Donald Trump's transition team is reportedly preparing a blacklist of officials who could be excluded from a future administration, with special emphasis on those with ties to terrorism. Plan 2025 is a plan to transform the United States government.
Donald Jr., the former president's eldest son, is leading the effort to compile a list of banned employees. citing a former Trump administration official from Political Science.
“Clearly the workers have been included in the blacklist of Plan 2025,” another former official told the site.
The Republican candidate publicly rejected the 922-page document prepared by the Heritage Foundation think tank, which polls show is an electoral liability due to its ideological prescriptions, including mass layoffs of state employees and plans to ban abortion.
Several prominent architects served in the Trump administration, including its former director Paul Dance. Dance later criticized some of the Republican candidate's top campaign advisors for influencing his decision to withdraw from the show.
Others who were excluded were those who resigned in protest on January 6 in a failed attempt to prevent Congress from ratifying a Trump-inspired mob that stormed the US Capitol. Joe Biden wins the 2020 election.
Some of Trump's top officials resigned from office in his final days in protest over the episode, which was widely misinterpreted at the time as a harbinger of the end of his political career. Among them are Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos; Mick Mulvaney, former White House chief of staff; and Elaine Chao, former Secretary of Transportation and wife of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
Exclusion orders are also issued against those considered disloyal. Trump has made clear several times that he considers loyalty to be one of the top qualities when selecting top staff.
The banned list indicates that a future Trump presidency will be different from the first. Marked by a recorded employee turnover rate compared to previous presidents and employed by officials who have often seen a key part of their duties as curbing Trump's more aggressive instincts.
Howard Lutnick, co-chair of Trump's transition team, has said appointees must show “loyalty” to the former president and his agenda.
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Ludnick told the New York Post this month that the Heritage Foundation was “radioactive” because of its intimate role in Project 2025 and that no one associated with the project would be included. “It's a clear position,” he said.
Others have expressed skepticism, noting that some 18,000 Republicans and 100 think tanks were involved in some way in creating the document, meaning an outright ban would complicate staffing efforts.
Trump aide JT Wans has long-standing ties to the Heritage Foundation and wrote the foreword for an upcoming book by its president, Kevin Roberts.
