , one that had a really nice waterfront view.
And you know, we want him to enjoy it again, which is why we’re going to send him back there in November,” Hertel said. Stabenow recapped the events of the previous days, traveling from Detroit to Grand Rapids, and stopping in South Haven for the blueberry festival, joking their tour hadn’t gone off the cliff yet — in a nod to the cult classic ’s famous ending — but that they had passed a few police cars, with Slotkin later admitting she was driving a “little bit faster than I should have been.” While she said she was confident Slotkin would win in November, Stabenow warned mid-Michigan voters against taking anything for granted.
“We need to be doing everything we can to keep that going and keep people engaged for the future. We absolutely do,” Stabenow said. “Let’s be clear, we can’t let [former President] Donald Trump or [Ohio U.
S. Sen.] J.
D. Vance anywhere near the Oval Office again,” Stabenow said before expressing similar statements Hertel made about Rogers and his own opponent for the 7th District, former state Sen. Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte).
The 2024 election is centered on shared American values, and the rights and freedoms citizens fight for every day as well as those they want to restore and protect, Stabenow said. “I can’t believe it’s 2024 and I’m having to talk about women making our own, not only decisions on abortion care, but birth control and IVF. I mean, this isn’t 1824 — this is 2024 — and we’re having to talk about this.
It’s stunning and it’s scary, and we are not going to go back,” Stabenow said. Slotkin understands that politics is a team sport, and that legislating is more than making speeches, Stabenow said, pointing to Slotkin’s effort leading opposition to the food assistance cuts and weakened language around climate conservation in the House version of the farm bill . Because of Slotkin’s efforts, Stabenow said she is now in a position as Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee chair to negotiate those items.
Before passing Slotkin the microphone, Stabenow reflected on her time serving the people of Michigan in the Legislature, the U.S. House and finally the U.
S. Senate. “It has been the honor of my lifetime to suit up every day and work to get things done for you and for our wonderful state,” Stabenow said.
“I care deeply about Michigan, and I want to pass the torch to someone who loves Michigan as much as I do. There is no one more qualified, more talented, more hardworking ..
. that I would love to pass the torch to than our next senator, Elissa Slotkin.” In her speech, Slotkin emphasized Stabenow’s role as a trailblazer for women in politics.
“I think it’s easy to forget in the state of Michigan, where we seem to have really figured out how to elect women, it’s hard to sometimes remember what it means to be a first and how it wasn’t that long ago that [Stabenow] was breaking these incredible ceilings for all of us,” Slotkin said. “The thing that I always tell people is there was never a moment where I said, ‘Gosh, I wonder if Michigan will elect a woman. Like I’m thinking about running, should I? Is it possible for a woman to win?’ That never crossed my mind, because of her, right? Because she had done it,” Slotkin said.
As she heads toward the general election, Slotkin cautioned her supporters against assuming the race is won, pointing to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 presidential election. “We thought someone was going to win in 2016 too and had that feeling, that pit in our stomach the day after the election, when we realized that we thought it was in the bag and it was not in the bag. We’re not going to have that feeling again,” Slotkin said, pushing her supporters to put in the extra work while campaigning.
Looking at the election, Slotkin outlined her four reasons for running, contrasting herself with Rogers. When discussing opportunities for Americans to make it into the middle class, Slotkin focused on supporting job creation and union jobs while bringing down costs for childcare, healthcare, post-secondary education and housing, blasting Rogers for voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act . Slotkin’s second reason centered on onshoring manufacturing, as she pointed to supply chain issues during the COVID-19 pandemic, the global chip shortage and concerns about pharmaceutical manufacturing in the U.
S. “Let’s be clear: The conversation about make more things in America is very, very zero-sum. If we don’t make the next generation of vehicles, China will.
If we don’t make the next generation of chips, China will,” Slotkin said, arguing that Barrett had opposed policies to bring “a manufacturing renaissance to the state of Michigan,” and that Rogers was fighting against progress. In an email, Barrett campaign strategist Jason Roe said that Barrett supports manufacturing and those who work in Michigan’s manufacturing sector, but opposes taxpayer-funded business incentives. “Taxpayers expect their tax dollars to fund education, infrastructure, and essential services, not give welfare to Wall Street.
His focus is on those priorities specified by industry: talent and talent development, the cost of energy, and the regulatory environment,” Roe said. “These career politicians have made these problems worse and think they can paper them over with taxpayer-funded handouts. However, the promises made by these politicians when they voted to spend billions on the corporations have not materialized and we are nowhere near seeing the jobs promised by the companies who received the handouts,” he said.
Slotkin listed protecting children as the third reason for her Senate bid, calling for action on gun violence while slamming Republicans for supporting books bans and attacks on teaching Black history in schools . In her last point, Slotkin said it’s time for Americans to start playing offense in protecting their rights. While Rogers has said he wouldn’t support proposals to restrict abortion that conflict with Michigan’s law , and spoke out against Alabama’s restrictions on IVF Slotkin warned voters against taking Rogers at his word, pointing to Roger’s past record against abortion .
“People tell you who they are. They tell you. Believe them, believe them.
And if you think that Mike Rogers is our champion for our rights and our democracy, I got a bridge I want to sell you down the street,” Slotkin said. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence.
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