On April 10, former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger talked to Don Lemon about Project 2025, the sweeping plan for a second Trump presidency. Kinzinger said the plan for Trump’s second term is how “democracy falls apart.”

As the Washington Post reported, part of the Project 2025 plan is for Trump to “invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.” The outlet noted that Project 2025 plans to use the U.S. Justice Department to punish Trump’s political enemies. According to the Post, the Justice Department will “investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley.”

Kinzinger explained to Lemon why the elements of Project 2025 would end democracy, “The only thing you need for democracy to survive is just a basic trust, a basic compact with everybody that you can vote, your vote counts whoever gets the most votes wins...when that basic compact goes away you cannot, you cannot self-govern without that basic trust.” Starts at 15:10

Many critics have called the ideas behind Project 2025 dangerous. Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional law professor at the University of Virginia, talked to the Washington Post about the controversial plans for Trump 2.0. Prakash said, “It would resemble a banana republic if people came into office and started going after their opponents willy-nilly...It’s hardly something we should aspire to.”

If you want to read more about Project 2025, please visit the links below. We’ve taken deep dives into the content of the plan created by the Heritage Foundation and partners for the second Trump presidency.
Project 2025 Would Replace Civil Servants with True Believers

Plans for Trump Dictatorship are Already Drafted