Conservatives Have a Plan to Expand Donald Trump's Powers

Conservatives are not only preparing for a 2024 victory by Donald Trump but have also compiled a presidential transition playbook that would expand his powers as commander in chief.

Project 2025, a coalition effort led by the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank, released a nearly 1,000-page handbook earlier this year that lays out a plan for Americans to dismantle the federal government's "deep state" and replace it with a vision that furthers Trump's agenda and policies.

Political analyst and historian Julian Zelizer told Newsweek that Trump allies could "go very far" with the ideas being put forward by the project, which argues that Article II of the Constitution makes it "abundantly clear" that the executive branch's powers are solely invested in the president.

Former Trump administration official Russ Vought writes in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership, "That enormous power is not vested in departments or agencies, in staff or administrative bodies, in nongovernmental organizations or other equities and interests close to the government. The President must set and enforce a plan for the executive branch."

Zelizer said, "We have seen a gradual but very substantial expansion of executive power in the 20th century, not just recently, and the president has amassed a lot of authority within the executive branch, and through the executive branch, that would have been inconceivable in the 19th century.

"The president can really flex a lot of muscle if they're interested in doing that, and Congress often won't respond," he said. "There's a lot of leeway and a lot of room to continue expanding executive power if President Trump was reelected."

Project 2025's goal is to establish a guide to help a new Republican administration avoid the issues that the last one faced—when even some of Trump's own appointees were unwilling to execute his agenda—by giving a conservative president a path for a swift transition that would "bring quick relief to Americans suffering from the Left's devastating policies," Project 2025 said.

Spencer Chretien, associate director of Project 2025, told Newsweek: "We want to reduce the impact of the federal government in the lives of everyday Americans. We want to turn over more functions to state, local, tribal and territorial governments. And we want more political control of the out-of-control federal bureaucracy."

He went on: "The threat to democracy occurs when a new president is elected and is then unable to deliver on his or her agenda because of the modern administrative state."

Over the weekend, The Washington Post reported that included in those plans is a blueprint that would allow Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act on the first day of a second Trump term. That way, he could authorize the use of military force against political opponents and demonstrators who protest against a second Trump presidency.

The Post's Devin Barrett told PBS News, "I think you're seeing those conversations happen because what's going on in a lot of these circles and these conversations is that there is a growing realization among conservative lawyers that Donald Trump will almost certainly be the GOP nominee."

The manual outlines several ways for Trump to consolidate the power of the federal government and to reduce the independence of Cabinet secretaries. One of those ways is to alter rules that govern tens of thousands of federal workers so they can be subject to immediate dismissal by the White House should they not be aligned with the next Republican president and his top officials.

Arguing that the retention of those "inadequate performance is not appraised, corrected, or punished," the handbook lays out a path to do so by reinstating Trump's Schedule F, an executive order that was rescinded by President Joe Biden. It would reclassify thousands of workers as at-will employees, putting tens of thousands of career professional jobs in limbo.

"Career civil servants by themselves should not lead major policy changes and reforms," Project 2025 says.

The manual also urges a future Republican president to "play hardball a little more than [the first Trump administration] did with Congress" and to circumvent congressional red tape by installing top allies in acting administrative roles, as Trump did when his Cabinet nominees were blocked by the Senate.

Additionally, conservative thinkers call for a "top to bottom overhaul" of the Department of Justice, which includes the FBI. Specifically, it seeks to diminish the department's independence, which it suggests should also be done with the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission.

"If a President is willing to really subvert the independence of agencies, it can happen," Zelizer said.

"It's not as hard as we think, for a president to go in that direction," he added. "If a president is not going to really support his own agencies, they're going to be in trouble, which is a way of exercising his power over them. They need money, they need a budget, need support. Within the executive branch, the president has a lot of power to assert what he wants."

Chretien told Newsweek that while the playbook presents multiple policy solutions, "it is ultimately up to the president to decide which to implement."

Zelizer said the danger in expanding the president's powers is that such a move doesn't reset once an administration leaves. That means if a future conservative administration were to give someone like Trump more power, future presidents seeking more authoritative power would have a blueprint to go ahead with those plans.

"It's very hard to take back. The presidency keeps getting stronger. It's not as if there's a cycle. It's not as if there's automatic retrenchment," Zelizer said.

Even if a potential second Trump term were to be followed by a more restrained successor, "it doesn't mean that power is not dormant and can't be used by someone who's willing to use it," he said.

Update 11/9/23 1:14 p.m. ET This story was updated with comments from Project 2025 spokesperson Stephen Chretien.