If Trump wins the presidential election, Project 2025 gives us an inkling of what his next term might look like. But due to a power struggle within the far-right, there could be another plan that’s just as threatening. On this week’s “How We Got Here,” Max and Erin hear from New York Times reporter Ken Bensinger about the America First Policy Institute and its political goals with a second Trump term.

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

 

Erin Ryan: So, Max, over the weekend, I was talking to somebody about what Trump would do with another term. 

 

Max Fisher: Sounds like a chill time at brunch, Erin. 

 

Erin Ryan: It was an Instagram DM fight with someone who had posted a story claiming that both parties were the same, actually. 

 

Max Fisher: Ugh. 

 

Erin Ryan: And something occurred to me. 

 

Max Fisher: That it would be terrible?

 

Erin Ryan: That and we’re missing one very important piece of information. 

 

Max Fisher: And what’s that? 

 

Erin Ryan: We know what Trump wants to do because he won’t stop talking about it. And we know what he did last time. But we know a lot less about what the people around him would do. 

 

Max Fisher: Oh. That’s a great point, because so much of Trump’s first term was him getting boxed in or led around on policy by his own inner circle. 

 

Erin Ryan: Right. But there’s only so much we can know about an inner circle that doesn’t exist yet. 

 

Max Fisher: Well, Erin, I have some good news for your next Instagram argument, because a flurry of recent reporting just revealed that a kind of shadow White House has quietly formed with Trump’s blessing. And we know a lot about what they want to do because they wrote it down. 

 

Erin Ryan: This is going to be like that scene in the South Park Imagination Land episodes when all the evil breaks out of evil imagination land. Right? 

 

Max Fisher: [laugh] It’s uh it’s going to be worse. [music break] I’m Max Fisher. 

 

Erin Ryan: I’m Erin Ryan and this is How We Got Here, a series where we explore a big question behind the week’s headlines and tell a story that answers that question. 

 

Max Fisher: Our question this week, what would the people around Trump do with a second term? 

 

Erin Ryan: An important, terrifying question, but it’s hard to know how to read the tea leaves since infighting and bungling were such big features of Trump’s first term and, frankly, his entire career in business as well. 

 

Max Fisher: Yeah, it’s exactly that chaos that the shadow White House I mentioned earlier formed in part to try to avoid in a second term by having everything in place and ready to go. 

 

Erin Ryan: Ooh. What do you mean by that shadow White House? 

 

Max Fisher: Erin, have you heard of a group called AFPI or the America First Policy Institute? 

 

Erin Ryan: Well, Max, if I know anything about Washington and I know very little, it’s that the more soothingly bland the name of something, the more evil it is. So by that metric, the America First Policy Institute, pretty damn evil. 

 

Max Fisher: Yeah. AFPI is from the Project 2025 school of bland names for insidious things. 

 

Erin Ryan: Project 2025, of course, is the Heritage Foundation’s plan to turn America into a Christo fascist state in 900 easy pages. But many, many more people are talking about Project 2025 than they are about the AFPI. 

 

Max Fisher: And that is actually by design. The AFPI people don’t want to broadcast who they are. But thanks to a flurry of new reporting, we know that AFPI has become, as one Republican source put it, the all but official Trump presidential transition. 

 

Erin Ryan: Wait, I thought Project 2025 was the waiting Trump transition? 

 

Max Fisher: So they used to be. And part of what we’ve learned is that AFPI waged a behind the scenes power struggle with the Project 2025 people for control of staffing out Trump’s new White House and writing its agenda. And the way that they did it actually tells us a lot about how they would govern in power. 

 

Erin Ryan: A power struggle between two of the most sinister groups in the country, like when Predator and Alien fought each other or Freddy versus Jason. Uh. Okay, so slow down. Who are these people? 

 

Max Fisher: So to find out, I talked to a New York Times reporter named Ken Bensinger, one of the journalists who’s been digging into the group. And it’s a story that starts just days after Trump lost the 2020 election. Here’s Ken. 

