• On the outskirts of this week’s Republican National Convention, the ultra-conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation held a “Policy Fest” to discuss its plans for the next Republican administration. One of the big talking points during the event was Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page policy blueprint for the next Republican administration to dramatically remake the federal government at almost every level. While former president Donald Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, members of his administration were directly involved in crafting it. McKay Coppins, a senior staff writer at The Atlantic who covered the Trump administration, tells us more about the goals of Project 2025.
• And in headlines: A jury convicted New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez on all 16 counts he faced in his federal corruption trial, President Biden is reportedly weighing sweeping changes to the Supreme Court, and a new Senate report found almost half of all worker injuries in Amazon warehouses happen during Prime Day.

Show Notes:

• Read Project 2025 – https://www.project2025.org/
• Check out McKay Coppins work – https://www.theatlantic.com/author/mckay-coppins/
• What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast
• Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/

TRANSCRIPT

Priyanka Aribindi: It’s Wednesday, July 17th. I’m Priyanka Aribindi. 

Juanita Tolliver: And I’m Juanita Toliver and this is What a Day, the show where we’ve identified the one good thing about the RNC, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice’s bulldog Babydog. 

Priyanka Aribindi: According to the New York Times, Babydog was met with a level of enthusiasm that is usually only reserved for Trump himself. I completely understand. I–

Juanita Tolliver: Yeah. 

Priyanka Aribindi: –am here for Babydog. I love her. 

Juanita Tolliver: She’s a cute baby dog. [laughing]

Priyanka Aribindi: She really is. She really is. [music break]

Juanita Tolliver: On today, President Joe Biden is expected to announce proposed changes to the Supreme Court. Plus, new calls for New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez to step down after he was found guilty on all charges in his corruption case. 

Priyanka Aribindi: But first Tuesday marked the second day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. While the official theme of the day was illegal immigration. The unofficial theme was unify around Donald Trump. Because the primetime speaking slots were filled with some of the former president’s most notable former rivals. Chief among them was former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who was Trump’s main primary opponent this year. She wasn’t originally even invited to or planning to attend the RNC. She was added to the speaking schedule last minute after the assassination attempt against former President Trump this past weekend. 

[clip of Nikki Haley] I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear. Donald Trump has my strong endorsement period. [cheers]

Priyanka Aribindi: We also got speeches from Senator Marco Rubio, one of Trump’s main rivals in the 2016 GOP primary turned recent veep stakes loser. He’s in general, a loser. But more specifically of that, and also the biggest flameout from this year’s Republican primary, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Just a who’s who of um failed Republicans with no backbones there. 

Juanita Tolliver: Yeah. The last time we talked about these folks, I was like, what self-respecting person would parade themselves at this coronation for Donald Trump? And no self-respect among these folks, none. [laughing]

Priyanka Aribindi: None to be found. But while the convention drags on, it is also worth keeping an eye on what’s happening around the RNC. Because on Monday, the ultra conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation held a, quote, “policy fest” to talk about its plans for the next Republican administration. The event featured speakers like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and one of the big talking points during this event was Project 2025, the big and radical policy document published by the Heritage Foundation that lays out what conservatives want to see happen if Trump wins the White House again. 

Juanita Tolliver: Democrats and the Biden campaign have been trying to get the word out about Project 2025 recently, but can you tell us a little bit more about it? 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yes, definitely. A lot of people talking about this, especially recently, and it’s almost 1000 pages long, so definitely not light reading. And while on its face it seems like this really wonky policy document, Project 2025 is actually a blueprint for the next Republican administration to dramatically remake the federal government at nearly every single level. It is really quite radical, if you dig into it, which we will in just a moment, just take a look at the project’s own website. It says, quote, “it’s not enough for conservatives to win elections if we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical left. We need both a governing agenda and the right people in place.” 

Juanita Tolliver: As awareness about Project 2025 has increased, it’s become such a toxic topic that former President Trump has been trying to distance himself from it. What else has he and the campaign been saying about it? 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah, I mean, he’s absolutely trying to distance himself. He recently claimed on Truth Social, that quote, “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who’s behind it.” I mean, how many Pinocchios does that statement get? Just a very obvious lie. A recent CNN analysis found nearly 150 people who worked in the Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025, including the guy who’s in charge of the whole thing, a man named Paul Dans. So really, no legs to stand on there, Donald Trump. To learn a little bit more about Project 2025 and what exactly it entails, I spoke earlier with McKay Coppins. He is a staff writer at The Atlantic and covered the Trump presidency extensively. I spoke with McKay last week ahead of the RNC, and I started by asking him about the goals of Project 2025. 

