A slightly longer version of this conversation originally aired on July 23, 2024.
When the The Heritage Foundation released its policy document, Project 2025, back in April it wasn’t immediately on most people’s radar — outside of those who follow politics closely, and those who strongly support the conservative think tank’s views and former President Donald Trump.
But sometime around July you might say Project 2025 hit the mainstream, and around that time we dug into some of its details to better understand what the 900+ page document contains.
Project 2025 isn’t an entirely new concept. The Heritage Foundation has published what it calls Mandate for Leadership policy blueprints since the first Reagan administration. Over the decades they have used these documents to outline what they hope to see out of a Republican administration. But, Project 2025 has a different tone and nature — and is far more detailed when it comes to exactly what policies it’s calling for, and just how they should be achieved.
Former President Trump says he hasn’t even read Project 2025, but his running mate, U.S. Senator J.D. Vance wrote a forward to the new book “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America” that’s due out next month. Its author is Dr. Kevin Roberts, head of The Heritage Foundation.
Its critics describe Project 2025 as an outright call for a Christian Nationalist government in the United States.
One of those critics is author Andra Watkins. She is the author of five books, including her acclaimed first novel To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis which was published in 2014. And her book, Not Without My Father: One Woman’s 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace, which is a memoir about her dysfunctional family adventure — it is a National Book Award nominee and a New York Times bestseller.
Watkins is also the publisher of a Substack newsletter called How Project 2025 Will Ruin Your Life which details various aspects of the Heritage Foundation's latest policy blueprint. She's published more than 170 posts since launching it. She joins us, along with two founding members of the nonpartisan nonprofit Floridians for Democracy. Launched in may of 2023, FFD is working to inform people about what they describe as growing autocratic trends in this country and the state of Florida.
You can read Project 2025 in its entirety here.
Guests:
Andra Watkins, author of five books and publisher of "How Project 2025 Will Ruin Your Life
Jim Nathan, co-founder of Floridians for Democracy and president of the Floridians for Democracy Institute
Bill Petrarca, co-founder of Floridians for Democracy and its treasurer
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