 

[clip of Ken Bensinger] It was formed in late 2020, just less than three weeks after the 2020 election in which Trump was defeated. And in the immediate aftermath of the election, I mean, within days of the election, Brooke Rollins, who was the head of domestic policy for Trump in the White House, reached out to Tim Dunn in Texas. And Dunn is a very wealthy oil guy, a billionaire who also is a very strong evangelical Christian and um was heavily involved in the Texas Public Policy Institute, which is a place where Brooke Rollins had previously served. And she went to him and said, hey, I think we need to find some sort of new organization to run now that Trump is out. And so he agreed, got together a couple of other very wealthy Texas buddies, and they created AFPI. Um. I think the date was like November 20th, 2020. It wasn’t revealed publicly until the next year. Early in 2021. You had Brooke Rollins, along with Linda McMahon, who was the head of the Small Business Administration under Trump and a big backer coming together to publicly announce the formation of AFPI. 

 

Erin Ryan: Wow. And Linda McMahon with the folding chair, the former pro-wrestling executive and performer whose feud with her husband famously played out in the ring in WrestleMania X7. 

 

Max Fisher: I’ll never forget it, Erin. 

 

Erin Ryan: I remember her. I mean, who can forget? After she stepped away from her ring wrangling in 2009, she became a failed Republican Senate candidate and then held a low ranking post in the Trump administration. 

 

Max Fisher: Yes, it’s something called the Small Business Administration. Mostly she’s known as a big Republican donor. She’s a money person. 

 

Erin Ryan: The other name he mentioned, Brooke Rollins, I vaguely remember from Trump’s first term or was it country music radio? 

 

Max Fisher: [laugh] It’s a very country music name. 

 

Erin Ryan: Could be either one. 

 

Max Fisher: And she is really at the center of this story about this little working group that formed in 2020 and eventually became the Trump shadow White House for 2025. And she’s considered maybe one of the top contenders to be Trump’s chief of staff. 

 

Erin Ryan: So who is she? 

 

Max Fisher: So she had a weird little career in Trump’s first term White House. She spent most of it at something called the Office of American Innovation, which is kind of a backwater. But in 2020, she got promoted to head the more influential Domestic Policy Council, which she ran until Trump’s term ended eight months later. 

 

Erin Ryan: I remember her now. Aligned with the Jared Kushner types, at odds with the Stephen Miller types. Stephen and Jared, by the way, the Pinot Noir and Merlot of oily, oily sycophants. 

 

Max Fisher: Her legacy in that job isn’t really any particular policy so much as her bureaucratic maneuvering to get herself there. And that turns out to be a big throughline to her whole career and this story. Her big accomplishment actually came before Trump doing in Texas, what she now wants to help Trump do in all of America. Here’s Ken of again. 

 

[clip of Ken Bensinger] Brooke Rollins, who had been involved in politics, basically, I think her whole life for many years, I think for 15 years before joining the Trump administration in 2018, she had been running that Texas group. And she was the, I believe, the president, the CEO of that group in that time. And it sort of like reshaped the political landscape in Texas and had like a very tight script of what they’re interested in. 

 

Max Fisher: We don’t need to go too deep on Brooke Rollins’s policy agenda in Texas, which is pretty Texas specific. But the point is that, one, it pulled Texas right. And two, it helped install some Texas Republicans who have defined the last decade in the state. Here’s Ken. 

 

[clip of Ken Bensinger] Oh I think it’s been enormously successful. I think it’s a model for a lot of groups around the country about how to do this. I mean, you know, Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, are very closely linked to this group and the people on it and have been a very strong way helped lasso Texas’s legislature, which has a Republican legislature, into into producing these results. They have been very effective. And it’s worth noting that Brooke Rollins’s successor heading the Texas group was Kevin Roberts. And similarly, they had similar goals. And it’s kind of very much carried on the same tradition. He went on to be the head of the Heritage Foundation. So um they’re very similar parallel tracks. This, in a sense, has become an incubator for sort of thought leaders on the MAGA oriented right. 

 

Erin Ryan: Okay. So this organization is the organization responsible from taking Texas from the Lone Star State to the one star state. [laughter] The flag is a Yelp review, uh as as the saying goes, um yeah, things are not going that well in Texas. If you are somebody who might need electricity. 

 

Max Fisher: Yeah. 

 

Erin Ryan: During a storm, for example, or you require health care, uh if you’re a woman, things–

 

Max Fisher: Right. 

 

Erin Ryan: –are not great for you in Texas. If you’re in the foster system, not great for you in Texas. If you need government assistance of any kind, not things aren’t great for you in Texas. Um. 

 

Max Fisher: But it’s a great state if you are a hard right Republican who wants to hold office for many years. 

