Troubling Signs of Cognitive Decline as Trump Struggles to Recognize Closest Aides
"I know nothing about Project 2025" statement triggers new concerns about his fitness to serve
President Trump continued to raise concerns about a cognitive decline after he was unable to recognize his closest allies last week. He put out a statement saying “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.” Project 2025 is the organizational effort to plan a second Trump administration, staffed by some of Trump’s closest and most loyal aides. The statement raised more concerns about whether the former President, 78, is fit to serve.
Even with more generous grants of “executive time” can Trump be seriously expected to meet with the demands of the Presidency if he cannot remember what the people he encounters on a daily basis are doing in his name? If those who have been by his side for years are strangers to him?
The Timing and Structure of Project 2025 was Organized to Ensure the Participation of Trump Officials
Project 2025 gained more public attention after the head of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, celebrated Supreme Court decisions granted Trump’s requested immunity, promising: “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” Roberts was selected to lead Heritage as a committed MAGA supporter after his predecessor’s position became untenable after she was criticized for acknowledging systemic racism.
Heritage has positioned itself as dealing with a particular GOP weakness, which is, uh, governing. Since 1980 it has published blueprints for how the incoming Republican President should govern. More than 60 of its officials and alumni joined the Trump administration, and it boasted that two-thirds of its recommendation to Trump were adopted when he came to office in 2016. In April of 2022, Trump addressed Heritage’s annual leadership conference, saying:
The critical job of institutions such as Heritage is to lay the groundwork. This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detailed 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. And that’s coming, that’s coming.
And yet, President Trump now seems unfamiliar with the great group he spoke so warmly to, and disagrees with the groundwork and detailed plans they have produced.
The 2024 iteration of Heritage efforts started unusually early. This is because Heritage feared its traditional role would be usurped by others who were even closer to Trump, who had created their own pro-Trump organization. This includes Russ Vought, Trump’s budget chief, who created the Center for Renewing America. Vought is now one of the key players in Project 2025, and Trump appointed him to lead the Republican National Committee platform.
By moving early, Heritage co-opted these other pro-Trump organizations, giving them central roles in Project 2025. Now it boasts that 110 conservative groups are part of the project! This makes it an even more troubling sign for Trump, who apparently is completely disengaged from the work of more than 100 of the most prominent groups advocating for his re-election.
Project 2025 is Run by Trump Officials
It is important to understand Project 2025 has two aspects: 1) a blueprint for governing, in the form of the document Mandate for Leadership; and 2) an effort to recruit, screen and train new Trump appointees. Both aspects have prominently driven by Trump officials: at least 140 people with ties to Trump have worked on Project 2025. For example, all three individuals running the project are former Trump appointees, even Troup.
It turns out that 25 of the 36 authors listed in Mandate for Leadership document have worked for Trump (hat tip to @andrawatkins). This does not include failed Trump appointments, like Stephen Moore. Such aides remain reluctant to speak about President Trump’s cognitive issues, despite the fact that he is no longer able to recall them.
The organizing and training aspects of Project 2025 are also run by Trump officials. Trump appointed Johnny McEntee to screen his presidential appointees. Project 2025 made a big announcement when it hired McEntee to do the same job:
Heritage wanted to make clear it was putting the old Trump team that imposed loyalty tests back together. (Troup also worked in that office).
McEntee joins a team that includes Project 2025 Associate Director Spencer Chretien, who was a special assistant to President Trump and associate director of presidential personnel, and James Bacon, a Project 2025 advisor and former special assistant to the president who served as PPO’s director of operations under Trump. Both worked for McEntee at the White House.
Trump’s inability to remember his closet aides suggests that acing a cognitive test that allows him to remember words like “person, woman, man, camera, TV” may not be sufficient. After all, before being appointed to impose bizarre loyalty tests, McEntee was Trump’s bag man, carrying around hair products and other essential items. It is doubtful if Trump spent more time with any other aide. But McEntee has now faded from Trump’s faltering memory it seems. Will Trump also be unable to remember world leaders when he meets them?
Other Trump officials are deeply involved in training aspects of Project 2025. If you click on the Presidential Personnel Academy of Project 2025, the first person you meet is Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s national press secretary. You can almost see the concern in her eyes as she stands by Trump, hoping that no reporters will ask her if she is troubled that he does not know who she is.
Another Project 2025 trainer is Stephen Miller, perhaps Trump most loyal appointee. Trump appeared to repay that loyalty by refusing to fire Miller when he was outed for his white nationalist ties. Or perhaps Trump simply did not remember that Miller worked for him. Given the conspiracy of staff silence around Trump’s mental acuity, we may never know.
There are certainly some officials involved in Project 2025 that Trump might not know about. One of the instructors for Project 2025 is Tom Jones. No, sorry, not that Tom Jones. No, this is a Republican opposition researcher, who was paid $100,000 by the Heritage Foundation to create an enemies list of civil servants suspected of being disloyal to Trump, with the intent of firing them. Tom is teaching “Conservative Governance 101” which gives you some sense of how they plan to govern: treating public servants as the enemy.
At what point does a concerned family member step in here, sheltering Trump from further embarrassment?
Of course, it could be that Trump is simply lying. That he knows his policies are unpopular once they are spelled out in detail. That would be why there was no Republican party platform in 2020, and why he is trying to shrink the party platform in 2024. But it seems like such a blatant falsehood could be easily factchecked and denounced by media as disqualifying.
I've seen what you've done. Subtle, and funny. Well done.
Seriously, though: thanks for taking the notes on Project 2025's ties to Trump and his claque, and publishing them. The next necessary step is tying Republican House and Senate candidates to Project 2025.
Well written and drives home the real issues involved. Since Citizens United, through Dobbs and immunity, the Supreme Court has been paving the way for an easy implementation of Project 2025. Heather Cox Richardson: "Journalist Jennifer Schulze of Heartland Signal noted today that as of 8:00 this morning, the New York Times had published 192 pieces on Biden’s debate performance: 142 news articles and 50 opinion pieces. Trump was covered in 92 stories, about half of which were about the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. Although Trump has frequently slurred his words or trailed off while speaking and repeatedly fell asleep at his own criminal trial, none of the pieces mentioned Trump’s mental fitness. Juliet Jeske of Decoding Fox News noted that Trump’s name shows up on more than 190 pages of the Project 2025 playbook." 7/6/24 MSNBC Daily, Max Burns: "In a new CNN poll out this week, 91% of Democratic voters still said they support his [Biden's] candidacy. The latest Wall Street Journal poll puts that number lower, at 86% of registered Democrats. Either way, Team Biden knows the path to victory likely runs through undecideds, independents and Trump-skeptical conservatives — many of whom now think Democrats would be better off without Biden on the ticket, according to that same CNN poll." Maybe having someone other than Biden would have been good prior to the nomination, but not now. Do you really believe the Biden hit-squad are altruists who have your best interests in mind? I'm terrified by Project 2025, this isn't fantasy football and there is no magical unicorn candidate. Kathleen Porter (I'm 72 so I may have her last name wrong - call the mental health professionals), has an op-ed in WaPo today about how Biden has a problem with women, two specific women - Jill Biden and VP Kamala Harris. The VP hits are just ramping up but, please tell me how our VP could ride in and solve all these problems because, as the Supreme Court believes, we're beyond racism and misogyny.