{"id":3474,"date":"2024-07-24T09:02:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T09:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2024\/07\/26\/how-would-project-2025-impact-troops-and-veterans\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T12:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T12:27:09","slug":"how-would-project-2025-impact-troops-and-veterans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2024\/07\/24\/how-would-project-2025-impact-troops-and-veterans\/","title":{"rendered":"How would Project 2025 impact troops and veterans?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Banning transgender troops from service, revoking the VA\u2019s ability to provide abortion-related care and slashing the number of general officers in the ranks are just a few of the policy proposals laid out in a political playbook for what the next Republican administration could look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Known as Project 2025, the plan organized <\/b>by the conservative think thank The Heritage Foundation would make sizable changes to the lives of service members and veterans if implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lengthy guidebook that seeks to reform several facets of the federal government has taken the spotlight in the 2024 presidential race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, Democrats have called the agenda<\/a> a \u201cdangerous blueprint\u201d for what his second term could look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project 2025 was authored by many officials who served in the first Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know nothing about Project 2025,\u201d Trump said in July on Truth Social<\/a>. \u201cI have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they\u2019re saying and some of the things they\u2019re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He doubled down on that message<\/a> just days later, and did so again in a campaign speech<\/a> delivered following an attempted assassination<\/a> against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Democrats are not ready to let him off the hook yet. Vice President Kamala Harris, who received an endorsement from President Joe Biden to serve as the next commander-in-chief after he dropped out<\/a> from the presidential election this past weekend, warned in a social media video<\/a> that Trump and his team intend to implement Project 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What exactly is Project 2025?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Project 2025 initiative<\/a> includes a roughly 900-page policy agenda, a personnel database for those who could serve in the next Republican administration, a training for those individuals called the \u201cPresidential Administration Academy\u201d and also plans for a playbook of actions to be taken in the first 180 days of office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effort includes recommendations by former Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, and has been led by other former Trump administration officials including Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management, and Spencer Chretien, former special assistant to the president and associate director of presidential personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Policy recommendations stretch across the executive branch, from the White House to the Department of Justice to independent regulatory agencies, each broadly seeking to reduce the size and scope of the federal government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State,\u201d a prelude to the handbook states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cadministrative state\u201d refers to executive branch agencies exercising the power to create, enforce and adjudicate their own rules. Those who oppose such a setup, primarily Republicans, argue that unelected officials should not have such powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How would Project 2025 impact troops?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The policy chapter on remaking the Department of Defense includes reducing the number of generals and reinstituting policies barring transgender individuals from serving in the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That portion of the guidebook<\/a> was written by Miller, who served as acting defense secretary in the final months<\/a> of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, our impossibly muddled China strategy, the growing involvement of senior military officers in the political arena, and deep confusion about the purpose of our military are clear signals of a disturbing decay and markers of a dangerous decline in our nation\u2019s capabilities and will,\u201d Miller wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the suggested personnel changes Miller put forth fall in line with conservative culture war arguments, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n