 

Erin Ryan: If you are a multi multimillionaire who wants to avoid the income tax, has no health problems or need for any infrastructure whatsoever. 

 

Max Fisher: That’s the plan. That’s the model for America. 

 

Erin Ryan: There you go. 

 

Max Fisher: So I asked Ken how this Texas group was able to do all this in just a few years. And this felt like an important question to me because as we’ll hear in a minute, those same people are hoping to use this playbook in a second Trump term. And Ken said a lot of it came down to Brooke Rollins, the woman who is now running the America First Policy Institute. 

 

[clip of Ken Bensinger] The key to the success, I think in part has been the personality of Brooke Rollins, who is kind of legendary in political circles for being extremely an effective fundraiser and administrator, a person who works all the time. And just is really good at what she does, a very no nonsense business kind of person. And another key part, of course, is that she’s smart about linking herself to um deep pocketed donors who are not afraid to cut checks. So Linda McMahon is a good example, not a Texan, but uh someone who um very freely spends money for political candidates and spent, I think in this current cycle, has spent $20 million to Make America Great Again Inc, which is a super PAC supporting Donald Trump and additional multiple millions to other Republican things like the RNC and to senatorial efforts, and that sort of thing. So she is sort of very sagely and in organized fashion, gotten big, big, big donors to jump on board as well. 

 

Erin Ryan: You know, it’s it’s funny because I’ve found when we talk about people who are really effective at raising money, I hit this weird resistance point in my brain where I cannot understand like I can’t understand the type of person you have to be in order to raise money. Like Paul Ryan was a really effective fundraiser, and I find him so unappealing. Mike Pence is a super. Who are these people like–

 

Max Fisher: It’s an important and they’re they’re driving our politics. 

 

Erin Ryan: It is wild, like the ability to get very rich people to give up money. The qualities that it takes are completely different than the qualities that are appealing whatsoever in a hang for me. [laughter] I don’t get it.

 

Max Fisher: Well. They’re the qualities that brings Brooke Rollins to 2021 and her coming off her fairly short, unremarkable stint in the Trump White House and getting together her old Texas pals, plus some big money donors to start the America First Policy Institute. 

 

Erin Ryan: Sure. Okay. But what actually is an America First Policy Institute? And will Linda McMahon’s involvement mean that we’ll eventually see their feud with the Heritage Foundation play out at WrestleMania? 

 

Max Fisher: [laugh] We should only be so lucky. Like a lot of partisan think tanks, AFPI basically served as a holding pen for officials from the party out of power, But the officials in this particular holding pen were Trump people. So instead of Reagan or Bush alumns dreaming up the next tax cut or Middle East war, AFPI’s offices were buzzing with weirder, darker stuff. Here’s a clip of Brooke Rollins herself, the group’s president, speaking at an API event in 2022. Marking their first year. 

 

[clip of Brooke Rollins] We have put boots on the ground in 32 states around this country on key America first agenda issues, from election integrity to school choice and patriotic education. To health care transparency, to taxes and spending, to fatherhood initiatives, to border security, to big tech censorship, The list goes on. The AFPI team was in full force in the States over these last 15 months. We fought on behalf of American businesses and workers against Biden’s vaccine mandates all the way to the Supreme Court. And we won. We launched our sister C4 organization, America First Works to ensure that the America First agenda continues unabated in the States as well as in Washington, DC. 

 

Max Fisher: Erin, care to translate that from MAGA speak to English for us? 

 

Erin Ryan: Sure. Okay, here we go. Election integrity means election denialism, conspiracies. School choice means defunding public schools. Patriotic education means book banning and removing history that makes white people feel bad from history textbooks. Border security means a border wall and subhuman treatment of migrants and fatherhood initiatives means cutting social services for the poor. 

 

Max Fisher: Wait really? How do fatherhood incentives mean cutting social services for the poor? 

 

Erin Ryan: Yes, this is the astonishingly heartless and economically unsound theory that helping lower income families buy food and keep the lights on somehow incentivizes people not to work or get married. And because a man’s rightful role is as family breadwinner. All of this helping people not to starve and enabling people to escape harmful marriages. 

 

Max Fisher: Yeah. 

 

Erin Ryan: Or harmful you know domestic unions creates a crisis of masculinity that weakens fathers. You know what? If patriarchy is so natural, then why do we need so much legislation to enforce it? 