McKay Coppins: It kind of all rests on this premise that the first Trump administration was thwarted by the deep state, right? That–

Priyanka Aribindi: Right. 

McKay Coppins: There was this layer of left wing radicals and liberal bureaucrats who refused to follow the president’s orders and slowed the progress that his administration could have made. So this project was put in place by people who worked in the last Trump administration to make sure that when the next Republican was elected, they never say Trump explicitly, because for legal reasons, they can’t endorse a specific candidate. But it’s very clear that this is built with Trump in mind. The idea is that when he takes office, they will have kind of a foundation ready to build on right away, to remove any resistance from the federal government to the next Trump administration. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Sure. And obviously, you know, this is a blueprint. But if Trump were actually to win the election, could Republicans actually make this their vision here happen? 

McKay Coppins: Yeah. [laugh] I mean there’s no way to know exactly how much of this would be implemented. But one of the key provisions that I think is important to understand, and it sounds wonky, but it is kind of essential to the entire project, is that Trump, if elected, would try to basically re-categorize an entire category of federal employees and make them schedule F employees, which is to say that they would be political appointees instead of career officials, and that would make it possible for him to fire at will thousands and thousands of budget wonks, lawyers, people who work at every level of various federal agencies and either leave those jobs vacant or replace them with loyalists and people who will do Trump’s bidding. And like I said, you know, federal government personnel is not like a very sexy policy issue–

Priyanka Aribindi: Right. 

McKay Coppins: –to talk about. But when you think about that, it really is pretty dramatic. Right. I talked actually to Paul Dans, the guy who runs Project 2025, and he said to me straight up, the goal is a top to bottom renovation of the federal government. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Why is this swapping out of the civil service, replacing them with Trump loyalists, why is that such a big priority to them? 

McKay Coppins: The reason is basically because Trump feels like he will be able to accomplish a lot more, and with much less resistance from people who work in the government, if those officials not the high level cabinet secretaries, right, those people were always going to be political appointees. But if the kind of mid-level, low level people who actually have to carry out the orders are swapped out with people who either are true believers in the MAGA agenda or who are cronies to Donald Trump and his allies. Right. The basic premise here is that the well, I’ll put it this way. I spoke to a number of people in Trump’s orbit, and I asked, you know, what are the kind of key credentials that you’ll be looking at when filling these posts? And what I was told again and again is credentials will not matter as much as obedience. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Absolutely. I want to also talk about some of the other big issues on the campaign trail. What does Project 2025 say about things like immigration, abortion, the criminal justice system? I know Trump is very upset with the criminal justice system currently, given his recent conviction and other pending criminal charges. What does this plan outline for all of those issues? 

McKay Coppins: Well, let’s start with the Justice Department. And speaking to Paul Dans again, he actually told me that the entire notion of an independent Justice Department needs to be consigned to the ash heap of history. He believes that the Justice Department can and should be used by the next president to go after political enemies. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Ah. 

McKay Coppins: Donald Trump has repeatedly promised on the campaign trail that he would seek revenge on those he believes who are waging an unfair, unjust, legal persecution of him. He’s especially focused on the next attorney general being somebody who is on board with that vision. Immigration, Project 2025 calls for a massive, large scale deportation effort. Um. You know, Trump has called it the largest deportation effort in history. Project 2025 is more or less in line with that. There are other things, too, though. The uh, policy book calls for the elimination of the Department of Education to essentially make it so that all education decisions are decided at the state level. There are proposals to undo DEI initiatives, to make any federal employee who is seen as being linked to critical race theory or gender ideology as that being a firable offense. You know, you can kind of walk down the laundry list of the most right wing culture war policy proposals you can imagine. Project 2025 not only touches on them, but includes pretty detailed policy proposals for how to enact those things. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Right. Seems like it’s taking almost everything we know about our government and sort of ripping it up and remaking it in the strangest of ways. I also want to go back to abortion in particular. This is something that Republicans really tried to minimize in their policy platform ahead of the RNC. But what does Project 2025 say about that? 

McKay Coppins: Yeah, well, this is an interesting one. My theory is that this is why Donald Trump is trying to now distance himself from project 2025. The people behind this project have been proponents of a federal abortion ban. Some of them have pushed for constitutional amendments banning abortion. Donald Trump, as you alluded to, has been trying to stake out what he’s claiming to be a kind of a centrist position on abortion. He is saying that abortion should be left to the states, that he doesn’t favor a ban. The question is, if Donald Trump were elected, would he make good on what he’s saying on the campaign trail? Or would the more anti-abortion policies being championed at Project 2025 end up being implemented? It’s impossible to say. All I know is that one of the kind of truisms of Washington that you hear from people who have been around here a long time is that personnel is policy. The people who are put into these positions end up making a lot of the policy decisions, and the fact that these very right wing positions, not just on abortion, but on a range of issues, are being proposed by people in the former president’s orbit, suggest that they would be making decisions if he was reelected. 

