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In April of 2023, about five months after Donald Trump announced he was running in the 2024 presidential election, the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, released a roadmap of how they wanted Trump to run the country if reelected. That roadmap is called Project 2025, and it's 922 pages long.
Throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump denied having any involvement in Project 2025. In fact, he said he didn't even know what it was. Here's Trump at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on July 20th, 2024. Like some on the right, severe right,
came up with this Project 25, and I don't even know. I mean, some of them, I know who they are, but they're very, very conservative, just like you have. They're sort of the opposite of the radical left, okay? You have the radical left, and you have the radical right, and they come up with this. I don't know what the hell it is.
And during Trump's first presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on September 10th in Philadelphia, Trump again separated himself from the project. I have nothing to do with Project 2025. That's out there. I haven't read it. I don't want to read it purposely. I'm not going to read it. This was a group of people that got together. They came up with some ideas, I guess some good, some bad. OK.
OK, so let's fast forward from there. Trump wins the 2024 election. And in December, he sits down with NBC's Kristen Welker and she presses him on his connection to Project 2025. Here's a clip from that interview that aired on December 8th.
You're now giving people involved in Project 2025 prominent roles in your administration. Are you changing your mind about Project 2025? Is this now the policy blueprint for the second Trump administration? Some people, if you take a look at the group, it was hundreds of people were involved. And I was actually, I reprimanded the whole group. I said, you shouldn't have placed this document here.
in front of the voters because I have nothing to do with it and I'm the one that's running. You had no right to do this where you put a thousand page document in front and many of those things I disagree with. Now, many of those things I happen to agree with. Many of those things Democrats should have agreed to and I think they would have done much better in the election because they got slaughtered. Well, I guess people
People see the list, Russ Vogt, Brendan Carr, Peter Navarro, John Ratcliffe, Pete Hoekstra, Monica Crowley, and they think these are all the people who were involved in or writing Project 2025. This must be a blueprint for work requirements, eliminating the Head Start program, criminalizing pornography. Is that what we can expect to see? Well, I don't know how they voted. I don't know. I never spoke to them actually about it. And I purposely, and I told you, normally it would be just the opposite. I'd review every page.
I purposely didn't even want to see it. Because when somebody like you asks me a question about Project 2025, I can honestly say I've never seen it. I have nothing to do with it. Well...
Project 2025 clearly has everything to do with him and his administration. Because within days of taking office, Trump issued many executive orders. And a Time magazine analysis found that nearly two-thirds of the executive actions Trump issued mirrored or partially mirrored proposals from Project 2025. Again, an agenda that the president claims he never read.
Trump's claims of also not knowing the Project 2025 authors bears no water as well, because according to a CNN investigation, at least 140 people who had worked in the first Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025, including half of the people listed as authors, editors and contributors. And several of those folks are now part of the current Trump administration, including in cabinet positions.
So this hour, we're going to do our own detailed analysis of just how closely President Trump's actions and orders do hew to the literal text sometimes and political ambitions of Project 2025. And with that in mind, what can you expect next? Well, Tammy Govea is the Paul Farmer Professor of Practice at Boston University's School of Social Work.
She's also the director of the Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health, also at Boston University. And she leads the Beyond 2025 Action Hub, which is a searchable database based on two major policy proposals, this Project 2025 and the America First Agenda. Professor Gouveia, welcome to On Point.
Thank you so much for having me here today, Meghna. Okay. By the way, I should say that we're linking to the work that you and your colleagues have done on our website, onpointradio.org. We'll get directly to Project 2025 in a second. But since I mentioned the America First agenda as well, do you want to give us a quick reminder of what that is? Yeah. This was put out by the America First Policy Institute last year.
Linda McMahon, who's the Secretary of Education, is actually one of the founders and past president of that, as are a number of cabinet secretaries who are also involved in crafting the America First policy agenda. So when we did our deep dive, we really looked at both Project 2025 and AFPI, the America First agenda, just to really have a comprehensive look at what's kind of happening, what's
with the Trump administration and also with our new Republican Congress, Republican-led Congress as well, because they've taken up a number of the issues that are in both of these policy roadmaps. So that's why we wanted to do a deep dive into both of them. Very, very important to mention Congress here. Okay, so we will talk about that in a few minutes. So given Project 2025 and the America First agenda,
from the top level of the analysis that your database has found thus far in the Trump administration
What percentage of executive actions would you say are directly related to what's in these two documents? We see the vast majority. When we did our analysis, we actually broke the policies into more bite-sized pieces because the intention with the database is to make it searchable for everyday people who didn't have the time or their stomach or the policy analysis skills to dive deep into these thousand-page documents.