 

Max Fisher: [laugh] Well, the fathers of America must be so thankful to know these rich Republican think tankers want to take food out of their kids’ mouths. 

 

Erin Ryan: When you know what? They’re not. 

 

Max Fisher: Anyway, Erin, did you catch this spinoff group that Rollins announced at the end of her talk? America First Works? 

 

Erin Ryan: Yeah, she said it was a 501C4, which is a tax status for nonprofits that engage in political advocacy. Why? 

 

Max Fisher: Well, it’s one of a few things that put AFPI into direct conflict with another larger think tank that is supposed to be the all but official incubator for every Republican administration. 

 

Erin Ryan: Ah. You mean the Heritage Foundation? 

 

Max Fisher: Yes, I do. Heritage has their own long standing 501C4. So when AFPI launched one, they took it as evidence that this scrappy new think tank was coming for them, which they were. 

 

Erin Ryan: Yeah, they were right. 

 

Max Fisher: That same year, in 2022, AFPI announced it was also starting its own transition project. That is a team that would lay out policies and staffing lists for any new Republican White House. But this had been the Heritage Foundation’s all but official role in the party for decades. 

 

Erin Ryan: So this would be like if you and I both changed our names to Jon and announced we were starting an irreverent politics podcast from the perspective of progressive former White House speechwriters. 

 

Max Fisher: Yeah, it was a shot across the bow and it set off something of a civil war within the usually cozy world of Washington republican power brokers. 

 

Erin Ryan: Brooks brothers and Seersucker shrapnel everywhere. Wow, That was a tongue twister Max. Seersucker–

 

Max Fisher: Just for you. 

 

Erin Ryan: Seersucker shrapnel. Seersucker shrapnel. Brooks Brothers and Seer– [laugh] 

 

Max Fisher: [laughing]I think you nailed it. I really think you nailed it. 

 

Erin Ryan: Okay. 

 

Max Fisher: Here’s Ken Bensinger again, The New York Times reporter on how that conflict played out. 

 

[clip of Ken Bensinger] Remember, in 2022, it wasn’t totally clear that Trump was going to be the Republican nominee for president, right, at that time we’re getting ready for the midterms. And what we saw in the midterms, in fact, was that Ron DeSantis in Florida had a massive, I think, 19 point victory in the polls there. And for at least a brief period was the darling of the right and um Heritage, to some degree had begun and was beginning to align itself a little bit with DeSantis and at least play footsie with him about about potentially what a DeSantis administration might look like. And by the fall of 2023, when we’re starting to get in the presidential primary season for real and um Trump is on attack and all of a sudden it starts to look like maybe he actually does have a chance to be the nominee. Um. Heritage starts lashing out at AFPI and saying that they stole their idea for a transition. They stole then everything down to like the name and the style and the font and who knows what else. 

 

Erin Ryan: Oh boy. I know a certain former Republican president who really, really hates anything less than total and unflinching fealty. 

 

Max Fisher: Yeah, for Heritage, this was a big strike one with Trump who hated that the think tank had even prepared for the possibility that someone else might win the GOP nomination. Unlike AFPI, which had been a purpose built Trump loyalty machine from day one. 

 

Erin Ryan: So what’s strike two? 

 

Max Fisher: Strike two is also would you know it, vanity related. Trump is basically offended that these two think tanks are fighting one another over who gets to be the GOP policy gatekeepers, when in his view, they should both be courting him for his blessing because he sees himself as not just the head of the party, but the embodiment of it and the only person who matters. Here’s Ken again. 

 

[clip of Ken Bensinger] When things started getting into public when newspapers and other places started writing about the tensions between the two. Finally, the Trump campaign said something about it. So Trump’s campaign leadership, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, who are his top two aides in the campaign um in November of last year, say enough is enough. No one speaks for Trump except for Trump. Neither of you guys are driving the bus here, and anyone who pretends to be the sort of the driving voice force in this is is, you know, very misguided. So what happens after that? Well, two things happened. One is that AFPI and Brooke Rollins, hear this, listen to it, take note and basically stop talking. They get really quiet. They stop making noise. They don’t talk about transition anymore. Heritage does the opposite. Heritage makes a lot of noise about Project 2025. They promote it. Kevin Roberts, its president, is working on a book and is actually helping promote the book by talking about how Heritage has supported Project 2025, which I guess I think I should note is not just a Heritage project, but Heritage funded it and brought in something like 100 different Republican groups to help put it all together. So he’s he’s basically doing victory laps and taking credit for it. Um. And this turns out to rub a bunch of people in all the wrong ways. 

