You've probably seen the name floating around. It sounds like a generic boardroom presentation or some dry PDF tucked away on a server. But honestly, the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 playbook—officially titled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise—is anything but boring. It is a 900-page behemoth. A literal manual for how to strip down the federal government and put it back together in a completely different shape.
It’s huge.
Most people talk about it like it’s just a list of wishes. It’s not. It’s a blueprint. Some folks call it an "administration in waiting." If you actually sit down and crack open the chapters written by guys like Russell Vought or Kevin Roberts, you realize they aren't just suggesting ideas. They are providing the legal framework, the draft executive orders, and even the names of people they want to hire to make it happen.
The Real Story Behind the 900-Page Plan
The thing about the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 playbook is that it isn't new in spirit, but it is unprecedented in scale. Heritage has been doing this since the Reagan years. Back then, they handed Reagan a book, and he actually moved on about 60% of the ideas. But 2025 is different. It’s more aggressive. It’s more... final.
Basically, the playbook is built on four "pillars."
- A massive policy book (the one everyone argues about).
- A personnel database (think LinkedIn, but only for people who pass a specific loyalty test).
- A training academy (teaching new staffers how the "administrative state" works so they can dismantle it).
- A playbook for the first 180 days in office.
It’s that last part—the 180-day playbook—that is the most secretive. While the 900-page mandate is public, the specific "play-by-play" for the first six months is kept much closer to the chest. We're talking about specific "dark" drafts of executive orders that can be signed the second the clock strikes noon on Inauguration Day.
Why Schedule F is the Keyword You Need to Know
If you want to understand the heart of the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 playbook, you have to understand Schedule F. It sounds like a tax form. It’s actually a wrecking ball for the civil service.
Right now, most people who work for the government—around 2 million of them—are career professionals. They stay through different presidents. They are the scientists at the EPA, the lawyers at the DOJ, and the guys who make sure your Social Security check actually clears. Schedule F would allow a president to reclassify tens of thousands of these "protected" employees as "at-will" political appointees.
Translation? They can be fired for not being "loyal" enough.
Critics say this turns the U.S. government into a spoils system. Supporters, like Kevin Roberts, argue the current system is a "deep state" that ignores the will of the voters. It's a fundamental clash of how a country should function. If you’ve ever dealt with a slow government agency, the idea of "clearing the decks" might sound tempting. But if you’re worried about partisan scientists deciding if your water is safe to drink, it’s terrifying.
The Most Controversial Moves on the Table
The playbook doesn't hold back. It’s kinda jarring how blunt it is. For example, it suggests the Department of Education shouldn't even exist. It wants to send all that power—and the money—back to the states as block grants.
And then there's the Department of Justice.
The Heritage Foundation Project 2025 playbook argues for "unitary executive theory." This is a fancy way of saying the President should have total control over the DOJ. Usually, the DOJ operates with a bit of a "wall" between it and the White House to prevent political prosecutions. The playbook wants to tear that wall down.
Here are some other specific targets mentioned in the document:
- The Comstock Act: Using this 19th-century law to effectively ban the mailing of abortion pills nationwide.
- NOAA and the National Weather Service: The playbook calls them "tools of the climate change alarmist industry" and suggests downsizing or privatizing them.
- TikTok and China: A much more aggressive stance on decoupling the U.S. economy from Chinese tech.
- Pornography: It explicitly calls for a ban on pornography and suggests that people who produce or distribute it should be imprisoned.
It’s a wide net. You might agree with the border policy—which calls for finishing the wall and using the military for mass deportations—but find the weather service stuff weird. Or maybe you're all-in on the tax cuts but worried about the changes to overtime pay rules. That’s why it’s so polarizing; it touches everything.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Authors
There's this idea that this is just a fringe group. Honestly, that’s not true.
The people who wrote the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 playbook are the same people who ran the country from 2016 to 2020. We're talking about former cabinet secretaries like Ben Carson (HUD) and Christopher Miller (Acting Defense Secretary). These aren't outsiders. They are the ultimate insiders who feel like they were "betrayed" by the bureaucracy during their first term.
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They spent $22 million on this project.
That’s a lot of money for a "wish list."
How It’s Actually Being Implemented (Right Now)
Even before the next term officially starts, we’ve seen pieces of the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 playbook in action. When Trump took office for his second term in 2025, he didn't wait. He immediately signed executive orders targeting DEI programs in the military and federal agencies—a direct recommendation from the playbook.
By March 2025, the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE), led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, started identifying the very agencies the playbook marked for deletion. The Agency for International Development (USAID) saw its headquarters practically shuttered in February. This isn't theoretical anymore. It's happening in real-time.
Actionable Steps: How to Navigate This New Landscape
Whether you support the changes or are worried about them, the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 playbook is now the primary reference point for American governance. You can't ignore it.
First, read the source. Don't just rely on social media clips. The full Mandate for Leadership is available online. You don't have to read all 900 pages, but look at the sections on the agencies that affect your life—like Health and Human Services (HHS) if you’re on Medicare.
Second, watch the courts. Because the playbook relies heavily on "unitary executive theory," many of its actions are being challenged. The Supreme Court's 2025 rulings on the firing of federal employees have already set a precedent that favors the playbook’s vision.
Third, check your local impact. Many of the playbook’s goals involve moving federal money to state control. This means your state legislature is about to become way more powerful. If the Department of Education is dismantled, your local school board and state capital are where the real battles over curriculum and funding will happen.
The playbook is a massive shift toward a "President-centric" government. It’s a gamble that a single leader can fix a bloated system better than a million career experts can. Only time—and the next few years of implementation—will tell if that gamble pays off or if the "deconstruction of the administrative state" leaves a vacuum that's even harder to fill.
Understand the plan. Because for the first time in decades, the people in power actually have a map. And they're following it to the letter.