Project 2025 may be deeply connected to Donald Trump, but it’s not the only authoritarian agenda in town. There’s another that’s been written almost entirely by members of Trump’s former administration, and it’s just as bad as Project 2025 in its own special way.
It comes from the America First Policy Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that legally cannot support a candidate for office. However, Trump’s Save America PAC has donated to it, and he has hosted fundraisers for it at Mar-a-Lago. AFPI also champions 2020 election denialism and is representing a Georgia official who wants the power to refuse to certify election results. And Trump tapped AFPI’s board chair, Linda McMahon, to co-lead his transition team. So it’s nonpartisan in the same way that Trump filming a campaign video at Arlington National Cemetery was respectful.
The AFPI plan doesn’t supersede Project 2025. It’s more of a partnership. While the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 focuses a good deal on new policies and on purging the federal government and populating its ranks with Trump loyalists, this plan is dedicated to crushing regulations and executive orders to swiftly erase just about everything that President Joe Biden has accomplished.
According to Politico, AFPI has not yet released its completed “America First Transition Project” for Trump’s next term. But what’s available seems to focus mostly on deregulation and support of industries, particularly oil and gas.
Under Biden, America has reached record-high production of both oil and gas. In fact, the U.S. is producing more crude oil than any country in history.
Still, there’s no doubt oil companies would like to have big chunks of the Arctic for future drilling and would like to export more gas to higher-paying markets overseas than the Biden-Harris administration has allowed. To big industries, the best regulation—whether it’s on the environment, safety, or labor—is no regulation at all.
Linda McMahon, the board chair for the America First Policy Institute, is also co-chair of Trump’s transition team.
You can bet that industry lobbyists working with AFPI to create this Trump transition plan have a long list of regulations to destroy. One anonymous lobbyist told Politico that AFPI has been “drinking from the fire hose” to get a wishlist of regulatory changes from industry.
To make this regulatory strip-mining happen as quickly as possible, AFPI is reportedly preparing over 100 executive orders for Trump that would blow away much of the work done under Biden. And to make sure that there are no holdouts actually concerned with protecting the environment, safety, or labor, the plan overlaps Project 2025 in efforts aimed at replacing current officials and experts with industry lobbyists. Just think of when Trump named coal-industry lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to run the Environment Protection Agency. Times a thousand.
And there’s another aspect to the AFPI plan that may make it even worse than Project 2025.
As with many Republican efforts over the past two decades, this plan isn’t just focused on wrecking regulations at the federal level. AFPI staffers are reportedly working at the state and local levels to “reverse the damage caused by the radical left and put the interests of the American people first,” AFPI said in a statement to Politico.
“AFPI does not speak on behalf of any officeholder or campaign,” it added.
Trump will certainly get that part right when he tells you he doesn’t know who they are.
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