[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 146 (Thursday, September 19, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H5515-H5520]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           STOP PROJECT 2025

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks 
and submit extraneous material into the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, earlier this year I founded the 
Congressional Task Force to Stop Project 2025.
  Some people might be curious as to why I did that.
  I have served in Congress for almost 12 years, and throughout that 
period, I have seen a lot of wild and extreme antics from across the 
aisle.
  I have seen some of my colleagues try to chip away at our civil 
rights and roll back decades of progress.
  I have seen the chaos and the division that Donald Trump has infused 
into our politics, including violent rhetoric and extreme policies that 
are completely beyond the pale of anything that has ever tried to pass 
for conservatism.
  However, in this entire time, I have never seen anything that 
compares to the threat to our democracy, to our individual rights, and 
to the well-being of most Americans, the threat that is posed by 
Trump's Project 2025.

                              {time}  1915

  I encourage people to look it up and to read it because anyone who 
familiarizes themself with Trump's Project 2025 can see for themselves 
what an unprecedented takeover plan this is, to gut critical checks and 
balances that hold our democracy together, to roll back fundamental 
rights, to erode church-state separation, impose draconian policies 
that are deeply unpopular with most Americans, all so that MAGA 
politicians can take unprecedented governmental control over the lives 
of every person who calls America home.
  Most Americans want nothing to do with this dystopic authoritarian 
scheme, but our House Republican colleagues are so excited about it 
that the majority is not even waiting for a potential second Trump 
Presidency. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are moving 
ahead right now to implement many parts of his Project 2025.
  Everywhere we turn in this Congress, extreme MAGA Republicans are 
working straight out of the Project 2025 playbook. We are seeing it in 
committees, in press conferences, and every single day right here on 
the House floor.
  Climate action, protections for the middle class, social safety nets, 
and abortion rights, these have all been on the chopping block in this 
Republican majority. It is like the majority lifted their legislative 
agenda right out of the pages of Project 2025.

[[Page H5516]]