Priyanka Aribindi: So, Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage foundation, and one of the architects of Project 2025, recently appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. I want to play a little clip of what he said. 

[clip of Kevin Roberts] We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Which is just stunning. What do you make of that when you hear that? 

McKay Coppins: I think that there is a unnerving amount of revolutionary rhetoric and rhetoric of political violence and of widescale upheaval that’s just casually deployed across the MAGA right now. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Absolutely. 

McKay Coppins: I’m glad you played that clip, because I do think that we’ve become anesthetized to it to a certain extent. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Totally. 

McKay Coppins: But like, this is the way that a lot of these people talk. It’s not just a clash of interests and ideologies, but it’s a war, right? It’s a war for power, and that whoever loses deserves to be punished. And that’s, I think, what a lot of Project 2025 is about. There’s kind of like an eye for an eye ethos that suffices the whole thing. 

Priyanka Aribindi: So the Biden campaign and Democrats have been trying to campaign on Project 2025 and its alarming plans for reshaping the entire federal government. President Biden mentioned it in a recent TikTok, we’ll play a clip. 

[clip of President Joe Biden] Project 2025 will destroy America. Look it up. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Do you think that message is getting through to voters? Do you think they understand, Democratic voters at least, what Project 2025 is? 

McKay Coppins: I think that people who are very politically engaged know what it is, but I think most people don’t. I mean, it’s almost designed not to be consumed by the average American. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Right it’s like a thousand pages long. 

McKay Coppins: Yeah, it’s a 900 page policy manifesto with really detailed, wonky language. It’s not reduced down to talking points, because they know the talking points are not very politically appetizing. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Right. 

McKay Coppins: For the average voter. And frankly, I think that the fact that it started to get so much attention, both from the Biden campaign, the Democratic Party, I think the fact that it’s starting to become a wedge in the campaign is why Donald Trump is getting worried about it, because this was not an initiative that was meant to help him win votes. And I think that once average voters start to learn about it, they get pretty worried. And so Trump is trying to run away from it for that reason. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay attention to it. I think, if anything, it means that more people should learn about it. 

Priyanka Aribindi: That was my conversation with McKay Coppins, staff writer at The Atlantic. Like I mentioned earlier, we spoke with McKay last week. That’s obviously before the assassination attempt on former President Trump over the weekend. Since we spoke about violent political rhetoric during the interview, we reached back out to him to expand on his original answer. He said that the assassination attempt is a symptom of a, quote, “profoundly broken political culture.” 

McKay Coppins: I do think that this moment that we’re in, where so many Americans across the political spectrum have come to believe that we won’t have a country anymore if their political enemies are in power, is really fraught, like it’s a really dangerous moment. And I think that the stakes of the election are high, and you can acknowledge that they’re high and act accordingly. You can vote, donate, volunteer your time, have conversations with friends and neighbors. But you can also do all those things while understanding that we will still have a country in November, regardless of who wins, and that this election is not worth committing violence over. And I think that those ideas may be obvious to most people, but clearly not to enough people. And I think they’re worth articulating again and again. 

Juanita Tolliver: That’s the latest for now. We’ll get to some headlines in a moment, but if you like our show, make sure to subscribe and share with your friends. We’ll be back after some ads. [music break]. 

[AD BREAK]

Priyanka Aribindi: Let’s wrap up with some headlines. 

[sung] Headlines. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Democratic Senator Bob Menendez was convicted on all the corruption charges against him by a jury on Tuesday, including bribery, extortion and acting as a foreign agent. According to prosecutors, the New Jersey senator accepted bribes to benefit the Egyptian and Qatari governments in recent years. Some of those bribes came in the form of cash, more than $480,000, to be exact. Menendez also accepted payments in the form of gold bars and a brand new Mercedes. Really just not thinking outside the box here, classic criminal shit. Menendez is currently running for reelection in the Senate, where he’s served the people of New Jersey for 18 years, though many lawmakers are calling on him to resign now, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Schumer said in a statement on Tuesday that the embattled senator must, quote, “do what is right for his constituents, the Senate and our country.” Menendez will be sentenced in late October. His wife, Nadine, was charged with the same crimes, but her trial has been delayed indefinitely following her recent cancer diagnosis. How has he not resigned yet? What’s going on? 

