Donald Trump has spent months trying to distance his campaign from Project 2025, but some of his comments during a campaign stop in Indiana, Pennsylvania, on Monday revealed that his platform is still nearly identical to the 920-page Christian nationalist manifesto.
Speaking before roughly 5,000 people at the Kovalchick Convention and Athletic Complex, Trump flatly promised to demolish the Department of Education, claiming that the federal authority was the reason for the country’s floundering education rates.
“We spend more money per pupil than any other country by far, and yet we’re at the bottom of the list,” Trump said. “Out of 40, we’re ranked about Number 40.”
“And I’m going to close the Department of Education and move education back to the states,” he continued. “And we’re going to do it fast.”
“I’m going to close the Department of Education” — Trump pic.twitter.com/DZ3tha3HCb
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 24, 2024
The United States actually ranks twenty-second out of 41 countries, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Better Life Index.
The Republican presidential nominee then continued to compare individual states to countries that consistently place high on international education rankings, such as Denmark or Norway, which use national socialist structures to fund their public schools. For Trump, those states include Idaho and Iowa—but not California, where Trump believes Governor “Gavin Newscum” would interfere with localized education systems.
“We’re going to have 35 like, different ones—Iowa will do good. A lot of the states will do very good. I can think of probably 30, 35 will be do—five will be OK, 10 will be OK. You’ll have four or five that will be terrible, but that’s OK, we have to control it,” Trump said. “But you’ll have, you’ll have Idaho, you’ll have Idaho will do a great job, no debt; they run a great state.”
Trump on closing the Department of Education and sending education back to the states: “Iowa will do good” pic.twitter.com/sER1nPCoLC
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 24, 2024
Project 2025 has advanced seemingly outrageous policy positions, including dismantling, wholesale, staples of the executive branch such as the Department of Education. It also proposes revisiting federal approval of the abortion pill, banning pornography nationwide, placing the Justice Department under the control of the president, slashing federal funds for climate change research in an effort to sideline mitigation efforts, and increasing funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
On July 5, Trump claimed that he “knew nothing about Project 2025” and had “no idea who is behind it.”
“I disagree with some of the things they’re saying, and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
The post Trump Makes a New Campaign Promise Straight out of Project 2025 appeared first on New Republic.