  Mr. Speaker, we believe sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that 
is one of the most important parts of our task force's work. Our Stop 
Project 2025 Task Force and many other Members of the House Democratic 
Caucus, as well, have been focused on doing something very simple but 
very important: showing people what Project 2025 actually says, 
bringing it out of the shadows, making sure every American knows the 
truth about what Trump and his allies here in Congress are planning 
and, in many cases, already trying to do.
  It is important to think about how a potential second Trump 
Presidency would be very different. He now has absolute immunity, 
thanks to his extreme radical Supreme Court. We know that he will not 
have adults in the room next time around. His administration would not 
have any institutionalists pushing back against his dangerous agenda or 
his authoritarian impulses.
  Unlike the chaos and lack of planning that marked his first 
Presidency, he now has Project 2025, a detailed, strategic blueprint 
for not only advancing extreme policies, but for clearing away all 
checks and balances and guardrails that might stand in his way.
  Mr. Speaker, as disturbing as all of this is, it is important to 
remember we have only seen the tip of the Project 2025 iceberg because, 
on top of the 922 pages that they have actually published, which 
everyone can look up on the internet, they also have an extensive 
personnel program, including a resume database chock full of MAGA 
loyalists, a training academy to indoctrinate their self-described army 
of political operatives.
  These are the people that they hope to repopulate the Federal 
workforce with after they have purged tens of thousands of civil 
servants. These things are happening right now.
  Perhaps the most concerning part is the secret fourth pillar of 
Project 2025 that acknowledged its existence. Members of The Heritage 
Foundation have described it as being too controversial to actually 
share it with the public, so they haven't published it. It is the 
unreleased playbook outlining the steps that Trump would take in his 
first 180 days in office.
  Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and I have reached out to Heritage in 
recent weeks demanding that they come before Congress to discuss this 
secret part of their plan and release it so that the American people 
can actually read it. To no one's surprise, the architects of Project 
2025 have ignored our request. We think the public deserves to know 
what executive orders, emergency declarations, and other Presidential 
directives have been secretly prepared for Trump to make good on with 
respect to his vow to be a dictator on day one.
  Today, our Stop Project 2025 Task Force has launched a tip line to 
gather any and all information we can about the hidden fourth pillar of 
Project 2025. Given the extremism we have already seen in the published 
parts of this plan and the evasiveness of Heritage and its coalition, 
we think it is important to turn to the public to get more information 
on this.
  Anyone who may have seen or authored or come across any part of the 
secret fourth pillar of Project 2025 is encouraged to share what 
information that they may have access to through our dedicated tip 
line.
  We are going to keep doing everything that we can to uncover their 
full agenda and to stop this government takeover scheme on behalf of 
the majority of Americans who want nothing to do with this dystopic 
plan.
  I yield to my colleague, the assistant Democratic leader, the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse).
  Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, let me just say a word 
of gratitude to my colleague, the distinguished gentleman from 
California (Mr. Huffman), for founding and chairing the Stop Project 
2025 Task Force. His determined leadership on this particular issue has 
been incredibly important, and I and so many of my colleagues on the 
House Democratic Caucus are grateful for it.
  Right now, Mr. Speaker, Americans across the country are looking to 
leaders in Washington to solve problems, to address issues of critical 
importance facing our families and our communities across this great 
Nation. They are looking to us to lower costs, to grow the middle 
class, to build safer communities, and to put people over politics.
  Unfortunately, Project 2025 calls for the very opposite. As H. Res. 
1386 makes perfectly clear, extreme MAGA Republicans have authored a 
radical playbook that would harm middle-class families by raising 
taxes, allowing employers to stop paying overtime, repealing the 
Affordable Care Act, ending Medicare as we know it, opening the door 
for disastrous cuts to Social Security, and raising the retirement age, 
making workers work longer for less.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleague from California said it so well. The 
American people do not want this plan. They don't support it. That much 
is clear.
  I would encourage my House Republican colleagues to abandon the 
reckless plans articulated in Project 2025, which the majority has 
attempted to legislate on the floor over the course of these last 
several months, often throwing the House into chaos during the course 
of the 118th Congress.
  I would encourage them to, instead, work with us collaboratively on 
policies that put people over politics, on policies that create an 
opportunity economy, on policies that ultimately ensure that our 
brighter days are ahead.
  The stakes are simply too high, and, of course, Mr. Speaker, a great 
way to do precisely that would be to work with us on a bipartisan path 
forward to keep the government funded, to keep the government open, so 
that we can get back to the business that the American people expect us 
to consider on the House floor.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman) 
again for his leadership on this task force.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
Neguse) and agree with him. Many of our Republican colleagues have been 
trying to disown Project 2025. Certainly their nominee, Donald Trump, 
has been trying to do that in ways that are quite implausible, but it 
seems to me that anyone who wants to show that they do not support this 
radical authoritarian scheme, Project 2025, we are giving them a chance 
to do that with this resolution. We invite them to join us.
  At this point, I yield to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands 
(Ms. Plaskett).
  Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Huffman) for yielding and for convening us here. I also thank the 
gentleman for not being swayed by the rhetoric that is happening 
outside, that is pulling people's attention away from this dire threat 
to our democracy that is Project 2025.
  This is, in fact, a blueprint, as the gentleman has said and so many 
others have said, to the culmination of years of planning by 
Washington, D.C.'s, shadiest conservative groups, shadiest individuals, 
to upend the structures, institutions, and, indeed, the basic rights 
that actually make America great.
  Project 2025 is a playbook for Donald Trump's second term and a plan 
for the destruction of America as we know it. Despite flashy headlines 
printed over American flags and men who give loud speeches about their 
love of freedom, this plan is, in fact, a destruction of our freedoms.
  This is a plan, in many ways, related to the great replacement 
theory, a means to say that America should be a homogenous society, not 
recognizing that what makes this country so great is, in fact, not just 
our diversity, but our willingness to have the tug and pull of 
different ideas.
  I can remember when this House was a place where people compromised, 
where people negotiated, where we did not think that one was right or 
the other, that we tried to work together. Those days are long gone, 
and those of us who want to stick our heads underground and pretend 
that Project 2025 is not a reality, shame on you.
  Many of my colleagues who want to pretend that they don't know what 
this is, that they haven't read it, just because you haven't read it 
doesn't mean it is not real.
  This is a manifesto to ensure that Donald Trump has the ability to do 
what he wants to be, which is to be a king, to take away the rights 
that so many of us have, to restrict free speech