So our analysis was at a more discrete level. And so when we look at it, we say, OK, well, this executive order covers these five to 10 policy proposals. Right. Like when you look at some of the executive orders around immigration or identifying biology issues.
as only two sexes. A lot of those came up in multiple places across human rights, women's rights, health and human services, education. So we estimate a vast majority of them come from the executive orders really tied closely to what's in our database and what comes out of Project 2025 and America First. Okay, so by a vast majority, forgiving and oppressing a little bit. 60%, 70% upwards, yeah. As time goes on...
And as more executive orders get signed, we see a little bit more of a mix and not tying quite as closely. We see new things like Doge. Doge wasn't anywhere in Project 2025. That caught a number of folks by surprise. Some of the policy proposals are just kind of sidestepping some of what's really listed in Project 2025 and America First. Okay. But you were still saying at least at this point in time you're comfortable saying 60%, 70% even. Absolutely.
Yep. That's a lot. So let me just go back before we get to some specifics. I want to go back to something that the president said in that in one of the clips that we played from July of 2024, where he said some on the severe right is what he called them came up with Project 2025.
So if 60 to 70 percent of the actions coming out of the White House thus far are tied to ideas in Project 2025 and America First, would that make his administration successful?
severe right? I think it does make his administration severe right. I mean, there's unprecedented disruptions to the functioning of government, right? All of the agencies that where we've seen hundreds of thousands of, you know, people who have lost their jobs, people have dedicated themselves to public service, just poof, overnight having their work and their careers just completely disrupted. That's unprecedented. That's a far right approach to
trying to create abuses of power and concentration of power and having a situation where we have more power in the administrative, which is not what the founding fathers wanted. That's why we have our three branches of government. And this is a step in a far right direction to secure more power in the presidency. Yes. And we'll talk about how Project 2025 actually in particular talks about executive power. But let's get to...
Some of the specifics here, because I've got Project 2025 in front of me. Obviously, you do, too. And you have your database as well. Immigration. Can we start with that one? Yeah. Because what's interesting to me is that, in fact, in Project 2025, there's no chapter called immigration. It's organized in a very different way. So take me through your analysis of the relationship between some of the president's executive orders and what is actually in immigration.
Yeah. So you're right. And a lot of these chapters, not just with immigration, but across a number of issues or topics or areas of interest and concern, the information is spread throughout various chapters. Immigration is definitely one of those. It's talked about in areas around education, around housing, around health and human services. And what we've already seen is a move in multiple agencies.
to make it more difficult for undocumented folks to be able to access health care services, to be able to know for sure that they will continue to have opportunities around housing or employment. And we're seeing the effect of this on the ground. We're hearing from social workers and from public health folks and folks in hospitals that immigrants aren't coming for their appointments and they're not showing up for prenatal visits. We saw this during the first Trump administration. So for many of us, it's no surprise that we're seeing the same thing. But the
sheer vitriol and real major focus on demonizing immigrants, those who are asylum seekers, seeing that across the board in multiple places, across multiple agencies, just the impact on that. Well, I mean, can we get into even more detail about it? Absolutely. Because I'm looking at, for example, the chapter in Project 2025 about the Department of Homeland Security written by Ken Cuccinelli,
Kusinelli, can you point to specific things there regarding immigration and the president's actions? Yeah. So, yeah.
A lot of the things, and I can't remember if it's exactly in that particular chapter, but, you know, just the move towards more border security, the changes with the Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol, and just seeing, you know, around our state here in Massachusetts, which is where I'm sitting, more Border Patrol on the streets than we've ever seen. We're hearing, you know, people...
Border Patrol showing up and ICE showing up in various places. And then this whole issue around sensitive places, where in the past ICE was not able to just show up at schools or universities or places of worship or health care facilities. And that has changed. That has shifted. That was in Project 2025, the attack and the description around allowing ICE to be able to show up at these sensitive places. And that's why we are seeing...
an effect on immigrants, documented as well as undocumented, really feeling the pressure. Okay, we'll talk a little bit more about immigration and executive power and the functioning of the overall government in just a second. This is On Point.
