Former President Donald Trump’s disowning of Project 2025 sounds an...
Jeremy Schwartz@JinATX
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Aug 16, 2024
~3 min read
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Former President Donald Trump’s disowning of Project 2025 sounds an awful lot like what he did with an eroding, privately built border fence funded in part by the pro-Trump nonprofit We Build The Wall during the 2020 campaign. A 🧵:
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In recent weeks, Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, the blueprint to “Institutionalize Trumpism” that has become the centerpiece of campaign attacks from Democrats. "I know nothing about Project 2025," Trump has claimed. "I have no idea who is behind it."
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Project 2025 was crafted by Trump allies, including the Heritage Foundation and former staffers in his administration. As ProPublica’s @andykroll has reported, Trump has flown on a private jet with Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation.
propublica.org/article/inside…
propublica.org/article/inside…
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And in a 2022 speech at a Heritage event, Trump said: “This is a great group and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.”
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It’s not the first time Trump has distanced himself from politically unpopular projects led by his supporters and allies.
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Back in 2020, @ProPublica and @TexasTribune investigated a private border wall erected along the Rio Grande with financial support from a conservative group called We Build the Wall. propublica.org/article/he-bui…
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Similarly to Project 2025, We Build the Wall was led by Trump allies, including Steve Bannon. The news outlets found that the fence was beset by erosion just months after its construction, which engineers said could cause it to collapse during a flood. propublica.org/article/erodin…
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After @Perla_Trevizo and I wrote about the project, Trump distanced himself from the group on Twitter:
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
I disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads. It was only done to make me look bad, and perhsps it now doesn’t even work. Should have been built like rest of Wall, 500 plus miles.
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Trump’s tweet didn’t mention the role of Bannon, his former senior advisor or that his son, Donald Trump Jr., had praised We Build the Wall’s earlier efforts outside of El Paso. propublica.org/article/trump-…
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And We Build the Wall leader Brian Kolfage, a prominent pro-Trump activist, had previously told the far-right media outlet Gateway Pundit in December 2019 that the former president was indeed a big fan of the private border wall in the Rio Grande Valley.
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”We have Kris Kobach and Steve Bannon and a lot of people that are tied in with the Trump administration, so we're able to back channel things to the Trump administration and let them know what we're doing,” Kolfage said. youtube.com/watch?v=mMXrbc…
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“And we've gotten the support of the president firsthand,” he continued. “We have had people meet with the president who inform him directly what's going on. President Trump loves what we're doing.”
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Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
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A month after Trump’s tweet distancing himself from the project, Kolfage, Bannon and others involved with We Build the Wall were charged with defrauding donors by pocketing a sizable amount of the money they raised for the troubled wall. propublica.org/article/they-b…
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Kolfage is serving a 51-month prison term after pleading guilty in 2023. Though Trump granted Bannon a full pardon on federal charges related to the scheme, he was later charged in NY state court. A trial is scheduled for December.