[[Page H5517]]

in schools, to only allow far-right-approved agendas and curricula, to 
make sure that schools are a place where children are indoctrinated to 
one idea, not to many ideas and let parents go back and have 
discussions with their children about those various ideas and instill 
in them what they believe is right.
  I am a parent of five children. I do not have the fear that my 
children can hear other ideas because I know what I am putting in them 
and that that is what they are going to do.
  These parents who are afraid of their children hearing about slavery, 
but also not recognizing that we have moved beyond that and are still 
moving forward and correcting ourselves are doing a disservice to their 
children. It will cut title I funding that supports low-income schools 
and results in budget cuts at over 60 percent of public schools across 
our country.
  Project 2025 and its tenets will eliminate Head Start, a program that 
currently supports 800,000 children across our country, increasing the 
number of Americans living in childcare deserts. It will erode our 
freedoms under the vague guise of making America great.
  Yes, because it is a Republican plan, Project 2025 calls for severe 
cuts to Medicare and Social Security. We can't have a Republican plan 
without a cut to Social Security and Medicare. Then they hide their 
hand and pretend that that was not a cut that they wanted.
  Project 2025 even calls for the elimination of the National Weather 
Service, making Americans effectively blind when preparing for 
potentially disastrous hurricanes and tornadoes. I know the people in 
my district in the Virgin Islands, and I know even those who were 
dealing with wildfires in the district of the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Huffman) need to have this weather service to be able to predict 
these things.
  Republicans know that these ideas are not popular with real people of 
America. That is why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are 
hiding from the facts, obfuscating the truth, distracting the public's 
attention with wild claims right now to vilify minorities.
  That is why the former President and Senators, his running mate, are 
distracting the media with bigoted, racist tropes about legal 
immigrants in this country, so that we are not talking about this, 
Project 2025.
  It is a playbook, and it is authored by individuals who worked very 
closely with Donald Trump in his last administration and want to 
execute this within 100 days to ensure that he has the full authority.
  I am an alumni of the Department of Justice as a political appointee. 
The idea that the Department of Justice would have to answer to the 
President is obscene, and we know that the Supreme Court has set the 
stage for him to be able to do that.

  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman so much for allowing us to 
illuminate and share just some of the things that are in this playbook 
for the first 100 days of a Trump administration.
  The more we let the cronies and individuals who have run this across 
without giving light to it and letting Americans know, the more we are 
likely to lose our democracy.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from the Virgin 
Islands (Ms. Plaskett) for her support.
  As I prepare to yield to the gentlewoman from Vermont (Ms. Balint), I 
will just observe that my colleague's comments caused me to think about 
the fact that we are gathered here on what our Republican friends have 
dubbed Anti-Woke Week. Nothing is more Project 2025 than demagoguing 
and using wokeness as a pretext to try to roll back individual freedoms 
and civil rights and take away decades of progress.

