Project 2025 June 18th Update

Project 2025 Is Here.

With Trump’s return to the presidency, Project 2025, a 920-page blueprint for authoritarianism in the U.S., spearheaded by the powerful and extreme far-right Heritage Foundation, is becoming a reality, affecting all Americans and people around the globe. 

More than 100 far-right organizations support this plan for autocracy, which is proving to be the source for Trump’s anti-democratic policies, despite his repeated disavowal of Project 2025 during his campaign. Dozens of members of the new administration have direct ties to the effort.

Project 2025’s stated goal is to create an “ideal” America that would see women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, people of color, and others deprived of their hard-won constitutional rights and the erosion of environmental and education protections. It also advocates for a frightening centralization of power in the executive branch, something Trump is keen to achieve. Read GPAHE’s full analysis of Project 2025 and the groups behind it.

GPAHE monitors how Project 2025 is becoming a reality and reports on the ties between the project and the administration, and its impact on the American people and democracy. We track Project 2025 activities at the federal, state, and local levels, and their plans for an authoritarian and Christian Nationalist America.

This week, we look at how a Michigan librarian is standing her ground amidst threats and harassment from a member of Moms For Liberty, the Trump administration’s quashing of opposition to his deportation machine, and how Project 2025’s EPA policies are being enacted at the environment’s expense. We’ll also hear from Project 2025’s Kevin Roberts and Project 2025 supporter Charlie Kirk as they brazenly rail against immigration and multiculturalism, at times employing white supremacist terms as they shift the argument about immigration further to the right.

The Librarian’s War: When Books Become Battlegrounds

The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as Moms for Liberty member Stefanie Boone raised her phone and began filming, transforming a high school library into a political assault of lies and bullying. Boone’s repeated questions to the school’s librarian about where the adult content was kept were soon to be broadcast on social media, with the caption: “Which way to the PORN section please?” The post went viral.

Christine Beachler, the normally cheery librarian caught in the crosshairs of this manufactured moment, had dedicated decades to the quiet craft of connecting young minds with literature. Now she found herself starring in a video shared far and wide by a member of a right-wing, book-banning, anti-LGBTQ+ group that would accumulate over one million views and reshape her understanding of what it means to serve the public good in contemporary America. It would also see her labeled a “smut peddler” and threatened with violence, a lawsuit details.

The February 2025 incident at Lowell Area Schools (LAS) in Michigan represents more than casual cruelty disguised as parental concern. This bullying for a cause exemplifies the tactics organizations like Moms for Liberty use to further Project 2025’s agenda, eschewing traditional legislative channels, for the alleged destruction of individual careers to prove their point.

Beachler’s subsequent defamation lawsuit filed in Kent County Circuit Court in May 2025, documents five years of escalating harassment that started when Boone “began a campaign to remove certain books from LAS” in 2020, alleging the library was harboring pornography. This stance, embraced by Moms for Liberty members across the country, evolved over time and as legal documents detail, Boone broadened her attacks to include Beachler’s character. 

The legal filing identifies Boone as “a member of the group Moms for Liberty, a far-right organization that engages in anti-student inclusion activities and self-identifies as part of the modern ‘parental rights’ movement.” Moms for Liberty has undergone a dark evolution since emerging from COVID-era mask protests, transforming into a MAGA champion routinely welcomed at the White House. The organization, which took in $3.4 million in 2023, functions as one of the tactical and splashy implementation arms of Project 2025’s agenda.

Their methodology relies on performance activism engineered to generate viral content. Court documents reveal how Boone “frequently read salacious excerpts from books at public meetings,” deliberately extracting passages “out of context in an attempt to shock listeners,” while characterizing approved materials as “pornography.” 

The lawsuit also alleges institutional impersonation, stating that Boone called OverDrive, the district’s eBook vendor, falsely claiming to be “with Lowell schools” to extract information about the library’s digital collection.

For Beachler, the experience proved psychologically devastating and the reaction to the February video was her breaking point. “At the point when that video came out number one. It went viral,” she recounted in an interview. “So, there were over a million people seeing it. But to actually have threats of, you know, on my life that was unreal. I mean, how do you justify that in your mind, that I’m doing my job exactly as the school board has told me to do?” 

The viral explosion generated a litany of dehumanizing comments on social media. “People called Plaintiff a child predator, a pedophile, a groomer, a pervert, a pornographer, and a whore. People called for violence against Plaintiff, and even for her death,” Beachler’s complaint reads.

