Time now for our series on democracy, where we hear a range of perspectives on how government should function.

What led to this moment in American history and where the country goes next.

Our primary focus tonight is Project 2025, the Conservative Policy Project authored by former Trump administration officials,

which became a flashpoint during

the presidential campaign.

Angelo Carousone has studied that 900-page document.

He's president of Media Matters, a progressive nonprofit focused on researching and analyzing

news media, including disinformation and online ecosystems.

I spoke with them days ago.

Angela Carasone, welcome to the News Hour.

Thanks have me.

You have emerged as an expert on Project 2025,

this roadmap that then candidate Trump during the campaign

repeatedly disavowed.

Now, the architect of Project 2025 was just quoted as saying

the way that Trump has implemented

it has exceeded his wildest dreams. When you look at the way President Trump has expanded his

executive authority, he's dismantled federal agencies, he's purged the federal workforce,

how much is Project 2025 guiding this work? What Project 2025 provided was sort of the core story here, which was to who's the bad guy,

and that was the deep state.

And they basically said essentially most of the federal government, most of the federal

workers were part of this deep state, a conspiracy to sort of prevent Donald Trump or anybody

...