                              {time}  1930

  Our Republican colleagues can't seem to figure out how to fund the 
government and do the basics of governing, but they sure are good at 
finding time to demagogue on wokeness.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Vermont (Ms. Balint).
  Ms. BALINT. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Huffman for convening us to 
discuss this very important topic.
  Mr. Speaker, when I was in leadership in the Vermont State Senate, I 
saw the writing on the wall. I knew that Republicans were absolutely 
determined to overturn Roe v. Wade.
  We knew it was time to act to codify reproductive rights, not just in 
statute but in our State's constitution. At that time, some colleagues 
said I was overreacting. They said I was being paranoid, that I was 
being hysterical. They said the Supreme Court would never overturn Roe 
v. Wade because it was settled law.
  I could say it was not at all satisfying to be right, but, in fact, 
overturning Roe v. Wade was just the beginning. The GOP is preparing 
for a possible second Trump term with a plan to end all access to 
abortion and contraception, all spelled out in the playbook, Project 
2025.
  Trump's Project 2025 lays out plans to purposely misinterpret an 
outdated law known as the Comstock Act and use it to ban mailing drugs 
used in medication abortions and any equipment or any materials used in 
surgical abortions. They even want to make it illegal to mail any 
information, period, about abortion.
  That is why House Democrats are taking action with a bill that I 
introduced this year with some very strong cosponsors.
  The Stop Comstock Act would take outdated and unconstitutional 
aspects of the Comstock laws off of the books and protect a woman's 
access to abortion no matter what town she lives in across this Nation.
  We have to use every tool at our disposal to protect access to 
abortion and all birth control options.
  This 150-year-old law was the result of one man's moralistic crusade 
against everything that he determined to be obscene, including 
information on abortion and contraception. Republicans know that voters 
don't support a nationwide abortion ban, so they will misuse this law 
and bypass Congress to get their way.
  Make no mistake, Project 2025 is not about building a future that 
Americans want or that they have asked for or that they need. It is 
about taking us back to the 1870s.
  Congressional Republicans and their allies in statehouses across the 
Nation are out of step with Americans. Americans want the freedom to 
make decisions about their own bodies, and they want these freedoms 
guaranteed.
  No matter how much the former President and House Republicans pretend 
that their views are moderate, their actions tell us something very 
different. They have shown us through legislative action that they will 
continue to enact extreme policies that the vast majority of the 
American people do not want and that put women's lives at risk.
  Overturning Roe v. Wade was the next step in their plan to ban 
abortion in this country, and they don't appear to care how this hurts 
women or families.
  Donald Trump has repeatedly bragged about being the guy who ended Roe 
v. Wade, a decision that has cost lives and left women desperate for 
urgent medical care.
  One of the masterminds behind Project 2025 is a man named Jonathan 
Mitchell. My colleagues may not know this name, but they certainly know 
his work. Mitchell helped develop Texas' strict anti-abortion law, SB 
8. He concocted the very disturbing ``enforcement mechanism'' that 
allows private citizens to bring lawsuits against those who violate the 
statute. It is a law that encourages neighbors to spy on each other and 
calls upon Americans to turn in healthcare providers who rightly and 
bravely put women's health and safety above extremist policies.
  I can't even believe I am saying this in this country in this year. I 
can't believe that this is where we are.
  His intent to misuse Comstock could not be clearer. He said, ``We 
don't need a Federal [abortion] ban when we have Comstock on the 
books.'' He said, ``There's a smorgasbord of options.''
  These plans spelled out in Project 2025 are sinister, and they have 
very real consequences, which is why it is so important that we gather 
tonight to shine a light on this extreme plan.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time Republicans abandon their obsession with 
controlling women's bodies and stop using legislative action to slip 
parts of Project 2025 into House bills today. The American people do 
not want that.
  Democrats see this. We are standing up for the American people.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her remarks.