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Professor Gouveia, I wanted to pull up some specific examples because really I think a lot of people don't know. It's not that just like they're sort of mirroring. It's sometimes even direct language. For example, I was looking at in Project 2025, there is a suggestion just right on 100 page 40, 100 page, sorry, page 145.
And it's a bullet point, and it says simply repeal temporary protected status designations, repeal TPS. Yeah. That actually happened in an executive order. Yes, it did. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, that's what we're talking about here. Exactly. And then what about also there's another one about –
something called sensitive zones? The sensitive zones. Yeah. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. So the sensitive zones in the past have been, you know, designated hospitals, schools, and places of worship have been considered sensitive
pretty much hands off by ICE, just kind of busting in the door and grabbing people. And that was in Project 2025 was to, you know, change the definition of sensitive zones and how sensitive zones could be treated by ICE and Border Patrol. And now we're seeing that people are showing up.
ICE is showing up in places that are sensitive. And we know that they're in the past also with courts, right? We know that they're showing up at court hearings and grabbing people before they even get to stand trial and maybe be held responsible locally for a crime that they've been committed. People have been kind of snagged right out of the courtrooms. And that's been a major shift. And that has, as you pointed out, connected directly to Project 2025. Right. In Project 2025, it says right here, again, page 142,
All ICE memoranda identifying sensitive zones where ICE personnel are prohibited from operating should be rescinded. And that did happen on January 20th, 2025. Day one. Day one. Of the Trump administration. Absolutely. OK. So, I mean, we could go into – we could spend the whole hour just talking about the immigration actions, but I want to move towards –
the whole concept of the federal government defunding, shrinking, whatever you want to call it. You said earlier that DOGE isn't part of America First or Project 2025. So we'll put that aside. But are there aspects of
of the reduction in the capacity of the federal government that we do see in these documents? Yeah, throughout especially Project 2025, we see over and over again, eliminate this program, eliminate that program, constrict this program, change the definition of this program, consolidate these departments together like with USAID, right? That was one of the things right out of the gate that they went after was USAID. In a big way,
That surprised even some of us who had read Project 2025, just the sheer volume of the disruptions to those programs and like stopping the funding for things that are happening on the ground that are so critical in other parts of the world. When you think about our health and our safety,
USAID, all of those programs, they play a really critical role. And in Project 2025, they talked a lot about consolidating and moving USAID under the State Department, which we have seen a move towards that, in addition to the sheer disruption of the funding. And of course, there are court battles going back and forth on so many of the acts and steps that have been taken, whether it's
primarily through executive order, to just try to slow things down or stop things from really rolling out in the way that the Trump administration would like to. Well, so it says here, yes, defund USAID. And then that, by the way, was also mirrored in an executive act.
Order from January 20th, 2025. The executive order re-evaluating and realigning the United States foreign aid. Okay, what about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? Yeah, that is another one that they've already gone after. I need to refer to...
My specific notes? I mean, anything that's related to protecting consumers, Vought is, Vought is the sort of head of that. Russell Vought. Russell Vought. And he's already taking steps to close and really dismantle the Consumer Protection Board with 90% reduction in the workforce. And that's what we're seeing across the board is, you know, these
1,000 people here, 500 people there, 2,000 people there across various agencies, whether it's consumer protection or things happening within TANF or other services in HUD, just the sheer attack on privacy.
the folks who are doing the really hard work every single day to make sure that their neighbors have access to the resources and services to get through the day. I'm seeing here on page 837. 837, okay. Of Project 2025. There's a whole section actually on CFPB, and it starts by saying the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was authorized in 2010 by Dodd-Frank—
Then since the bureau's inception, its status as an independent agency with no congressional oversight has been questioned in multiple court cases. It's been assailed by critics as a shakedown mechanism to provide unaccountable funding to what they call leftist nonprofits politically aligned with those who spearheaded its creation. So then later on it says it should be shut down, which is what I guess Doge has tried to do, as you said. Yeah.
And I think if I may, I think that's one of the things that kind of as you read through Project 2025 that becomes interesting.
Pretty obvious pretty quickly is the ideological approach to things that there's been pretty much agreement on all sides of the aisle around some of these programs that are really important, like Head Start, for example, or USAID. That has had bipartisan support for decades. And, you know, the ways that this has been conceived of in Project 2025 and now under the
And as you pointed out, sort of the severity, the right wing severity of the changes are really a departure from what we've had, you know, over decades in terms of many of these lifesaving nation building services and programs. There's also another one about education, right? The entire department. The entire department. Of education, which it says here.
