During the months leading up to the November election, Donald Trump and his campaign staff took pains to deny Trump had any prior links or knowledge of Project 2025, the Conservative movement master plan to remake America, led by the Heritage Foundation. These statements were false: in fact, a high percentage of Project 2025’s authors and contributors were members of his first administration or the Trump 2024 campaign. A high percentage were also leaders at frontline right-wing think tanks who ranked among Project 2025’s 100+ advisory board members.

Over the summer, Trump’s campaign had warned that the negative media coverage was hurting his campaign so much that it led to the resignation of Paul Dans, a major personnel and policy architect of Project 2025 (along with Russell Vought). Heritage Foundation leader Kevin Roberts, long the cheerleader for Project 2025, resumed the reins of the Project 2025. (Recently, Roberts praised and defended Dans for his role in developing Project 2025 in an online Heritage Foundation notice, suggesting the sacrificial lamb is being publicly rehabilitated and Dans could yet join Trump 2.0 in some overt role.

36 of 66 nominees have direct or close ties to Project 2025 – so far

On the campaign trail, Trump and his team vowed to voters that they had nothing to do with Project 2025 and vowed that no one working on the project would be hired into the new Trump administration. That pledge could be no further from the truth, as evidenced below. In fact, a slight majority of Trump nominees are linked to Project 2025 and that number could grow as new names are added. We documented 36 out of 66 nominees to date with direct or close ties to Project 2025, many as heads of its key advisory groups.

As it stands, Trump 2.0 Cabinet and diplomatic picks reflect a first step of his team’s plan for an “army” that will, they hope, include some 20,000 loyalists recruited and vetted by Dans, Roberts, Vought and Co., to be put into decision-making positions of government. If all goes to plan, Trump will use “Day One” executive orders including Schedule F to fire Biden officials and tens of thousands of federal workers, replacing them with a recruited and vetted Christian conservative workforce loyal to Trump above all. The nominees below have detailed road maps built from Project 2025’s policy proposals they are tasked with implementing.

The arrival of theocracy

Project 2025 reflects a vision of Christian nationalism, and was developed by political operatives who are Catholic activists and Christian evangelists who have a long-term vision of turning America into a Christian state. A close look at Trump’s nominees reveals that a majority are faith warriors who are loyal to Trump – and deeply invested in a vision of a future Christian state, one where Biblical doctrine takes precedent over secular law or policy. When Trump takes power on January 20, 2025, so will a cadre of hardline Christian activists determined to reshape America into a nascent theocracy.

The picks: loyalists, TV stars, donor billionaires – and true believers

As of December 1st , Trump had nominated 16 individuals for his Cabinet, including JD Vance as Vice-President-elect, and 15 senior positions, as well as a growing list of mostly billionaire diplomatic nominees for ambassador roles. He has continued to roll out nominations almost daily. Over two dozen of the selected individuals worked in his first administration, and some are returning to their old Trump 1.0 jobs.

Among them, Russell Vought, who identifies as a Christian nationalist, has been tapped to return to his Trump 1.0 job as head of the Office of Management and Budget; he wrote Project 2025’s chapter on overhauling the Executive branch to give the next president unprecedented powers while limiting Congressional oversight, and strongly backs Project 2025’s goal of aligning all US law and policy with Biblical values.

Other authors include Brendan Carr, the nominee to head the Federal Communications Commission, who wrote the chapter on overhauling the FCC to advance right-wing conservative views. Project 2025 contributors include John Ratcliffe, Trump’s CIA pick, whose chief of staff under Trump 1.0 was Dustin Cormack, the author of Project 2025’s chapter on US intelligence; and Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar” pick, who was acting ICE director under Trump 1.0 and architect of its family separation policy.

The evangelical Christian Nationalist connection

A majority of nominees are also evangelical Christians, including 23 Catholics (as of November 17th). They include Vance, a passionate adult convert to Catholicism, along with Marco Rubio, and also Vought, whose CRA focuses on fighting critical race theory, among other priorities.

Other CRA staffers who contributed to Project 2025 are Senior Fellow Adam Candeub (FTC chapter), Senior Fellow for Immigration Ken Cucinelli (DHS chapter), and Senior Fellow Mark Paoletta, who served as Trump 1.0 General Counsel working closely with Vought.

Paoletta is also close friends with Leonard Leo, who bankrolled Project 2025, and is tight with Justice Clarence Thomas and other conservative Catholics on the highest bench. The CRA lists Christian nationalism as a policy priority in its own “Biblical Mandate” blueprint for the next administration. A look at Project 2025’s links reveals the dark money influence of critical shadow players including Leo, and donors Charles Koch, the Bradley family and others, as well as The Federalist Society, a springboard for legal picks to the Supreme Court and federal courts.

Eleven other nominees have been tapped for Trump 2.0 jobs from another frontline Project 2025 advisory group, America First Policy Institute, and are staunch Christian activists. AFPI nominees include Linda McMahon, Larry Kudlow, Brooke Rollins, and Pam Bondi, who has led AFPI’s legal efforts. This year, the AFPI teamed up with the Christian evangelical New Apostolic Reformation movement to cosponsor the Courage Tour, led by MAGA activist Gen. Mike Flynn, a 2024 get-out-the-Christian-vote-for-Trump campaign in swing states. The NAR is the fast-growing global “dominionist” evangelical movement led by “living apostles” Lance Wallnau and Trump’s spiritual leader Paula White-Cain. (See our recent Special Report, The Unfolding Agenda, on the NAR, Courage Tour, and Project 2025.)

The AFPI and CRA, along with the Heritage Foundation, led by Kevin Roberts (Project 2025 author, Foreword) are Project 2025 advisory groups who’ve received millions from dark money entities managed by conservative Catholic activist and lawyer Leonard Leo. He famously hand-picked six SCOTUS conservatives and federal judges for top court seats.

Other arch-right billionaires including Charles Koch are bankrolling Project 2025 advisory groups and its judicial agenda. (See our Special Report, Follow the Dark Money, for Leo’s links to Project 2025 and to Opus Dei.) Trump nominees include several billionaires: Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Howard Lutnick, and Scott Bessent, as well as these major dollar donors: Linda McMahon of AFPI (Education pick), Chris Wright, (Energy pick) John Phelan (Navy pick), Steve Witkoff (special envoy, Middle East), Trump has primarily been offering his wealthy donors plum ambassadorships.

They include billionaire extended family members: Charles Kushner (ambassador to France), father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Massad Boulos (Special Advisor to the President, Arab and Middle East Affairs), the Lebanese-American father-in-law of Tiffany Trump. Meanwhile, Trump’s son Don Jr.’s apparently former girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, has been named to be ambassador to Greece.

Trump’s transition team has also selected a number of Fox News hosts or contributors or reality television hosts. Some are also married to Fox News hosts or linked to other right-wing media including Breitbart news, founded by Steve Bannon, and NewsMax, where Gov. Mike Huckabee hosted a show after a longtime stint as a Fox News host. His current show, Huckabee, runs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, the largest Christian network in the world.

Ten ex-lobbyists are among the nominees, Accountable reports: Susie Wiles, Bill McGinley, Doug Collins, Sean Duffy,  Matthew Whitaker, Pam Bondi,  Alex Wong,  Pete Hoekstra,  Jamieson Greer, and James Braid.

— Anne-christine d’Adesky
Journalist, Founder and Director
Resisting Project 2025