Last August, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump addressed a persistent accusation that had begun to dog his campaign. “We have nothing to do with Project 25,” he insisted to the assembled media, referring to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 920-page blueprint for reshaping America. A month later, during a presidential debate with Kamala Harris, Trump again found himself on the defensive against the hugely unpopular plan: “I haven’t read it — I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it,” he said.
But 25 days into the Trump administration, almost a third of Project 2025’s suggestions had already been implemented or were in progress — 32% as of Friday, to be precise. If that number seems rather specific, you can thank Adrienne Cobb, who’s more commonly known online by her username RusticGorilla, and who is assiduously tracking Project 2025’s developments agency by agency.
Looking at the tracker, the low-hanging fruit becomes obvious. Almost 92% of Project 2025’s USAID-related objectives have been accomplished, Cobb’s research shows, while objectives at the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of the Interior are all closer to 40% complete. Still, that can mean different things for different departments; for example, there are 19 Department of Energy objectives overall, seven of which are already finished. Many of the remaining incomplete objectives involve eliminating offices, such as the DOE Loan Program or Clean Energy Demonstrations, while others are broad and will take time, such as “expanding natural gas infrastructure.”
I spoke to Cobb on Friday about the tracker and the Trump administration's rapid flurry of actions. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
When did you start working on the Project 2025 tracker? How’d this whole thing get started?
It started last month. I went through the whole Project 2025 document and pulled out each clearly stated objective. One challenge was that a lot of it was pretty vague, so I tried to focus only on the measurable objectives.
I previously tracked the Mueller Report. I also did 45 Chaos, which tracked the people who were fired or resigned during Trump’s first administration. Now, I also have 47 Chaos, which does the same thing for the second administration.
After going through Project 2025 so methodically, was there anything that struck you as not getting enough attention?
Many of the parts on civil rights didn’t get much attention, especially in education. The media mainly focused on the top line, like “abolish the Department of Education.” But there wasn’t a lot of coverage of Project 2025 wanting to pull back the coverage of protections for disabled students. That was a common theme throughout — rolling back protections for people in a less advantaged position.
Have you noticed any patterns in the objectives that have been fulfilled so far?
They’re going after what they see as the easiest targets first, like LGBTQ rights and DEI initiatives — which are very easy to implement through executive action and about which they don’t think people will complain or speak up.
Most of the energy objectives that have been enacted are ones that roll back key Biden-era initiatives, like Biden’s pause on LNG exports and Biden’s prioritization of climate change mitigation in policy-making. Trump also managed to enact the Project 2025 goal of limiting subsidized renewables by illegally suspending the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding, which went to various clean energy projects across the country.
Even though a judge has ordered IRA and IIJA funding reinstated, Pennsylvania has alleged in a lawsuit that Trump’s administration still has not released the funding. Project 2025 called on Congress to repeal the IRA and IIJA, yet Trump is going farther than even Project 2025 imagined by straight up withholding the funding in defiance of Congressional appropriations and court orders.
How has the feedback from the community been? How does this tracker compare to others that you’ve done?
It’s definitely been getting more attention. I think that’s because people are actually really scared of what the Trump administration is trying to do and are more invested in it. The Mueller Report was far away from Americans lives, but Project 2025 touches our lives in almost every aspect. People are scared and want to keep track of what’s going on.
Why do you think it’s important to track these developments in such a methodical and quantitative way? What is it about this presentation that you think is helpful?
I hope it is helpful. I’m not sure if it is, or why it is, for other people. I just know that, for me, it is what I’m good at. I’m not a public person — I’m not good at contributing in an extroverted way. I’m good at contributing in an introverted way, and this is my way of doing something that I hope helps people stay informed and make sense of the incredible deluge of news. It’s just my way of doing something.
It’s going to be a work in progress throughout the whole administration. I’m open to feedback and other people helping me and sending me messages like, “Hey, did you know this happened yesterday? Did you catch it?” or something like that, just because it is 900 pages and almost 300 objectives, and I am only one person. But everyone can help in their own way — that’s my main message.
Metrograph
IEA