Chapter 11. There's a whole there is actually a whole chapter on it on the DOE, but it says federal education policy should be limited and ultimately the Federal Department of Education should be eliminated. Right. And relegating a lot more authority and responsibility to the states and to the very local.
level, allowing parents to be able to review and see what the curriculum is of their students and weighing in on that. We're even seeing some bills out of Texas, right? So our states are a testing ground for a lot of policies that we'll see roll up at the federal level. And in Texas, there's House Bill 37, which
It would allow the legislature to really weigh in on higher education. So we're seeing these attacks both at sort of the elementary and secondary level of education, but also at the higher education level as well. Interesting. OK, so I'm just still sort of scrolling through the education chapter here. Again, there are points in which it's like brutal.
virtually the exact same language, right? For example, there's a bullet list of actions that Project 2025 would wanted the Trump administration to take. This is on page 322. And the first one is advancing education freedom. Okay. Empowering families to choose amongst a diverse set of education options is key to reform and improved outcomes. And then I am looking at an executive order from January 29th
So nine days after the president took office and Section 4 is all about encouraging education freedom. So, I mean, it goes into sort of similar points after that about –
Let me see. I don't want to misquote this. Encouraging education freedom through the discretionary grant program. Secretary of Labor and Secretary of Education shall review the grant programs and submit to the president programs that make recommendations regarding how to use grants to expand those freedoms. OK, so that seems to be, if not word for word, at least definitely in terms of its spirit, the same as what Project 2025 is asking for.
Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, you see that with things around critical race theory or DEI that shows up in multiple chapters within Project 2025. And you see that there's
Again, those kinds of executive orders were right out of the gate on the first day. Yeah. And actually, you know, in the Advancing Education Freedom portion of Project 2025, it uses slightly different words, but it's the same idea. They're talking about portability of existing federal funds to assist families to find the school options that they want. Right. Exactly. And...
You know, we can anticipate where that what that means, especially now that there's the religious commission that's at the federal level and just the discussion around allowing that portability to also include religiously based schools and religiously based, maybe even charter schools. And so, you know, moving us more in that privatization direction as well. OK, there's more and then we'll get to a bigger analysis here.
But I think part of the importance of this hour is this exercise of really doing this check to see how close the documents are. Okay, what about the media overall? Yeah. One of the things that really concerned me when I read Project 2025 were the attacks on media. And we know...
you know, the sort of the checklist of authoritarianism, right? Go after and other and dehumanize people. We're doing that with our transgender folks and with our immigrant folks. Go after the media. Go after higher education. We're seeing those threats happen over and over again. And when it comes to Project 2025 and the
actions around NPR and the public broadcasting. You know, public broadcasting, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has fought back and said, well, we're an independent agency. And that's one of the things that the Trump administration has been doing is going after independent agencies that they actually have no authority over. But it's sort of this
consistent testing of how far can they go and who's going to stop them and what is that stoppage going to look like. So these threats to the media kicking the American voice out, going after the AP in the beginning and saying that they couldn't be in the White House because they weren't
referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, you know, those kinds of attacks and are threats to the independence of the media that we really want to have. And educational programming that is also, you know, really embedded within PBS. And so these attacks on media should concern all of us. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. This is On Point.
Specifically, for example, about Voice of America. There's a section on it in Project 2025. I'm looking for the exact section. Yeah.
There's a section called media. I think it's chapter eight. Yes. And it is chapter eight. And does it actually call for either the severe reduction or like closing of it? I want to be sure. It says that it has to like adhere and make some major changes in order to continue to exist. Yes. My recollection in that section. OK. Oh, yeah. If the de facto aim of the agency remains to compete in foreign markets using anti-U.S. talking points. OK. OK.
that parrot America's adversaries. And this was, it says this represents an unacceptable burden. Okay. Got it. So overall that, I mean, there's, there's issues about the environment we can talk about. Even the death penalty. Well, actually let's talk about the environment for a little bit because that, that really matters to a lot of people. For example,
repealing the Inflation Reduction Act as a whole? Yeah, there's been moves to really change a lot of the programs and the funding mechanisms that came out of the Inflation Reduction Act. And
There has been, you know, activity around this from a bipartisan way to say, wait a second, like these things actually have really helped us in our states get more energy independence, get some additional kinds of green energy really going in in the state. And so we are seeing pushback around some of these and also just the disruptions to the Energy Star program as part of that executive order as well and those efforts.
