Tipsheet

Harris Campaign Makes Quite the Admission About Project 2025

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  July 25, 2024 2:30 PM

President Joe Biden may be out of the presidential race, but even though he's almost certainly going to be replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee, there's plenty that remains the same. Democrats are still focused on obsessing over the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 as they try to tie the project to the Trump-Vance campaign. Former and potentially future President Donald Trump has made it clear he's not affiliated, and fact-checkers have backed this up. That hasn't stopped the Democrats, though.

Previously, it was USA Today that fact-checked the lies tying Project 2025 to Trump. Now, even CNN's Daniel Dale is weighing in.

Dale specifically targets Harris' categorization of cutting Social Security, a common tactic for Democrats to turn to, including for the 2022 midterms. They've since continued to go with such a focus. 

"In the first rally of her presidential campaign on Tuesday, presumptive Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris wrongly described parts of the conservative Project 2025 blueprint for a potential second Donald Trump presidency," Dale begins by writing, also pointing out in the next paragraph how Trump has distanced himself from the project and calls some parts of it "seriously extreme."

In fact-checking Harris' claims about Social Security and Medicare, as well as the Affordable Care Act, Dale writes:

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Facts First: One of Harris’ claims about Project 2025 is false, while another is at least misleading. The Project 2025 document does not show that Trump intends to cut Social Security; the document barely discusses Social Security at all and does not propose cuts to the program. In addition, contrary to Harris’ suggestion, Project 2025 does not call to “end” the Affordable Care Act or eliminate its protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The document does criticize the Affordable Care Act, especially the law’s expansion of Medicaid, but makes clear it is advocating changes to the law rather than terminating the law entirely.

But, there's also quite the admission from the Harris campaign acknowledging they should know better:

A Harris campaign official said the campaign has “made a deliberate decision to brand all of Trump’s policies” as “Project 2025,” since they believe “it has stuck with voters.” After the initial publication of this article, a Harris campaign spokesperson, Joseph Costello, added, “Project 2025 is a blueprint for many of the dangerous policies we know that a second Trump term would include, and it is indisputable that in his first term, Donald Trump repeatedly tried to cut Social Security and end the Affordable Care Act.”

They're lying and misleading, and they're doing so "deliberate[ly]" because they believe "it has stuck with voters." These are people who will do anything to win in November, especially since Trump is leading Harris in the polls, just as he led when Biden was the nominee.

There's actually a note that the fact-check was updated with a statement from the Harris campaign, which serves as something of a non-statement about Trump and doubling down on desperately trying to connect Trump to Project 2025.

The Daily Signal's Rob Bluey also pointed to how a Verify fact-check debunked yet another claim about Project 2025, this one on Individualized Education Plans. Trump also continues to deny any affiliation.

In a Truth Social post from Wednesday, he aptly warned about "disinformation put out by the Radical Left Democrat Thugs."

Trump and Republicans cannot underestimate the lengths that Democrats will go to. It's not just Project 2025. On Wednesday, DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison insisted that Fox News' Brian Kilmeade said "colored" when he said "college," a point Kilmeade himself made clear. Fox News, co-host Lawrence Jones, and even Eugene Daniels, who initially posted the smear campaign against Kilmeade, also acknowledged as much.

Harrison has yet to acknowledge in his subsequent posts that Kilmeade said "college."