[[Page H5518]]

  I am mindful of the fact that many are saying that the American 
people this year are facing a choice of going forward or backward. 
Nothing speaks more to that than the fact that Trump's Project 2025 
would dust off the old morality codes of the 1870s and impose them 
against the popular will on all Americans. It just tells us everything.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from southern California (Mr. 
Takano), my colleague who has been a great champion for civil rights 
and many other core values.
  Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Huffman, my colleague from the 
north coast of California, for yielding.
  Whether north or south, we Californians value things like a woman's 
right to choose, basic civil rights, human rights, and LGBTQ rights, so 
I thank him for hosting this Special Order hour to bring attention to 
the most antidemocratic agenda in the history of this country.
  I don't want to be too hyperbolic, but it certainly is the most 
antidemocratic that I have known in my lifetime. I can think back to 
the last century when we had far less democratic institutions. We had 
slavery, of course, and that was way more antidemocratic, but it is 
very disturbing what I see in Project 2025.

  Let us not mince words here. Donald Trump's Project 2025 is a 
manifesto for a potential Trump administration to undermine our 
democracy, to roll back our rights and freedoms, and to enrich large 
corporations at the expense of working-class Americans.
  This 900-page document outlines specific extremist policies that 
include criminalizing abortion nationwide, ending overtime pay, 
repealing the Affordable Care Act, ending Medicare as we know it, and 
putting Social Security on the chopping block.
  As the ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I am deeply 
alarmed by the disastrous impacts that Project 2025 would have on 
America's veterans and the care they get from the Department of 
Veterans Affairs.
  The very first proposal in the VA section of Project 2025 would 
prohibit VA clinicians from performing abortions to protect the health 
and life of women veterans. It is the very first thing that was put 
into that section, and I know the person who wrote this section. As 
much as the President is trying to run away from ownership, the very 
person who wrote this was somebody who worked in a very responsible 
position in the VA at the time and reported directly to the Secretary 
under Donald Trump, Secretary Wilkie.
  This section is unconscionable. We have Republicans all across the 
country now claiming that they are for the exceptions, but the very 
first part of Project 2025 on the veteran section says that they would 
make it illegal or reverse Secretary McDonough's rulemaking on allowing 
for abortions to be available at the VA to the very women who wore the 
uniform of our country.
  Women veterans fought for our rights and freedoms. They fought for 
the rights and freedoms of all of us, but the very first thing that 
Republicans want to do is take their freedom to make decisions about 
their own bodies away.
  Trump's Project 2025 will hurt veterans and reduce VA to ruins. I 
have already mentioned our women veterans. In order to execute its 
mission of serving America's heroes, VA needs to keep wait times low. 
In order to keep wait times low, they need to hire sufficient medical 
staff and offer employees competitive salaries.
  The Honoring our PACT Act, which I was proud to author, has already 
seen nearly 1.2 million claims approved in just 2 years. Yet, instead 
of bolstering the VA with the necessary resources to ensure that all 
veterans get the world-class healthcare that they were promised, 
Trump's Project 2025 would push more veterans out to for-profit care, 
which is far more expensive than VA's direct care, to further a far-
right agenda.
  Already, over a third of the Veterans Health Administration's budget 
goes to referring veterans into very costly for-profit, private-sector 
care. As more veterans get referred out, the VHA will be forced to 
spend more money out of their budget.
  I am not opposed to referring veterans out to care when VA is not 
able to provide certain specialty care inside the VA. It is a very 
necessary part, but it has to be in the right balance, and we are 
reaching a tipping point right now where for-profit care is going to 
seriously jeopardize VA's ability to provide direct care. That will 
mean reduced staffing, increased wait times, fewer upgrades to VA's 
aging infrastructure, and fewer new VA facilities.
  Many of our VA facilities date back to World War II, and that will 
mean worse care for our veterans. The VA would become a skeleton or a 
shell of its former self if Project 2025 is enacted.
  That is not all. Republicans on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, in 
order to get a head start on Project 2025 initiatives, are working to 
weaponize VA by politicizing nonpartisan jobs, to undermine 
congressional oversight of veterans' healthcare, and to prohibit VA 
from providing gender-affirming care to our trans veterans.
  Under Trump's Project 2025, the VA will become nothing more than a 
payment processor for large corporations focused on maximizing profits 
rather than an institution that keeps America's promise to those who 
have served.
  This is an unacceptable outcome for veterans. We cannot allow Project 
2025 to be implemented. I will work tirelessly with my Democratic 
colleagues to fight back on this radical, extremist manifesto.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is exactly right about what 
Project 2025 calls for with respect to the VA, but it is more than just 
the VA.
  If you read this 922-page manifesto, this theme of privatizing and 
monetizing runs throughout their authoritarian scheme. It applies to 
our public schools, our public lands, the National Weather Service, and 
so many other things.
  The American people don't want this exploitation, this privatization, 
enrichment, and monetization obsession that the architects of Project 
2025 have.
  Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield for the purpose of 
a colloquy?
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California 
for the purpose of a colloquy.
  Mr. TAKANO. We could just call this give America over to private 
equity. The whole thing is designed to enrich a small group of people.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Huffman for his dedication.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I now am proud to yield to the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania, Mary Gay Scanlon.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, we are here to discuss Project 2025, the extremist 
playbook to impose a radical, rightwing agenda upon Americans. It is 
called Project 2025 because it is designed to be implemented by Trump 
and his allies if he returns to the White House next year.
  The authors of Project 2025 have even begun recruiting people to 
apply for jobs to help implement this scheme because, as they detail in 
Project 2025, they plan to fire career civil servants and replace them 
with partisans who swear loyalty to Trump rather than to our country or 
our Constitution, a move, by the way, that the former President tried 
to implement by executive order before he left office.