So we're seeing major issues coming forward with climate and with environment. And it's this whole framing around American energy dominance, right? It's like in the spirit of America is so awesome. We want to dominate in all these different areas and we don't want to be involved in
other places that might need our help. So like climate comes up in USAID. Climate came up in, you know, on the ground local efforts. It comes up in multiple sections, even though there is, you know, sort of this focus within Project 2025, again, on the framing around dominance and also the move to, you know, eliminate or privatize things like NOAA and the Weather Service. All of these are interrelated in the ways that we get access to
climate science and climate information and how that helps inform the American public so that we can protect ourselves if there's a big hurricane that's about to come or a big storm that's about to come. And so this move to privatize these things that have really operated in a way that's much more independent and more based on actual science and not the ways that Trump and some of the folks in the Republican Congress have conceived of
and sort of being the climate science deniers. It's interesting how specific Project 2025 gets about even seemingly small things, like efficiency standards for appliances. Yeah. I mean...
But you talked about energy. That relates to the Trump administration's overall view of American energy dominance. But I understand that aspects of that made it into an executive order. That one I don't recall. You're really deep in that, Meghna, which I appreciate. Yeah.
Yeah, it's been hard to dive deep into every single policy because everything is happening so fast and furious. And that's part of the design, right, is to just, you know, hurl so much at us that it's hard to keep track of everything that's happening. So you're in the details a little bit more on that one than I am. Okay. Well, it talks about allowing American people to have the freedom to choose from a variety of goods and appliances, right?
light bulbs, dishwashers, washing machines, etc., which, by the way, would require some regulatory changes, especially the light bulbs part. So that's actually from an executive order. We'll have a lot more when we come back. This is On Point.
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Professor Gouveia, I wanted to ask you a little bit about some of the places where the administration didn't exclusively follow Project 2025 because we've given a lot of examples of how it has. You had mentioned Head Start before. And Project 2025 definitely, I think, explicitly calls for the elimination of the Head Start program. Yeah.
which was floated by the White House. But what happened there? Well, with the president's budget, it is included in the president's budget right now. I think, you know, the devil will be in the details of how that gets rolled out and which version of the budget actually, you know, rises to the top and gets passed. But right now it is included in the president's budget, which was a little bit surprising to a number of folks.
And, you know, some are questioning, well, and this is the thing to sort of, I think, for us to be like thinking about and looking at is what's underneath the executive orders? What's underneath and what's the reason behind some of the language that's included in Project 2025? Because some of these things you look at it first blush and you think, well, that makes a lot of sense. But then if you take a step back and have a little bit of skepticism about, but what really is the motivation here? So I have the same sort of reaction to, hey,
Head Start, which has had bipartisan support, has been, you know, demonstrated to be one of the things that's been the most successful programs. So being included in Project 2025 was very confusing. And the original actions against Project, against Head Start, I mean, was a little bit confusing. And now seeing sort of the retreating around it, you have to sort of wonder, is it a bipartisan? Is it that Republicans have come forward and said, no, no, we still need this? Or is this
perhaps a move towards trying to create more privatization at the local level around child care. Because we're seeing that in numerous ways, and they have a lot of sections on child care and moving child care into the home and smaller child care-based centers. So you kind of have to wonder, is this part of that family-first approach and conceiving of the nuclear family as a mother or father and a couple of children and the mom stays home? And is that the move?
So it's just a little curious to see where this might go. Yeah. And just so folks know, again, this is in Project 2025 on page 482. There's a whole paragraph that just starts with eliminate the Head Start program. That's what it calls for.
And basically, I think it says the assertion there is waste, fraud and abuse in the program, although I don't think they really provide a robust data set to support that. And interestingly, in Project 2025, they say research has demonstrated that federal Head Start centers
have little to no long-term academic value for children, which my understanding was the research shows the exact opposite. The exact opposite. Absolutely the exact opposite. Research after research shows the exact opposite. It's one of the most successful anti-poverty and getting students really ready to perform in school.
That is the Head Start program. That is what it does. And it's succeeded in that. Well, to your point, though, this is one program that thus far has not been eliminated, even though it looks like the White House kind of made noises about that. But it's pulled back from from that effort. We'll have to find out why as as things progress.