 

Erin Ryan: So you’re telling me that the Heritage Foundation, the center of Republican Party policymaking for half a century, put it all on the line so that its president could go on a book tour? 

 

Max Fisher: I mean, Heritage is used to wielding power within the party, even if they love Trump, which they do, even if Project 2025 is really just the articulation of where Trump’s own politics have always pointed, they’re not going to let this disgraced former president shut them up, which sets them up for strike number three with Trump. 

 

Erin Ryan: They called him a short fingered vulgarian? 

 

Max Fisher: Worse, here’s Ken.

 

[clip of Ken Bensinger] Trump has a long known history of hating the idea that anyone could make money off his good name. He had been not so privately angry at AFPI at one point because they their name was America First Policy Institute. And he believed somehow that he has intellectual purchase on the idea or the term America First. And so he felt like somehow they were any any dollar they fundraised was money that somehow was out of his pocket and that made him mad. But then Heritage was doing all these events and talking about how their transition project was important and raising money off that. And that, I’m told from sources, kind of enraged Trump and made him very angry. And he felt like they were also making money off him. 

 

Erin Ryan: Oh my God, do not let Trump have access to a time machine so he can go back and chastise Charles Lindbergh for [laughter] for using America First or uh Ronald Reagan or many of the other people who have used America First. Does he really think that he’s the first person? 

 

Max Fisher: He’s not a smart man. If it entered his head at any point, he owns it in his mind, and this– 

 

Erin Ryan: He believes he originated it? 

 

Max Fisher: Yes. 

 

Erin Ryan: That is wild.

 

Max Fisher: And is owed a payout for it. And this is what led Trump to finally disavow Project 2025, maybe as much as the public blowback over its extreme policy provisions. He wanted Heritage to pay him effectively licensing fees for the privilege of helping him execute his own ideas. 

 

Erin Ryan: Ugh. That is the Trump way. But Ken said Trump was mad at AFPI for the same thing, right? 

 

Max Fisher: Yes, but AFPI did what Heritage wouldn’t. They paid Trump off in the form of hosting big annual events at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and paying him way, way above market rate for it. 

 

Erin Ryan: In other words, they bribed him for the right to continue operating within the Republican policy ecosystem. Wow. Everything’s going great. 

 

Max Fisher: I know and it worked. Trump embraced AFPI as the new gatekeepers of the party, effectively kicking the Heritage Foundation out of their own political party. Here he is at an AFPI event in 2022. 

 

[clip of Donald Trump] I want to begin by thanking the America First Policy Institute. My, my have you come a long way, for hosting me for today’s remarks and in particular to recognize America First Policy Institute President Brooke Rollins. Brooke, [cheers] fantastic woman. 

 

Max Fisher: After this, AFPI installed itself at kind of every level of the Trump campaign. Their advocacy arm we mentioned earlier, America Works is one of three groups running his campaign ground game, along with Elon Musk’s PAC and the Christian Right group, Turning Points USA, AFPI is taking the lead on voting lawsuits like one in Georgia to give election officials the right to overturn elections. AFPI people are leading Trump’s transition team to the point that they are effectively in charge of staffing up his White House. And they’ve even released their own version of Project 2025, a 300 page blueprint for Trump’s first days in office called The America First Agenda. 

 

Erin Ryan: You’re telling me that there’s another new Project 2025?

 

Max Fisher: So this is what we have been building up to here. The new far right plan that has displaced Project 2025 is the document officially plotting out another Trump term. [music break]

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Erin Ryan: We should be clear that it’s not like Project 2025 is suddenly meaningless. All those policies, like closing the Department of Education, didn’t come from nowhere. These are ideas taken from Trump’s own statements, from policies dreamed up by people from his first term and from people who will fill out his second term. And a lot of these ideas predated Trump as well. 

 

Max Fisher: It’s true. It’s true. 

 

Erin Ryan: Uh. But they were sort of like wild swings for the fences that nobody thought would ever actually. 

 

Max Fisher: I know one person who would execute them. 

 

Erin Ryan: Yes, it was and remains an honest, accurate reflection of the Trump agenda as of this moment. 