                              {time}  1945

  When the authors of Project 2025 decided to publish their radical 
agenda, they must not have realized that their ideas are so extreme 
that Americans would reject them as being, frankly, un-American.
  That is why the former President and many of those allies are now 
trying to distance themselves from Project 2025, but they can't because 
their fingerprints are all over Project 2025.
  Nowhere is that clearer than in Project 2025's plan to ban abortion 
and restrict women's reproductive freedom. The truth is the extremists 
who plotted with Trump to overturn Roe v. Wade were never going to stop 
there.
  Chapter 14 of Project 2025 outlines their plans. It was written by a 
member of the Trump administration, and you can read it yourself on 
pages 449 through 502.
  Project 2025 would impose a nationwide ban on medication abortion by 
revoking FDA approval of that drug.
  It would resurrect a 19th century law, the Comstock Act, to ban the 
mailing of abortion care materials and criminalize their use.

[[Page H5519]]

  Project 2025 would rip away access to basic contraception. It would 
end emergency room reproductive healthcare for women whose health and 
lives are at risk.
  Project 2025 would end IVF as it is currently practiced. It would 
require the government to monitor women's pregnancies and miscarriages.
  Project 2025 is beyond extreme. It is dangerous. Democrats will 
continue to stand firm and united against this radical agenda and to 
stand up for Americans' reproductive freedom because we trust women to 
make decisions about their own bodies, not politicians.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman very much, and I am 
glad she spoke to the so-called civil service reform element of Project 
2025.
  They call it Schedule F. It is an innocuous-sounding thing, but 
again, like so many parts of Project 2025, when you understand what it 
actually calls for, it is far more extreme than anything we have ever 
seen in this country.
  It calls for going through the entire Federal workforce to root out 
anyone who has been associated with a DEI program in our Federal 
Government.
  Climate scientists and others are going to be purged, anyone who 
somewhere in their life maybe donated to a Democrat.
  It is a complete scorched earth political purge that they described 
as involving more than 50,000 people in the Federal workforce and then 
to repopulate the government.
  If their problem is political people in government, they are going to 
repopulate with even more political people from these training 
academies.
  As the gentlewoman concludes, I just want to ask her if she thinks 
that this is something that the people of Pennsylvania want to see?
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I don't think so. I mean, it doesn't matter 
what aspect of our Federal Government you are concerned about.
  If you are concerned about clean air and clean water, the idea that 
they are just going to take out all the scientists and have political 
hacks deciding how many parts per million of poison can be in our water 
and air, that is just frightening.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, food inspectors, air traffic controllers.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, absolutely.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, maybe a nonpolitical civil service is 
actually a good idea, just like Teddy Roosevelt concluded that it was a 
century ago.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, that is the whole purpose is to have 
experts making those decisions. I thank the gentleman for organizing 
this Special Order.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman very much.
  I now yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson), a man who 
you might say has civil rights and social justice in his blood. I am 
sure he has some things to say about Trump's Project 2025.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable 
Congressman Huffman who also shares that lineage of being a fighter for 
the people. I thank him for convening us, bringing us together for this 
Project 2025 that we must discuss.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today because we cannot allow the agenda of MAGA 
Republicans to go unaddressed and quietly into the night.
  On page 4 of Project 2025, it explicitly states that the goal is to 
get rid of terms like inclusion, equity, and diversity, so that no 
governmental policy can consider these things when determining who gets 
a contract, who gets hired, what management looks like, or who gets 
helped by a particular policy or administrative agency.
