Project 2025 November 19th 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 Florida’s embrace of the Project 2025 leader Heritage Foundation’s Christian nationalist curriculum in public schools, how FCC Chair and Project 2025 coauthor Brendan Carr is weaponizing broadcast licenses to silence critics, and how the Pentagon is stripping retirement benefits from transgender veterans whose service and sacrifices don’t count under the Trump administration.

Project 2025 Comes to Class: Florida Board Unanimously Adopts Heritage Foundation’s Phoenix Declaration

On November 13 in Wakulla County, Florida’s Board of Education voted unanimously to adopt something called the Phoenix Declaration. No other state board had touched it. Florida went first.

The declaration comes from the Heritage Foundation — the same organization behind Project 2025. It demands that public schools teach America’s “Judeo-Christian” roots and help children reach their “God-given potential.” Schools must provide what the declaration terms “moral formation,” not just information. What that means in practice remains undefined.

Erika Donalds, whose husband, Byron Donalds, represents Florida in Congress, helped write it. Adam Kissel, a Heritage Foundation visiting fellow whose calls to defund universities over diversity programs prompted the Florida Senate to reject his University of West Florida board appointment earlier this year, also helped draft it. Scott Yenor, a Boise State professor and prominent member of the Society for American Civic Renewal — a secretive, men-only group promoting what internal documents describe as Christian men’s “legitimate forceful exercise” of authority — signed on. Tiffany Justice of Project 2025-cosponsor Moms for Liberty signed on too.

Board chair Ryan Petty called the principles “unifying.” Public commenters disagreed. Elona Peck addressed the board directly: The Heritage Foundation wrote this. It’s part of Project 2025. “This is indoctrination dressed up in pretty words.”

Maggie McDonald, a vocal opponent of the Phoenix Declaration, went further. She called it “white Christian nationalist ideology.”

Democrat Rep. Robin Bartleman is also critical of what signing on to such a pledge will mean.

“I’m very nervous about it and I think we’re going to see bills tied to it, and I think we’re going to see rules and policies tied to it that we never expected. If you read Project 2025, it’s scary,” he said. “These are just a couple of paragraphs about what they’re going to do and the devil is going to be in the details.”

House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell is also concerned that, in an effort to politicize Florida’s public schools, lawmakers are “trying to force this type of information down children’s throats, that it really is about trying to indoctrinate them with a conservative ideology, not really teaching them to think.”

The declaration’s seven principles sound innocuous until examined closely. Students must learn about “Judeo-Christian traditions.” They deserve education “grounded in objective truth, free from ideological fads” — though who defines that truth goes unspecified. Information alone won’t suffice. Schools must cultivate “virtue, personal responsibility, and self-discipline” in ways that parents, religious institutions, and civic organizations traditionally handled.

Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas described the principles as bipartisan. Critics saw something different. The Florida Education Association released a statement calling the declaration “the latest thinly veiled attempt by billionaire-backed special interests to dismantle and politicize Florida’s public education system,” urging the board to address teacher shortages and school funding instead of pursuing what it characterized as ideological projects written by outside groups.

Retired Alachua County teacher Marihelen Wheeler warned about implementation. “Talk to teachers about what you’re discussing now,” she told the board. “I don’t know how often you include teachers, but you’ve got to do it because you’re not going to be able to keep Florida teachers with this kind of addition to the teacher’s load.”

Both Petty and former education commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr., now interim president of the University of West Florida, had signed the declaration individually before Thursday’s board action. Their early endorsement positioned Florida’s education leadership as active participants in Heritage’s initiative rather than neutral evaluators of educational policy.

The foundation introduced the declaration in February at its Conservative Vision of Education Conference in Phoenix. Heritage framed it as a blueprint for states seeking to reshape public education along explicitly ideological lines.

Historian Tad Stoermer has analyzed the document as “sophisticated rebranding of culture-war politics — using lofty rhetoric about virtue and excellence to conceal an authoritarian, nationalist agenda.”

Florida’s adoption marks the declaration’s transformation from Heritage Foundation position paper to official state education policy. Other Republican-led states may follow the precedent. For now, Florida stands alone as the first state board to formally endorse what critics describe as Christian nationalism entering public classrooms through policy rather than prayer.