 

Max Fisher: Right. And obviously, we’ve learned that formal written plans only mean so much in a Trump White House. But the point is that AFPI would also be staffing out that White House, including with AFPI President Brooke Rollins potentially as chief of staff. So whatever is or isn’t in Trump’s head on day one, probably very little. The people around him would be committed to this 300 page plan that they, after all, put together. 

 

Erin Ryan: Okay. What’s in it? 

 

Max Fisher: So it’s missing some of the really controversial stuff from Project 2025, like banning porn. 

 

Erin Ryan: Maybe they learned their lesson to not write those down. 

 

Max Fisher: Right. But there’s still a lot. Here are a few top lines. Mandatory ultrasounds before any abortion, including by medication. Defunding Planned Parenthood. 

 

Erin Ryan: Wait, let me interrupt. So it doesn’t call for a federal abortion ban? 

 

Max Fisher: It doesn’t. But we do have a clip of AFPI president, Brooke Rollins, talking about abortion. And it didn’t leave me feeling that she was for sure going to be more, quote unquote, “moderate” on the issue then the Heritage Foundation. Here’s Rollins in 2022. 

 

[clip of Brooke Rollins] America is an extreme outlier on abortion policies compared to the rest of the world and most Americans don’t know this. We are only one of six countries in the world that permit elective abortions throughout all nine months. This shocking reality puts us on the list with both China and North Korea. A red flag for any American that respects freedom and liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. 

 

Erin Ryan: Okay, I can only sputter for a few seconds here, but even when Roe V. Wade was the law of the land, elective abortions were cut off at 24.5 weeks, a.k.a. the point of viability. And that has always been how things have are have been. They have never, elective– 

 

Max Fisher: She’s she’s truly on Mars here.

 

Erin Ryan: Elective abortions through nine months of pregnancy have never been–

 

Max Fisher: It doesn’t exist. 

 

Erin Ryan: –legal in any state. 

 

Max Fisher: Yeah, she is sounding like QAnon level–

 

Erin Ryan: It’s–

 

Max Fisher: –off reality here, which is concerning for what she would actually want to do in office I feel. 

 

Erin Ryan: Absolutely bananas. Okay, but before I sputter further, can you finish listing what’s in the AFPI agenda? 

 

Max Fisher: Okay, so uh some other big items. Ending multiple forms of legal immigration like the visa lottery and family immigration, which is a big one. 

 

Erin Ryan: What? 

 

Max Fisher: Quitting the Paris climate agreement that has done so much to tamp down global carbon emissions. Legally limit gender identification to male or female only. That’s a scary one. Impose a medicaid work requirement, which would strip health benefits from millions of low income people. Concealed gun permits would apply in all 50 states. Get ready to see some glocks in Wendy’s. Tax cuts for the richest earners and for corporations, of course. More religious exemptions from things like vaccine requirements. That’s another fun one. Harsher criminal sentencing across the board and declaring left wing protest group Antifa a terrorist organization. So, Erin, what do you think? Having gotten to know AFPI here, how they operate, how they took power within the party infrastructure and hearing some of the fun highlights from their plan for America. Do you feel like you have greater clarity on what a Trump term would look like? Do you feel any differently about it? 

 

Erin Ryan: Yes, I feel better that I only have to read 300 pages instead of 900 pages. [laughter] Um.

 

Max Fisher: You love brevity. You always have. 

 

Erin Ryan: I do. You know, I always was like my major problem with Project 2025 is it needs an editor. 

 

Max Fisher: Brevity is the soul of fascism. 

 

Erin Ryan: Needs an editor. Um. Look, I find that having feuding and infighting is something that we saw in Trump’s White House before. And despite the fact that it was kind of funny to know that Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner hated each other and that they called each other names behind each other’s backs. And the fact that people made fun of Ivanka behind her back and then Kellyanne Conway behind her back, That was funny. 

 

Max Fisher: It was. 

 

Erin Ryan: This is like less funny because the two people fighting are, like I said, like Alien versus Predator. 

 

Max Fisher: Right. 

 

Erin Ryan: Like, who do you want in charge of babysitting? 

 

Max Fisher: Yeah. 

 

Erin Ryan: And their the the agenda is similar enough to Project 2025’s agenda that it uh and they have cozied up successfully enough to Donald Trump that he is not intimidated by the legacy that they have in the Republican Party like it sounds like he was intimidated by Heritage. 

 

Max Fisher: Right. 