Juanita Tolliver: I mean, you sound like the governor of the state who has essentially said, if he doesn’t resign, then Democrats in the Senate please expel him. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah. I mean, it’s very clear that he should not be there if that is how he’s using his position. 

Juanita Tolliver: President Biden is expected to announce sweeping changes to the Supreme Court, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. The changes, which haven’t been finalized yet, are set to include term limits for justices who currently serve lifetime appointments. Also a stronger ethics code with enforcement protocol. The court released a joke of an ethics code back in November. But let’s be real, that only came after ProPublica put their business in the street. You know their dynamics with billionaire sugar daddies and trips drinking martinis made with glacial ice. 

Priyanka Aribindi: That martini sounded good though. I wish I could have one. [laughter]

Juanita Tolliver: Priyanka said that sounds refreshing, I’ll have one please. 

Priyanka Aribindi: It does, it does. 

Juanita Tolliver: Biden is also reportedly considering a constitutional amendment that would walk back the court’s immunity ruling in the case of former President Donald Trump from earlier this month. The president has been hesitant to propose reforms on the highest court, as progressives have increasingly called for them in recent years. Biden’s proposed changes would still need approval from Congress, and a constitutional amendment needs 38 states to get on board for ratification. If adopted, these will be some of the biggest changes to the Supreme Court in decades. And I’ll just say they’re long overdue. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Absolutely. Biggest changes to the court in decades. And also, like the only thing that can maybe save us from them at this point. So please, please do this. Some updates on the war in Ukraine. Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Monday that it drafted more than 150,000 new troops into its military. Ukraine has struggled to defend itself against Russia’s offensive in recent days, most recently with the Kremlin’s recapturing of the southern Ukrainian village of Urozhaine. And many European leaders worry that Ukraine could suffer more losses since former President Donald Trump announced Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate. Vance has notoriously opposed U.S. aid to Ukraine, he wrote in a piece for the Financial Times, quote, “The United States has provided a blanket of security to Europe for far too long.” Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he’s planning to host another summit with world leaders to discuss how to end the war and that Russia should attend this time. Zelensky hosted a summit last month to discuss his plan for a ceasefire, and 92 countries sent delegations to attend the event in Switzerland. While Russia was not involved. Zelensky said he plans to hold a second summit in November. Just one of many big things happening in– 

Juanita Tolliver: Right. 

Priyanka Aribindi: –November. We’ll see how it goes. What happens on Election Day, I feel like uh changes the tenor of things quite a bit. 

Juanita Tolliver: Quite. And finally, the online shopping extravaganza known as Amazon Prime Day is here. But a congressional investigation revealed labor practices that may have you rethinking your purchases. A Senate report released on Tuesday shows that almost half of all worker injuries in Amazon warehouses happened during Prime Day, the two days when products are steeply discounted. The high demand and the company’s, quote, “unsustainable productivity requirements” have made serious injuries commonplace. Prime day brings in a ton of money for Amazon though. According to the report, on Prime Day last year, the company recorded more than $12 billion in sales for 375 million products. Senator Bernie Sanders is the chair of the committee that put out this report. He said in a statement that the report’s findings, quote, “are a perfect example of the type of corporate greed that the American people are sick and tired of,” especially workers being sick and tired of this. 

Priyanka Aribindi: The most baffling part of this all is that a Amazon spokesperson took a look at this and apparently was just like, no, that information’s out of date actually, just brushed it off. Like that’s two days out of the whole year that accounts for half the injuries of all the people who work for you. That is horrible. That is very, very glaring. 

Juanita Tolliver: Nothing to try to sweep under the rug. And that’s what that response sounded like. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Absolutely. It’s just what they’re trying to do. And those are the headlines. 

[AD BREAK]

Priyanka Aribindi: That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review, hide your bribery gold bars. 

Juanita Tolliver: Oh no. 

Priyanka Aribindi: And tell your friends to listen. 

Juanita Tolliver: And if you’re into reading and not just detailed reports of Nikki Haley’s spinelessness like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/Subscribe. I’m Juanita Tolliver. 

Priyanka Aribindi: I’m Priyanka Aribindi.

[spoken together] And Babydog! Babydog!

Juanita Tolliver: Yes! 

Priyanka Aribindi: We are cheering. 

Juanita Tolliver: I just appreciate how comfortable and happy and healthy the dog looked. You can’t choose your owners so I’m glad Babydog is cared for. 

Priyanka Aribindi: She knows not what her dad does for a living. [laugh] [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Bill Lancz. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Natalie Bettendorf. We had production help today from Michell Eloy, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our showrunner is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.