CNN
—
Paul Dance has resigned as its director Project 2025The conservative playbook for a second Donald Trump term has come amid harsh criticism, including from the former president.
Dance's departure was confirmed in a statement to CNN by Dr Kevin Roberts, chairman of the Heritage Foundation, which launched Project 2025. Prior to joining Heritage to lead the program, Dance served as a senior official in the Trump White House.
« Under Paul Dance's leadership, Project 2025 has done exactly that: bringing together more than 110 leading conservative organizations to create a unified conservative vision, decentralizing power from unelected executive government and returning it to the people, » said Roberts. « This tool was created for future governance. »
Set to give the next Republican president a road map for their first 180 days, Plan 2025's conservative proposals provided plenty of criticism for Democrats to warn against a second Trump presidency. Trump has tried to distance himself from Heritage's work, saying on social media, « I don't know who's behind this. »
In a statement Tuesday, Trump campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris Lacivita said, “It has been abundantly clear for over a year that President Trump's campaign had nothing to do with, spoke for the campaign, and should not have had anything to do with the 2025 campaign. campaign or in any way with the president.”
They continued, « Reports of the demise of Plan 2025 will be greatly welcomed and will serve as a warning to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence on President Trump and his campaign — that will not be good for you. »
At least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration were involved in the project. A CNN review found.
President Joe Biden and now Vice President Kamala Harris have tried to highlight some of the policies proposed by the 2025 plan, seeing the platform as a huge liability for Trump, and Democrats have launched several ads about the conservative agenda.
This story has been updated with additional information.