Brendan Carr’s FCC: Project 2025’s Speech Police

November 15, Donald Trump turned his ire to another late-night talk show host, NBC’s Seth Meyers. “NBC’s Seth Meyers is suffering from an incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). He was viewed last night in an uncontrollable rage, likely due to the fact that his “show” is a Ratings DISASTER. Aside from everything else, Meyers has no talent, and NBC should fire him, IMMEDIATELY!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Within an hour, FCC Chair Brendan Carr reposted the demand on his own social media. The timing matters: NBC’s parent company Comcast is expected to bid on Warner Bros. Discovery, a sale requiring FCC approval.

The Meyers incident follows a pattern Carr has established since Trump appointed him FCC chair in January. Carr wrote the Federal Communications Commission chapter for Project 2025, the 900-page plan to reshape federal agencies under conservative control. When Trump appointed him FCC chair in January, Carr immediately posted that his top priority was dismantling “the censorship cartel.” Within months, he had launched investigations into every major broadcast network except Fox News.

The strategy Carr outlined in Project 2025 called for creating an Office of Platform Accountability with investigative powers over tech companies’ content decisions, using merger reviews as leverage for content oversight, and rewriting Section 230 to strip platforms of immunity when they moderate content, transforming the FCC into an unprecedented mechanism for controlling public discourse.

Carr’s primary weapon has been the news distortion policy, a rule dating back to 1949 that prohibits broadcasters from intentionally falsifying news. The FCC eliminated the related fairness doctrine in 1987 over free speech concerns but left this provision intact. It went largely unused for decades until Carr resurrected it. Seven former FCC chairs and commissioners, including three Republicans appointed under Reagan and George H.W. Bush, filed a petition on November 13 demanding its repeal. They argue the policy has no purpose beyond government overreach and that the threat alone chills speech.

“The news distortion policy seeks to mold the speech of private broadcasters to the FCC’s own view of what is correct, complete, and accurate news. The First Amendment forbids the government from embarking on such a project,” the petition reads. “The current leadership of the Commission is using the news distortion policy to directly advance the interests of the White House,” the petitioners argue. “The Commission has reopened and threatened to open news distortion investigations into broadcasters simply because the Chairman disapproves of their coverage as biased or allegedly ”false.” This pattern of escalating attacks demonstrates just how sweeping and dangerous the expansive powers claimed under the news distortion policy are.”

In September, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel made remarks about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Carr appeared on a podcast and said, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Hours later, ABC suspended Kimmel’s show. Even Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) compared Carr’s tactics to “a mafioso coming into a bar.”

Carr reopened a complaint against CBS over its 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, claiming misleading editing. Trump sued CBS and settled for $16 million while parent company Paramount sought regulatory approval for its merger with Skydance. Late-night host Stephen Colbert mocked the settlement on air, calling it a bribe. CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert days later, claiming the decision was purely financial. Carr publicly stated the lawsuit would factor into his merger decision. The FCC approved the $8 billion deal in July.

Daniel Lyons at Boston College Law School told the Washington Post that Carr’s approach amounts to “regulation by raised eyebrow,” creating enough threat to force voluntary compliance without formal action. “You don’t have to go full Tony Soprano to have a chilling effect on speech,” he said.

Between 2019 and 2024, a CNN review found dozens of posts where, ironically, Carr defended free speech and political satire. In 2022, Carr wrote that political satire is “one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech” and that shutting it down “would represent a serious threat to our freedoms.” The following year, he posted that “free speech is the counterweight” to government control and “censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.”

Project 2025’s mission is securing “God-given individual rights” and establishing a government “imbued with biblical principles” under a president with sweeping executive powers. The document calls for placing the entire executive branch, including independent agencies like the FCC, under direct presidential control.

Anna Gomez reported that local broadcasters nationwide are advising reporters to be careful how they cover stories for fear of government retribution. Twenty-two civil rights and media groups sent Carr a letter in October accusing him of “unprecedented weaponization” of FCC authority. The organizations, including the NAACP and Freedom of the Press Foundation, wrote that his actions are those of lawless authoritarians. “As Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, your sworn duty is to the Constitution, not to any President. We urge you to speak up, as your predecessors have done and you yourself were once willing to do, in defense of the First Amendment and the Rule of Law,” the letter concluded. “Affirm unequivocally that the FCC will no longer serve as the enforcer in President Trump’s unconstitutional shakedowns of media organizations.”