But, you know, what I wanted to also ask you about is you had said earlier that it's not just the executive branch or the White House that is reading and echoing.
What's in these documents in their actions? You said Congress, Republican led Congress also is playing a role here. Can you elaborate on that? Yeah. Well, we saw even early the first bill that President Trump signed was the Lake and Riley Act, which is an anti-immigration, anti-immigrant piece of legislation and bill that was signed into law. And that was put forward by the Republican Congress. And, you know, that's.
moved really swiftly. So that's one example of where Congress has, you know, stepped in and done some of the bidding along with the Trump administration. We see this also now happening with school meals. So school meals and getting rid of
universal school meals is also in Project 2025. So we haven't, to my knowledge, seen an executive order specific on school meals, but Congress has proposed making the eligibility requirements a lot more stringent and harder with the potential impact on 24,000 schools, 12 million students who won't be able to access school meals. So when you think about what allows a student to show up ready to learn, it's having food in their bellies. It's
not stressing about whether or not they're going to be able to eat lunch or if they're going to be able to stand in the lunch line and not feel stigmatized because they don't have the same school meal that some of their peers have. So that's where we're seeing Congress also step in. And then the third place, which is going to require Congress, is making the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent, which has been part of President Trump's campaign. It's been part of his effort, you know,
They passed that during his first administration. And this is where the issues around Medicaid and whether or not Medicaid is stripped of a lot of its funding, which would impact seniors and folks with disabilities, instituting work requirements. Is that an administration action or is that a congressional action? But we do know that Medicaid is on the chopping block.
in part because that will actually help fund the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is really a big boon for wealthy individuals and corporations. So that's the role that Congress is playing in all of this. And I think they are getting pressure. We've seen through the town halls that they are getting pressure from their constituents, but we don't know where a lot of this will end up going in the end. Okay.
So the school meals one is actually quite interesting to me because it's not just sort of a practical change that Project 2025 is calling for. But it's also, again, this sort of political philosophy about the role of government, which is interesting here. So I just want to read a little bit about that. In Project 2025, page 302, it says, return to the original purpose of school meals and
And it said the original purpose is to provide food to children from low-income families while at school. Okay, there's no doubt about that. But then Project 2025 says, "...today, federal school meals increasingly resemble entitlement programs and represent an example of the ever-expanding federal footprint in local school operations."
And then it says, to serve students in need and prevent the misuse of taxpayer money, the administration should focus on students in need and reject efforts to transform federal school meals into an entitlement program, specifically calling for USDA to clarify funding.
who would be eligible for school meals and for reject efforts to create universal free school meal programs, which a lot of states have actually done post-COVID. Yeah.
Absolutely. Because the research shows that when kids have food in their bellies and they're able to show up and learn, and it reduces the stigma. There's also just such a huge administrative burden that comes along with administering a lot of these programs. So you can put families through all the hoops together.
And they're going to be eligible anyways. Why spend all that extra money on the administrative side when you can actually be helping, you know, students be prepared to learn by accessing nutritious food? And that's the other thing that they've also called for is, you know, changing the nutrition standards in schools and allowing for more processed food. And it also will disrupt education.
You know, a number of schools have these really great partnerships with their local farms. We know that there's been real impact on farmers in various parts of the country because of the tariffs and because of the disruption with USAID. For those who aren't tracking this, it's, you know...
A lot of times farmers in the United States are actually the ones that are selling food or providing food to other parts of the world. And so the elimination of USAID has really had an impact on farmers here in the United States. And this is another area that will impact local farmers who have these really great partnerships. So, again, you're talking about disrupting the local food ecosystem.
even beyond just what's happening with the schools. So these things are just so interconnected, it's hard to not get into them. Yeah. And what's connecting them all again is this belief of what is the role of the federal government? And for a lot of Project 2025 and the America First agenda, it's basically like the government should be less involved in people's lives. The government should see universal school meals as an entitlement program that taxpayer dollars shouldn't support. Step back, federal government. That's kind of the philosophy here. Except for? Well, I was going to
But there's a whole other part or multiple parts of these documents that call for even more...
