CSPAN - Washington Journal Paul Dans Aired: 2025-02-20 Duration: 03:55 === Project 2025 In Action (03:55) === [00:00:00] Fast reliable internet connection is something no one can live without. [00:00:03] So WOW is there for our customers with speed, reliability, value, and choice. [00:00:08] Now more than ever, it all starts with great internet. [00:00:12] Wow. [00:00:13] WOW supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. [00:00:25] President Trump is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress next month to lay out his priorities and vision for the country during his second term. [00:00:33] We'll have live coverage of the president's speech on Tuesday, March 4th, starting at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, along with a Democratic response and viewer reaction. [00:00:42] Her coverage will also stream live on our free C-SPAN Now video app and at our website c-span.org. [00:00:52] Paul Dance is back at our desk. [00:00:54] Mr. Danz, the last time you're here was June of 2024. [00:00:58] You were serving as the director of Project 2025, the presidential transition effort at the Heritage Foundation. [00:01:05] Can you just walk us through what happened with you and with Project 2025 in the months since then? [00:01:11] Well, you know, Project 2025 was a two and a half year effort. [00:01:15] We started back in the spring of 2022. [00:01:18] It was really a coming together of citizens all over the country. [00:01:21] We ultimately became 110 groups, all focused on helping the next conservative president be ready to hit the ground running day one. [00:01:30] So what's happened, you know, we got a lot of work done and made a contribution. [00:01:36] And very happy to see that these ideas have entered the bloodstream. [00:01:42] And what President Trump and his team is accomplishing right now is miraculous. [00:01:48] I stepped down from the project in the end of summer 2024. [00:01:52] But, you know, what's going on, we have basically wrapped our work by then. [00:01:57] And I should say I no longer work at the Heritage Foundation, so the ideas today are my own. [00:02:03] But it's been fantastic to watch President Trump really move like Greece Lightning right now. [00:02:09] How much of Project 2025 is evident in today being the first month of the Trump administration, the second Trump administration? [00:02:18] Well, this is all Donald Trump. [00:02:20] If a man didn't get up and say fight, fight, fight, none of this would be happening. [00:02:25] So, you know, it's really the indomitable spirit of one man, but that's the essence of leadership. [00:02:31] Many of the ideas that we brought in Project 2025 are common sense. [00:02:36] They're ultimately about bringing people back into our own government. [00:02:40] It's a government of, by, and for the people. [00:02:43] And that was the central postulate of Project 2025, that we needed to deconstruct this unaccountable administrative state. [00:02:52] How do you deconstruct it? [00:02:54] Well, you start by making it transparent. [00:02:56] And you have to show the rest of the country what's been actually happening here in Washington. [00:03:01] And that's part of the genius of Donald Trump and working with new folks like Elon Musk to really bring to the fore what we've all kind of suspected. [00:03:11] But, you know, what's being unearthed now is earth-shattering, really. [00:03:17] And, you know, we're seeing, we have a $2 trillion structural deficit in this country going on $50 trillion of debt. [00:03:26] Anybody who claims that the status quo defends the status quo and says this thing's working is either in on it or, you know, completely confused. [00:03:37] I guess the question is, is what we're seeing now, Project 2025, in action? [00:03:41] Well, it's common sense. [00:03:43] There's a lot of commonality in the sense that what we put forward were in the main a lot of Trump ideas from term one. [00:03:52] So I think what you're seeing is aspirational hopes as well.