Project 2025’s Broken Promise: How the Administration Is Abandoning America’s Trans Veterans

Logan Ireland received his retirement orders in June, in accordance with a memo Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued in May, asking service members who had been diagnosed wth gender dysphoria to request early retirement. The Air Force master sergeant who is trans and had survived the first Trump administration, had served 15 years, deployed to Afghanistan, and earned the right to early retirement under military regulations. He started planning his family’s future around the pension and TRICARE health coverage which those orders guaranteed.

Two months later, the Air Force rescinded everything.

Ireland and 16 other transgender servicemembers filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on November 10, arguing that the Air Force violated its own regulations when it stripped benefits from servicemembers who had already received official approval.

“I felt that the Air Force was now seeing my service as meaningless when here I’ve devoted my life to this uniform and this service,” Ireland stated. “Some of us have bled in this uniform, seen friends of ours die in this uniform. Was that all for nothing?”

Air Force regulations permit retirement orders to be rescinded only under specific circumstances: fraud, manifest error, mathematical error, mistake of law, or substantial new evidence. Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights representing the plaintiffs, says none of these conditions apply.

The orders went through the standard approval process. Officials signed them. The Air Force issued them through proper channels. Ireland’s retirement date was set for September. Other plaintiffs received dates ranging through December.

Then-Acting Assistant Secretary Brian Scarlett sent a memo in August disapproving all early retirement requests for transgender members with 15 to 18 years of service. An Air Force spokesperson claimed that servicemembers were “prematurely notified” and that no applications for early retirement were actually approved.

Ireland questions the logic. “How do I receive retirement orders signed by the Secretary of the Air Force if they were prematurely given out?”

The legal battle stems from Trump’s January executive order targeting transgender troops. The order claimed physical and mental health conditions make them “incompatible” with military service. The Supreme Court allowed the ban to proceed in May while legal challenges continue.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memo in May instructing active duty transgender servicemembers to apply for voluntary separation by June 6 or face involuntary removal. Then-Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Gwen DeFilippi followed with a May memo outlining the voluntary separation process and the possibility of early retirement for those with 15 to 18 years of service.

Each plaintiff stands to lose up to $2 million in pension benefits over their lifetime. They also lose lifetime access to TRICARE health insurance for themselves and their families.

The separation pay offered as an alternative comes with conditions. Priya Rashid, legal director of the National Institute of Military Justice Transgender Representation Project, explains what servicemembers actually receive: “a zero-interest early loan on their disability and their accrued entitlements.” When these veterans need medical and financial support later in life, they won’t receive their accrued benefits because they already received a lump sum years earlier.

The Air Force compounded the injury with an August 12 memo fundamentally changing separation board procedures. The boards, supposedly independent, “must recommend separation of the member” if the airman has a gender dysphoria diagnosis. The outcome is predetermined before the hearing begins.

The new rules prohibit any recordings of the hearings or the use of court reporters. Rashid says that violates the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires agencies to provide appeals. “The transcript is the mechanism of appeal. That’s a First Amendment and a Fifth Amendment right of the public.”

The policy represents a sharp reversal from the first Trump administration’s approach. Back in 2017, transgender servicemembers could stay in the military if they obtained an official gender dysphoria diagnosis.

The Pentagon used those appointments to build a list. About 4,240 servicemembers had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria as of last December. The documentation required to keep their jobs under the first ban now provides the evidence to force them out.

Michael Haley, a staff attorney with that advocacy group GLAD Law, describes the revocation of retirement benefits as part of “the general cruelty in attacking transgender people.” Many plaintiffs had received orders allowing their retirements. Some had already begun the process of leaving the military.

Minter says the lawsuit could take up to a year before a judgment. Meanwhile, transgender servicemembers who planned for early retirement wait with no pension and no TRICARE. “If my service is no longer wanted — I know it’s needed — but if it’s no longer wanted, then do right by me and let me retain my benefits so I can exit the military with honor,” Ireland said.