The sustained assault extracted severe psychological costs. “It’s just really hard to talk about. That’s why I’ve actually been working from home a lot,” Beachler says. “I mean being called a groomer, being called a pedophile, I was called a whore, a smut peddler.” The physical manifestations proved equally troubling. “Half of my hair fell out, and I’ve broken several of my teeth from grinding my teeth, and I couldn’t even work for quite a while because I just couldn’t come here without even crying,” she described. 

“I’ve been an educator for 37 years, and how can somebody call somebody that name that has invested their life in working with kids?” 

Between legal depositions and media interviews, Beachler continues her work, tending to the same collection that made her a target. Her persistence embodies something essential about democratic resilience — the stubborn dedication of public servants who refuse to abandon their posts even when the institutions they serve fail to protect them from the very citizens they seek to educate.

The Handcuff Strategy: How Trump’s Migrant Purge Targets Democratic Power

On June 12, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s fury erupted in real time across social media platforms, his words bearing the weight of watching democratic norms crumble as a sitting Senator was detained by law enforcement in a public building. 

“Alex Padilla is one of the most decent people I know,” he wrote. “This is outrageous, dictatorial, and shameful. Trump and his shock troops are out of control.” His follow-up post struck deeper: “If they can handcuff a U.S. Senator for asking a question, imagine what they will do to you.” 

The deliberate invocation of “shock troops” — terminology heavy with historical precedent — transformed routine political criticism into constitutional alarm, with Newsom dismissing Trump’s calls for his own arrest as political theater. It’s a chilling symptom of nascent authoritarianism as the Trump regime seeks to enforce its mass deportation strategy outlined in Project 2025 at any cost and in disregard for constitutional rights.

Senator Padilla’s detention on June 12 at a press event held by Kristi Noem crossed unprecedented lines. Video evidence demolished Homeland Security’s claim that he failed to identify himself — footage captured him stating clearly, “My name is Senator Alex Padilla, and I have questions for the secretary,” before agents overwhelmed him and forced him to the ground.

The arrest of NYC mayoral candidate and city Comptroller Brad Lander five days later marked the latest episode in a disturbing pattern. “You don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens,” Lander protested. “I’m not obstructing. I’m standing right here in the hallway. I asked to see the judicial warrant.” 

Lander was escorting a defendant from immigration court when masked law enforcement stepped in, with video showing his repeated warrant requests before handcuffs clicked shut. 

Homeland Security’s response — dismissing such actions as politicians seeking “viral moments” — revealed both awareness of deteriorating optics and commitment to escalation. “You want to know what I really think? It’s bullshit,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said shortly after Lander was detained. “When elected officials are being detained without cause, we have to ask: What the hell is happening to this country? This federal overreach cannot go unchecked. We must meet this moment and protect our rights and values.”

The arrests of democratic officials who challenge the administration’s immigration apparatus began with Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan. When ICE agents arrived at the courthouse on April 18 seeking Eduardo Flores-Ruiz on immigration violations, Dugan stepped into the hallway wearing her judicial robes to question them directly. 

Security cameras captured her directing the plainclothes agents away from her courtroom, but they also recorded something prosecutors had buried in legal filings: Dugan demanding to see a proper judicial warrant instead of the administrative document they carried — paperwork issued by immigration officials without any court review. Her lawyers argue this represented basic judicial oversight and concern for due process, not criminal obstruction. Although the court will ultimately decide the truth, her attorneys have called the charges “unprecedented” and “entirely unconstitutional,” language that would echo through every case that followed.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s May detention during congressional oversight at a protest outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center revealed the administration’s determination to punish opposing viewpoints. “They were itching to do that from the very sight of me,” he reflected later. Although trespassing charges were eventually dismissed, Baraka’s subsequent lawsuit for malicious prosecution against Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, exposes the weaponization of prosecutorial discretion.

Representative LaMonica McIver’s prosecution from the same Newark incident demonstrated selective application of justice. While Baraka’s charges evaporated, federal prosecutors pursued McIver’s case, seeking felony charges that could carry 17 years imprisonment. “It’s political intimidation and I’m looking forward to my day in court,” McIver said.

Sen. Padilla’s Senate remarks on June 17 reflect a brewing political outrage over the sweeping mass deportations and the Trump regime’s heavy-handed suppression of opposition from politicians and citizens alike. “If you watched what unfolded last week and thought what happened is just about one politician and one press conference, you’re missing the point,” he said. “If Donald Trump can bypass the governor and activate the National Guard to put down protests on immigrant rights, he can do it to suppress your rights too,” Padilla continued. “If he can deploy the Marines to Los Angeles without justification, he can deploy them to your state, too. And if you can ignore due process, strip away first amendment rights, and disappear people to foreign prisons without their day in court, he can do it to you too.”