  I find this to be as tragic as it is interesting because in a perfect 
world, we would not need diversity, equity, and inclusion, but that is 
not where we live.
  We live in the United States of America, and we also live in a 
material universe where it is impossible to undo 300 years of legal 
exclusion with just 50 years of making this country do what is right.
  For those who say America is different now, let me remind you that 
America didn't include Black people in the inherent opportunities that 
come along with being born into this great Nation because she magically 
wanted to.
  It was those persons, the abolitionists and the civil rights workers 
and Black Americans, who made America do it.
  That is why the civil rights movement enacted laws and policies and 
protections because of the whimsical nature of America.
  America's commitment to our own principles cannot always be trusted. 
It, indeed, can be thick on ideals and thin on deeds.
  Let us not forget that during the Reconstruction in the late 1860s, 
Black people were given access to the mechanisms of power in this 
country.
  Then in the 1890s, America took it all back with the imposition of 
Jim Crow and segregation. Some people in this institution need to know 
America's history.
  Here again, in the 1960s, African Americans made significant 
political and economic gains. Yet, here we are in 2024, living under 
the tyranny of a Supreme Court determined to roll it all back.
  Affirmative action on college campuses, gone.
  A women's right to determine what can happen with her body, gone.
  The tragedy of our current situation is we don't know what is coming 
next.
  Laws and policies that require the inclusion of Black people are not 
there to give us an advantage. They are here to make sure that we are 
not once again excluded because of the color of our skin by American 
law.
  Project 2025 was created by the same people who formed the so-called 
intellectual brain trust around the candidacy of Donald Trump. These 
are his advisers, and here is what we know.
  We know that Project 2025 wants to impose a national ban on abortion, 
prosecute political enemies, and eliminate the Department of Education.
  Just think about it. What would we do without a public education 
policy?
  Project 2025 wants to continue to ban books about slavery and the 
civil rights movement and prosecute teachers and librarians for 
assigning them.
  This is insanity. Just think about the insanity that we are living 
in.
  MAGA Republicans believe that books are dangerous for children, but 
automatic rifles are not.
  Project 2025 openly declares that it wants to get rid of school 
lunches and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for families 
and children.
  Both of these are part of the social safety net that ensures that 
millions of people will continue to have dignity in old age and access 
to clean food and water. Project 2025 wants to get rid of it.
  Now, if it is okay to spend billions of dollars on bombs but making 
sure millions of people don't starve to death is somehow completely out 
of the question, something is wrong.
  Please note that Project 2025 doesn't say anything, nothing, about 
getting rid of poverty, but they have no problem with getting rid of 
the programs that help people deal with the fact that they are 
tragically poor in a country that has excessive wealth. They want to 
leave poverty alone, but they want to undermine how people survive it.
  Project 2025 wants to allow employers to no longer pay overtime. If 
your employer can demand that you work overtime, but they don't have to 
pay you for the extra time you put in, to put additional money into 
their pockets and making them rich, something is tragically wrong.
  Can you imagine being required to work extra hours without extra 
compensation? That too is in Project 2025.
  Essentially, Project 2025 says that you should be happy to have a job 
and that whatever your employer asks you to do, you should be happy to 
do it.
  We don't owe you anything beyond the minimum requirement of your 
basic paycheck. That is un-American. This is ridiculous, but this is 
what Donald Trump and the people around him want to do.
  Project 2025 is a complete disavowal of workers' rights. If you think 
they are going to stop at eliminating overtime, then you are completely 
delusional and drastically out of touch with reality.
  This is not the language in the document, but I bet you all the money 
in my pocket against all the money in your pocket that healthcare will 
be next.
  They have been trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, also 
known as

