The Trump campaign attempted to distance itself from the conservative Project 2025 playbook on Friday. Despite significant overlap between Project 2025 personnel and staffers from former president Donald Trump’s administration and campaign, Trump issued a statement saying he had “no idea who is behind” the project. 

Project 2025 is spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation in partnership with dozens of rightwing advocacy organizations. It has two main components: First, a 900-page manifesto with a wish list for the first 180 days of the “next conservative administration,” including to further restrict abortion access and “dismantle the administrative state.” The second component is an application-only recruitment effort to ensure the administration is quickly staffed with loyalists.  

On Friday, Trump disavowed Project 2025 in a post to Truth Social, his social media platform, saying he found unspecified parts of the project “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” 

“I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” Trump wrote. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s vague disavowal of Project 2025 came a few days after Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, made inflammatory statements about a coming “second American Revolution” that would be “bloodless” “if the left allows it to be.”

“As we’ve been saying for more than two years now, Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign,” the Project 2025 account said in a statement on X. “But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement.”

Despite Trump’s claims to have “nothing to do with” Project 2025, his administration and campaign personnel contributed to the project, including Karoline Leavitt, his campaign’s national press secretary, as the Biden campaign quickly pointed out on X. 

Former Trump administration officials wrote and edited massive chunks of the manifesto. One of its two primary editors, Paul Dans, who directs the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project, served as the White House liaison for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management during the Trump administration, among other positions. 

Rick Dearborn, who was briefly Trump’s deputy chief of staff, wrote the White House chapter. Russ Vought, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote the chapter on OMB and similar executive offices. 

Gene Hamilton, who served in the Trump Justice Department and is now the vice president and general counsel of America First Legal, wrote the DOJ chapter. Similarly, the chapter on the Department of Homeland Security was written by Ken Cuccinelli, who held multiple positions in Trump’s DHS. The list of Project 2025 playbook contributors includes former Trump administration officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, among other departments and agencies. 

Peter Navarro — who advised Trump’s 2016 campaign, served as director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, and recently reported to prison for refusing to cooperate with a Congressional inquiry into January 6 insurrection — drafted a chapter on trade policy.

People close to Trump also contributed to the Project 2025’s effort to recruit conservatives for administration positions, including appearances in promos and training videos. 

Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, is featured in a promotional video for the Project 2025 academy, along with Stephen Miller and other former Trump administration officials. According to the Project 2025 recruitment website, “The Presidential Administration Academy is a one-of-a-kind educational and skill-building program designed to prepare and equip future political appointees now to be ready on Day One of the next conservative Administration.”

According to the academy syllabus, Leavitt also co-teaches a video module in the academy, titled, “The Art of Professionalism.” 

“I appeared in a video for Heritage the year before I started working on the Trump campaign,” Leavitt told The Intercept when asked how the Trump campaign could claim ignorance of Project 2025. Referring to Trump’s campaign platform, she said: “Agenda 47 is the only official policy agenda of the President Trump and our campaign.”

Other former Trump administration officials listed on the Project 2025 academy syllabus include Dearborn, Roger Severino, Hugh Fike, and Bethany Kozma. 

The post Trump’s Camp Says It Has Nothing to Do With Project 2025 Manifesto — Aside From Writing It appeared first on The Intercept.

The governing body said the fine was for "unseemly or inappropriate behaviour during the race and damage to the image of the sport".

Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a fierce ultra-conservative critic of Pope Francis, has been found guilty of schism and excommunicated, the Vatican's doctrinal office said on Friday. Vigano, the papal envoy in Washington from 2011-2016, went into hiding in 2018 after alleging that the pope knew for years about sexual misconduct by U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and did nothing about it.

In letters sent out to students this week, first reported by KUT, university officials said it would be appropriate to suspend them for their actions during the protests but would give them the option to take “deferred suspension” instead, a form of probation that would allow students to remain in class and keep the disciplinary action from appearing on their final transcripts.

Supporters of Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime lawmaker, entered the streets of Tehran and other cities before dawn to celebrate as his lead grew over Jalili, a hard-line former nuclear negotiator.

“Dear people of Iran, the elections are over and this is just the beginning of our cooperation,” Pezeshkian wrote on the social platform X, still banned in Iran. “The difficult path ahead will not be smooth except with your companionship, empathy and trust. I extend my hand to you and I swear on my honor that I will not leave you alone on this path. Do not leave me alone.”

Joe Biden’s doctor met with a leading Washington DC neurologist at the White House this year, it was reported on Saturday.

The report came after Biden on Friday ruled out taking an independent cognitive test and releasing its findings publicly, in an interview with ABC News arranged following his disastrous performance in last week’s presidential TV debate with Donald Trump.

According White House visitor logs reviewed by the New York Post, Dr Kevin Cannard, a Parkinson’s disease expert at Walter Reed medical center, met with Dr Kevin O’Connor, a doctor of osteopathic medicine who has treated the president for years.

The visit took place at the White House residence clinic on 17 January. Cannard has visited the White House house eight times since August 2023. On seven of those visits, most recently in late March, he met with Megan Nasworthy, a liaison between Walter Reed and the White House.

cross-posted from: https://yall.theatl.social/post/3116914

From the Atlanta Daily World:

Photo: Getty Images A GOP lawmaker is facing backlash after referring to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre as a “DEI hire.” On Tuesday (July 2), Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert (R) suggested that Jean-Pierre was only hired to fill a diversity quota. “I couldn’t care less about what @PressSec has to say today,” Boebert tweeted. … Continued

The post GOP Lawmaker Slammed For Calling White House Press Secretary ‘DEI Hire’ appeared first on Atlanta Daily World.

"And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be," he said.