Trump’s EPA Enforcement Freeze Mirrors Project 2025 Blueprint

Five months after Trump returned to the White House, his Environmental Protection Agency has enacted dramatic policy shifts that bear a striking resemblance to Project 2025’s blueprint, which proposed an outright elimination of ​​the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well as the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance. 

As CNN reports, regional EPA offices received directives to cease enforcement actions targeting fossil fuel companies — a move that fundamentally alters decades of environmental oversight.

Staff members working in the EPA’s Region 5 office, responsible for overseeing six Midwestern states, learned during meetings that management imposed “a pause on oil and gas enforcement.” These employees can no longer dispatch violation notices or request information from fossil fuel companies under investigation for potential environmental infractions. Similar restrictions have taken effect in Region 6, which includes Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico — states that collectively dominate American oil and gas production. 

Region 6’s new leadership adds another layer to these changes — Scott Mason IV, who helped craft Project 2025’s EPA policies while serving as Oklahoma’s deputy energy secretary, now oversees the region that includes major oil-producing states like Texas and Louisiana.

One EPA enforcement officer told CNN that industry attitudes have shifted dramatically: “The companies are scoffing at the cops. EPA enforcement doesn’t have the leverage they once had.” A March 12 memo from the EPA’s acting enforcement chief, Jeffrey Hall, a Trump pick with a background in litigating against EPA regulations, required staff consultations with his office before issuing violations and specifically prohibited pursuing methane leak violations from oil and gas operations. The memo also declared the EPA “shall not shut down any stage of energy production (from exploration to distribution) or power generation absent an imminent and substantial threat to human health or an express statutory or regulatory requirement to the contrary.”

CNN’s data analysis reveals enforcement case initiations or closures dropped 32 percent compared to the Biden administration’s opening months, with nearly 60 percent fewer cases than Trump’s first term, which is well on its way to Project 2025’s goal of prioritizing industry interests over public health safeguards.

In Their Own Words: Dehumanizing Migrants

“Deportation is not just policy — it’s survival.”

— Heritage Foundation President and Project 2025 co-author Kevin Roberts, Daily Wire, “Why America Needs Mass Deportations Now,” June 13, 2025.

“The barbarians have stormed the gates. They bear no loyalty to America, no reverence for her inheritance, and no desire to become part of her family.”

— Ibid.

“If we don’t act now with mass deportations, we’re handing our country over to criminals and radicals who’ll burn it to the ground.”

— Ibid.

“The left’s obsession with open borders and multiculturalism is a deliberate attempt to erase our heritage and replace it with a rootless, chaotic mob.”

— Kevin Roberts, The Claremont Institute’s American Mind, June 6, 2025.

“We must reclaim our nation from the clutches of globalists and radicals who would see it torn apart by imported disorder and ideological decay.”

— Ibid.

“The institutions that once formed men and women of character — the church, the family, the school, the neighborhood — were dismantled by design. And what took their place? An age of inversion, where the elites told us biology was bigotry. Where children were sacrificed on the altar of convenience and identity. Where border walls were racist and drag shows virtuous.”

— Ibid.

“This is the Great Replacement theory. Remember we talked about they wanna replace white Anglo-Saxon Christian Protestants with Mexican Nicaraguans, with El Salvadorians. You have seen the result of the Great Replacement in California. One in four people have been born outside the US. Lemme say that again. One in four people in California have been born outside the US. You can see the white population collapse in LA. That’s intentional.”

— Charlie Kirk, The Charlie Kirk Show, June 9, 2025

They don’t believe in e pluribus unum or in God We Trust or liberty. They’re coming here for one reason. It’s because we are rich. You see, we have a parasitic relationship with Mexico, and we have for quite some time. Mexico sends in millions of people to our country. They work here and steal jobs from native born Americans.”

— Ibid.

“It’s time to ban third-world immigration, legal or illegal. We’ve reached our limit and we have a huge cultural, educational, housing, financial, and essential services problem to fix now because of it. We need a net-zero immigration moratorium with a ban on all third-worlders.”

— Charlie Kirk on X June 9, 2025

“Multiculturalism is un-American. Uniculturalism is what the Founders wanted. If you don’t assimilate, you are disgracing this country, and you can kindly leave.”

— Charlie Kirk on X, June 11, 2025

“I have to just praise President Trump and his team’s courageous immigration plan, and President Trump is now calling it ‘remigration.’ We need more raids, more deportations, it’s exactly what the American people voted for.”

— Charlie Kirk, Jesse Watters Primetime, June 16, 2025.