Why Donald Trump Really Hates Project 2025

Donald Trump was losing it over the “lunatics” behind Project 2025 long before the right-wing policy program’s director, Paul Dans, stepped down amid the backlash created by Trump himself.

Before issuing his first unconvincing attempt to distance himself from Project 2025 in July, Trump privately railed about the “lunatics” linked to Project 2025, who pushed for unpopular, sweeping abortion bans, two sources familiar told Rolling Stone.

Since Project 2025’s debut, Trump has attempted to appear more moderate on abortion, inspiring a huge shift in the Republican Party’s platform away from a federal abortion ban (and toward embracing the dozens of cruel state-level ones). The 900-plus plan document, which had been tailor-made for a Trump presidency, couldn’t follow the whims of the decidedly fluid Republican candidate.

Project 2025’s policy roadmap suggests a slate of horrifying hard-line rules on abortion, including withholding federal approval for abortion pills, restricting access to emergency contraception, using federal agencies to expand “abortion surveillance,” and of course, resuscitating the right-wing dream of a federal abortion ban.

Trump has been having a prolonged meltdown over the potential damage this plan could cause to his campaign for weeks. But he couldn’t help but get in his own way: During the RNC in late July, Trump tapped J.D. Vance to be his running mate.

For Trump, the Ohio senator was a chance to shore up support among white male voters. Instead, it seems Vance is a one-two punch of campaign destruction. Vance previously advocated for a federal abortion ban and was responsible for one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. He also has his own shocking links to Project 2025.

Vance wrote a particularly violent foreword to a forthcoming book by Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025. Roberts was fawning over Vance as soon as he was picked.