involvement in the federal government in people's lives. And I'm wondering, we should talk about that regarding like the whole concept of families in America and how what we see in Project 2025 and America First, the America First agenda might, you know, evolve into actual actions by the federal government. Yeah. I mean, I think this piece around the family is something that it
I would encourage folks to take a look at because it is more government intrusion into the ways that people choose to live their lives, whether they choose to have children or when or not. You know, for some of the requirements for access to some of the
programs that for like TANF, right? So temporary assistance for needy families and having requirements around the role of the father in the situation. The fact is that, you know, sometimes that could put women and children in greater harm, maybe perhaps due to domestic violence. And if we really care about families and making sure that families are
are able to succeed. Let's look at access to health care. Let's look at access to living wage. Let's make it easier to get access to child care and to higher education. And what we're doing is with Project 2025 and the Trump administration is rolling back all of those things that have really helped families be successful and be able to thrive and now have this other imposition into our lives around, you know, what does...
a nuclear family really look like and what does it consist of? So does Project 2025 go so far as to define what the government should see as what a family is? I
I think they do pretty clearly talking about that. The best there is some language in there around. We all know that the best American family is one that includes a mother and father. So they're pretty clear about what their conception of a traditional or an ideal family looks like.
in the country and they've even gone so far as to say well if there is an incarcerated parent then the incarcerated parent will actually get more of the services so that they can do education while they're incarcerated rather than looking at it as a both/and and really supporting the family and being able to to be successful so that the choices they're making are very obvious about who they think is deserving and who is less deserving depending on if you fit the mold that they conceive of as
appropriate or traditional or ideal family state. Well, I'm looking here at the chapter on the Department of Health and Human Services, to your point, and it actually, Project 2025 calls for three major goals in HHS's even core mission, I'd say. It says goal number one, protecting life, conscience, and bodily integrity. Two, empowering patient choices and provider autonomy. And three, regarding families, goal number three,
This is on page 451 of the version of Project 2025 that I have promoting stable and flourishing married families. And it says families comprised of a married mother, father and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation. That's interesting. And healthy society. Unfortunately, many family policies and programs under Biden's HHS are fraught with agenda items focused on, and they put this in quotes, LGBTQ plus equity, social
subsidizing single motherhood, disincentivizing work and penalizing marriages. Then Project 2025 says these policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable married nuclear families. And I mean, it sounds like the specific programs you're talking about could actually be changed.
I don't think this goal can actually be achieved necessarily, but to try to advance that goal. I absolutely think that they will make moves to do that if they haven't already or if they're not like planning it within whether it's Congress or some committee.
future executive order. We did see the Trump administration back off a little bit or actually ask the court to dismiss a case that's in federal court around Mifepristone. Not really exactly sure what that means. You know, some folks are saying, oh, that means that he's backing off of Mifepristone. He's backing off of some of these family first policies. I don't think that's the case. I think there's probably something a little bit more strategic that's happening in that space and really relegating the decision making
to the state level. So with like TANF and some of the other programs, they want to create them, like push them really at the state level back to that federal piece, except for they still want to be able to say, well, this is how it ought to be conceived of. So I think they're trying to have a both and. We're backed off, but we're still going to tell you how it has to go. It's interesting because the...
Project 2025, it talks explicitly about the federal government should not subsidize single motherhood. But then it also calls for a child support tax credit for fathers who are non-resident.
with their children or the mothers of their children. It says the key to that policy is it empowers fathers with their own resources and money rather than creating another government assistance program. But it's essentially a government assistance program for non-resident fathers. Right. It's diverting some of that funding, too, that would normally go to the mom and her children if she's not living with the father. So that's part of the issue that I see is that we're going to see it get even
Yeah.
This is about shifting the dollars to the dads. Well, I think the overall lesson from your work and today's hour is believe what's in Project 2025 and the America First agenda because it is actually being enacted in several ways. And you can go to the database that Professor Gouveia is helping to build. We have a link to it at onpointradio.org. Thank you so very much. Thank you so much. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. This is On Point.
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You deserve to feel great. Book your virtual visit today at joinmidi.com. That's joinmidi.com. Support for this podcast comes from It's Revolutionary, a podcast from Massachusetts 250. Follow wherever you get your podcasts and listen on for a preview of a recent episode featuring Katherine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon.
You're listening to It's Revolutionary, a podcast celebrating 250 years since the shot heard around the world was fired right here in Massachusetts. I'm Jay Feinstein. From revolution to revolution, we're exploring the people and places in Massachusetts that shape America. Katherine Switzer is one of these people.