 

Erin Ryan: So it’s scary in a different way. Much like uh how Freddy is scary in a different way than Jason. 

 

Max Fisher: Yeah, I believe that the ruthlessness with which they basically defeated Heritage and kicked them out of their own party shows that they would be very effective, I think, at getting this agenda through a Trump administration in a way that his first administration was not. And that’s scary because these provisions are terrifying. 

 

Erin Ryan: Mm hmm. But, you know, as think tanks are sort of holding cells for out of work political operatives or political operatives who don’t want to be constrained by federal salary limits. Um. There is something that kind of raises a flag in my mind that these people are these sort of like upstarts, outsiders coming into town, kicking out this established think tank. I think Heritage for as gross as I find most of its policy objectives, had some connections in the town of D.C. and and politics is more than just ideas. It’s also connections and relationships. And I don’t know that AFPI would necessarily be able to accomplish its policy goals unless it’s able to accomplish 100% of them right away. Do you know what I’m saying? Like Heritage needed people to cooperate, you know, in order to accomplish giant sweeping reforms within the government, you need to find people to cooperate or you need to get everybody out of the government. And that’s kind of a moonshot. Um. So I think that AFPI is is kind of like, yeah, but what if like we cured cancer? You know, like what if we took away all the challenges that have sidelined every other revolutionary groups policy agendas. 

 

Max Fisher: Well, so, Erin, that is a perfect segue to the one big agenda item from AFPI that I did not mention, but is the one area where AFPI goes way, way beyond even Project 2025, and that is in empowering Trump to purge the nearly three million civil servants who staff the federal government. Here’s Ken. 

 

[clip of Ken Bensinger] They believe that there are basically, you know, somewhere close to two million federal employees who are disloyal to to Trump and are leftists and will never do what he wants and will do everything to stop him. And so the goal is to basically be able to get rid of any of those that are judge that are sort of standing in the way. 

 

Max Fisher: Just to jump in here. Trump was so obsessed with this that near the end of his first term, he set a rule called Schedule F that allowed him to replace certain civil servants with political appointees. It was extremely controversial. Biden rescinded it on day one of his presidency. Project 2025 calls for reinstating it. But back to Ken about AFPI’s version of this. 

 

[clip of Ken Bensinger] AFPI actually has a much more ambitious plan than that in terms of the deep state and the bureaucracy, which is they want to basically change the federal law so that all federal employees are at will employees. 

 

Max Fisher: So just to be clear, if this came about, Trump could have his people march through the EPA and fire everyone who says that climate change is real or fire everyone who won’t pledge to stop enforcing certain regulations. He could fire everyone at the Department of Justice who won’t prosecute his enemies or won’t let him break laws in office, or anyone at the IRS who looks too closely at Trump’s tax returns or his donors tax returns, or maybe just all Republican tax returns. And he could replace all those people with proud boys and January sixers. 

 

Erin Ryan: See, this is why it’s really important. If you feel like you’re about to be laid off, some malicious compliance, uh just, you know, like password lock things that are really important, delete root files from your computers. I mean, on one hand, like on a practical level, immediately this would just be chaos. You’re really, two million people. You’re going to fire two million people? 

 

Max Fisher: They run the largest government on earth. 

 

Erin Ryan: Yes. You’re gonna fire two million people at the same time. Replace them with people who do not know how to do the jobs. 

 

Max Fisher: Yeah. 

 

Erin Ryan: And expect the government to keep working? 

 

Max Fisher: I think they would love it if it didn’t if the EPA stopped regulating our air and our water supply. I think they would love that and I think Elon Musk would love that, who is putting himself in charge of firing the regulators. 

 

Erin Ryan: But it’s not even just that. It’s infrastructure. Like what–

 

Max Fisher: Yeah. 

 

Erin Ryan: –about the airplanes that are flying in the air? 

 

Max Fisher: Yes. 

 

Erin Ryan: What about the you know, what about the– 

 

Max Fisher: That is Elon Musk has literally targeted air traffic controllers for mass regulatory firings, which is scary. 

 

Erin Ryan: We don’t even have, oh god. We’re going to have to do a lot of road tripping. Um.

 

Max Fisher: [laugh] Well, the Biden administration is worried enough about this that they I just read about this this morning. They passed a bunch of new rules to make it harder to fire career civil servants that is meant to not stop but to slow down Trump from executing exactly this plan. And it would slow him down for between six months and a year. He would just have to undo the like, legal protections, basically. But this is something that I know sounds kind of technical and esoteric, but for people who understand what the federal government does for us day in and day out, it’s really scary. 

