How conservatives are working to avoid a repeat of Trump’s turbulent 2016 transition

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — Conservatives plan to redefine the powers of the executive branch if a Republican wins the White House in 2024.

The Heritage Foundation published the ninth edition of its Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, outlining policy positions it hopes will define the Republican primary race as well as the general election.

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Written in the context of experiences in the Trump administration, which saw significant roadblocks posed by the government bureaucracy and a rocky transition, the book is part of a broader move, known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, or Project 2025, to rethink the use of the executive branch and staff it adequately in 2025.

The book was authored by a coalition of conservatives spanning the ideological spectrum within the movement, but Project 2025 Director Paul Dans said, “Our common theme is to take down the administrative state, the bureaucracy.”

“We don’t agree on everything all the time; you may have noticed that in the conservative movement,” former acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli, who was the lead author of the DHS section, said in a panel discussion. But the book “lays the groundwork” for executing conservative goals “on day one.”

Cuccinelli told the Washington Examiner one of those policy proposals is to “get rid of DHS.”

“Don’t get rid of the missions,” he continued. “Manage them differently.”

“Should FEMA be giving out billions of dollars a year out to the states? How has that actually changed responsiveness in the states?” he questioned. “Should we even be doing TSA? The answer you’ll find in this book is, ‘No, we shouldn’t, and we shouldn’t have been doing it for a long time.”

Dans, who served in the Trump administration as chief of staff of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, emphasized the importance of personnel.

Part of Project 2025 is creating a database Dans refers to as a “conservative LikedIn” to recruit, train, and eventually staff the administration with like-minded people who will not act in ways that thwart the policy goals of the elected president.

To Dans, the old adage “personnel is policy” should be updated to “personnel is everything,” and the project is looking for “weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state.”

The idea is to bring the policy proposals outside the Beltway to find like-minded people who want to serve their country by working in the government. Dans believes one of the issues for conservatives is they do not typically gravitate toward government work, but he and the project look to change the minds of the public so that they come to see political service as patriotic.

Some proposals in the book, such as dissolving the Department of Education, would take congressional approval. When asked if he saw even a Republican-controlled Congress as a threat to the success of restructuring the executive branch because committee chairs might not want to lose their oversight authority, Cuccinelli said, “Institutional resistance is important.”

“We’re laying out ideas, and ideas that the conservative movement has consensus over, untainted by those sorts of institutional restraints,” he continued. “Those are political hurdles we have to overcome.”

Cuccinelli cited an earlier comment made by Heritage Foundation Vice President of Domestic Policy Roger Severino, the primary author on the Department of Health and Human Services chapter, who said candidates will have “no place to hide” if they reject the conservative consensus.

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“For over two years, the Left has ignored the voice of everyday Americans leading to crippling inflation, biological males dominating women’s sports, rampant violence, and a crisis in education not seen in decades,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts said in a press release. “This is why the conservative movement is coming together to prepare for the next conservative administration.”

“Heritage is convening the conservative movement behind the policies to ensure that the next president has the right policy and personnel necessary to dismantle the administrative state and restore self-governance to the American people,” he added.