In 1967, she became the first woman to officially register for and run the Boston Marathon. I spoke to her a few weeks ago. So the first thing I wanted to ask you is when did you first become a runner?
I first became a runner when I was 12 years old. I wanted to be a high school cheerleader and my father said, "No, you don't. Cheerleaders cheer for other people. You want people to cheer for you." He said, "Life is for participating, not spectating." And he said, "You should get out and run a mile a day so you can make the field hockey team in your high school next year." I did it every day all through that hot summer and then into high school. And it was very, very powerful for a 12-year-old kid going into high school.
I would look at the 18-year-old next to me in class and I would think, I'm not afraid of him because he didn't run a mile today and I did. And it really gave me this wonderful sense of empowerment. I used to call it my secret weapon. And pretty soon the mile became two miles and then three miles. And when I got to Syracuse University, I asked the coach there if I could run on the men's team.
And he said, no, not officially because it's against NCAA rules. There were no sports for women at Syracuse University. Can you imagine? But he said, you could come and train with the team if you wanted to.
But he wasn't serious about it because I heard him laughing to his colleagues. So I showed up. He was very surprised. And I got adopted by the team. I couldn't keep up with them. But a volunteer coach who was 50 and had run 15 Boston Marathons took me under his wing. And every day we would run together. We ran longer. And he would tell me another Boston Marathon story. Until one day I told him I too wanted to run the Boston Marathon.
When I said that, he said, that's impossible. No woman anywhere could ever run a marathon. And we argued. And he said, I'll tell you what, if you show me in practice that you can do it, I'd be the first person to take you to Boston. And indeed, then came the day we ran our 26.2 miles. He passed out at the end of the workout.
because we actually ran 31 miles. I wanted to overdo the distance to make sure I could do it. I was so excited. And when he came to, he said, women have hidden potential in endurance and stamina. And I would say that was the day I really became a runner. You know, you started off saying that
you know, you wanted to do something where people would cheer for you. And when I think of the sights and sounds of the marathon, the first thing I think of is the cheering. What does that feel like? Running and seeing everybody as you pass everybody, all the crowds,
It is an astonishing experience. The Boston Marathon is an astonishing experience. But when I ran it the first time, I really wanted to be very low key. I want to keep my head down and just go and run. I wanted to run my marathon and not have any fuss about it. So as we know, there was a big fuss about it because at a mile and a half into the race, the press truck discovered that I was a woman and were all over me taking pictures of
shouting at me, what are you trying to prove? And as that was going on, the official truck came by and the co-race director, Jock Semple, jumped off of the official's truck, ran down the street after me, grabbed me and screamed at me, get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers and tried to rip my bib numbers off.
So there was a melee. My coach tried to get him away from me. He was just out of control. But then my burly boyfriend, who was running with me, threw a crossbody block into the official and sent Jock flying through the air. And my coach screamed, run like hell. Down the street we went. I mean, it's a hilarious story in the retelling, but it was a very, very bad moment. And I was terrified and scared. And I was just 20.
And I thought maybe somehow I had damaged this really, really important race. But the press kept badgering me like, when are you going to quit? And I told them to leave me alone. I wasn't going to quit. And I told my coach, I'm going to finish this race on my hands and my knees if I have to.
I did finish the race. I didn't finish on my hands and my knees. But by the time I finished the race, there were three things that had happened. One, I had forgiven the official. It wasn't his fault. I just figured he was a product of his time. The second thing is, is I was determined to be a better athlete. I ran in four hours and 20 minutes. I wanted to be a better athlete than that. And I knew I could be if I trained hard. And I did become a very good athlete.
And the third thing is, and I didn't know what it was going to look like, but I needed to change the status of women. It's been fantastic to see the astronomical growth in the whole social revolution that women's running has become. And a lot of it is from that day at the Boston Marathon. It's Revolutionary is a podcast from Massachusetts 250. And that's just the first five minutes of my conversation with Katherine Switzer.
The full episode also includes a conversation with Ryan Montgomery, the winner of last year's non-binary category of the marathon. I think a lot of the environment I was in told me that I should act a certain way or be a certain way or show up in a certain way. But I felt like every time I would go running, especially in the outdoors, in the forest, I felt like I could just be me.
Be sure to check that out. For the extended cut, look out for It's Revolutionary wherever you get your podcasts or head to wbur.org slash ma250.