[[Page H5520]]

ObamaCare, for the last 12 years. Project 2025 wants to give wealthy 
corporations another tax break.
  It is not enough that multibillion dollar corporations got the 
biggest tax break in American history under Donald J. Trump. They want 
to give corporations more.
  Notice how one-sided this is. They want to give corporations a big 
tax break, where Project 2025 says nothing about increasing wages.
  Follow the wickedness of the logic. Corporations get bigger tax 
breaks so they can keep more of the money workers made for them, but 
the workers don't get to participate in the success of the corporation 
by having an increase in their wages.
  Project 2025 calls for an end to Social Security, our great safety 
net program. Goal 3 of Project 2025 says that only a nuclear family 
should receive governmental support. This is a part of the ill-fated 
logic of J.D. Vance and Donald J. Trump.
  If you are a single mother raising your children or a grandparent 
raising your grandchildren, Project 2025 says that the government 
should not make you a priority, and basically, you are not a family.
  The policies and prescriptions of Project 2025 would lead to the 
greatest assault on Medicaid and Medicare in the history of this 
Nation.
  This is what we are up against. This is why we are determined not to 
let it happen. We are determined to fight for what is right. We are 
determined to resist.
  Once again, I thank the Honorable Congressman Huffman from the great 
State of California for championing this cause and for calling us out 
here tonight. I thank him for his undying commitment to our American 
democracy and his fight for what is right.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for 
speaking to the extremism and cruelty of Trump's Project 2025 so 
eloquently, and he is exactly right. Healthcare is in the crosshairs.
  One of the many ways in which Project 2025 would take us backward on 
healthcare is by mandating that the default for Medicare would be 
Medicare Advantage.
  They like that because they can monetize it, make a lot of money on 
it, right, but it absolutely is expensive. It is accelerating the 
demise of the Medicare trust fund.
  They want to repeal the prescription drug reforms that we have been 
able to pass, the first time we have been able to stand up to Big 
Pharma in decades.

  We are saving Medicare billions and billions of dollars. We are 
saving consumers so much money already, and those savings are going to 
grow and grow in the years ahead.
  All of that goes away under Project 2025. It is bad for the 
pocketbooks of the American people, bad for healthcare, and bad for the 
Medicare trust fund and Medicare itself. The gentleman is exactly 
right.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his 
outstanding leadership.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, House Democrats are going to continue to 
shine a bright light on this document. The American people don't need 
to take our word for it when we talk about the extremism and cruelty 
and other impacts that Trump's Project 2025 would have. They can read 
it themselves.
  It is online. Look it up. The more people read it, the more they 
understand it, the more we know they are going to want nothing to do 
with it. The best way to stop this terrible agenda is to just make sure 
people know about it and understand it.
  We are grateful for this opportunity to discuss it, and I yield back 
the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair reminds Members to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward nominees for the office of President.

                          ____________________