 

Erin Ryan: Mm hmm. I’m just going to pour a little bit of cold water on the hair on fire that we have right now. 

 

Max Fisher: Sure. 

 

Erin Ryan: I’m going to go ahead and say that Donald Trump wasn’t great at paying close attention to the quality of people that he was hiring in his uh last administration. I remember at least two or three members of his last administration who had some pretty blatant, like domestic violence issues. 

 

Max Fisher: Yeah. 

 

Erin Ryan: That that were so serious that they couldn’t pass background checks. And Donald Trump claimed that he wasn’t aware that those existed. I don’t think he’s the most observant person in the world. So if he had deputies who were a lot more observant than him, then maybe this could get done. But considering his reticence when it comes to relinquishing control over things that he believes he originated this, I don’t know how I don’t know if it would actually be successful because it’s such a huge undertaking and it would really need someone who is both evil and brilliant. And I don’t know that there are enough MAGA people who are brilliant. They got evil in spades, but I don’t know if they’re all there’s not that many smart ones. 

 

Max Fisher: Well, I will say that Brooke Rollins has been very effective in the last few years at executing her agenda. And this is at the top of the list for her. But–

 

Erin Ryan: I mean, Ron DeSantis was a very popular governor in the state of Florida. And then when he got like nationwide exposure, everyone was like, this guy sucks. I mean, she was she was playing small ball to an extent. 

 

Max Fisher: Yeah. 

 

Erin Ryan: This is this is trying to jump from like, you know, single-A baseball to the World Series. 

 

Max Fisher: Right. Well. 

 

Erin Ryan: So. 

 

Max Fisher: I think she’s got a chance at executing it, which is, of course, why we recorded the episode. 

 

Erin Ryan: See, you always see the glass half full, Max. I’m just trying to help people calm down. Because I’m sure that the paper bags that they’ve been breathing into for the last three weeks. 

 

Max Fisher: Right. 

 

Erin Ryan: Are starting to get worn out. 

 

Max Fisher: Well, one piece of good news is that it is not too late to stop these wackadoos from coming to power. The polls, of course, are basically tied, which is breaking my brain. But the silver lining is that even a fraction of our listeners volunteer in these last few days that really could make the difference. We’ve got a few clips of folks talking about how much fun they had canvasing and phone banking with Vote Save America. And I’m going to be joining them this weekend. If you want to come along, go to VoteSaveAmerica.com/vote. Here are our volunteers. 

 

[clip of Zaya Rubin] Hi, my name is Zaya Rubin and I have been phone banking and doorknocking in Portland, Oregon. 

 

[clip of Stephanie] This is Stephanie. I’m a VSA volunteer in central North Carolina, and I have been canvasing for the last several months. 

 

[clip of Adam] My name is Adam. I’m 33. I’m volunteering with the Arizona Democrats working their virtual phone banks. 

 

[clip of Zaya Rubin] I get to talk to voters all over the country and hear them resoundingly cast their vote for Kamala Harris because they are rejecting the MAGA extremism, the insanity that is Donald Trump. 

 

[clip of Stephanie] I often go with a friend of mine from real life that is somebody that I don’t know because of politics and we have developed a really good canvasing rhythm. So it’s like getting to go out to lunch with a friend, except we’re going to save democracy and save America by canvasing. 

 

[clip of Adam] If you’re like me and the phone bank time slots don’t really fit with your schedule. Reach out to the volunteers and staff who are running those phone banks because there are a lot of roles like data entry and confirmation calling that support the phone banks. 

 

[clip of Zaya Rubin] We are ready to move forward. We are ready to turn the page. We’re ready to elect down ballot candidates and a president who is going to serve everyone. [music break]

 

Max Fisher: How We Got Here is written and hosted by me, Max Fisher and Erin Ryan. 

 

Erin Ryan: Our producer is Emma Illick-Frank. 

 

Max Fisher: Evan Sutton mixes and masters the show. 

 

Erin Ryan: Jordan Cantor sound engineers the show. Audio support from Kyle Seglin, Charlotte Landes and Vasilis Fotopoulos. 

 

Max Fisher: Production support from Leo Duran, Raven Yamamoto, and Adriene Hill. [music break]

 

[AD BREAK]