In the first month of his second term, President Trump has reshaped the government with a flurry of executive orders.

As William Brangham reports, many of them echo the language of a policy blueprint he once disavowed.

During the heat of the presidential race, the 900-page Project 2025 became a rallying cry for Democrats and a focal point for their warnings about a second Trump term.

It was published by the Conservative Heritage Foundation, and it outlined plans to reshape the federal government,

expand presidential power, and enact right-leaning social policies. In polls, it proved widely

unpopular with voters, and then candidate Trump distanced himself from it, calling parts of it,

quote, ridiculous and abysmal. I have nothing to do with Project 2025. That's out there. I haven't read it.

I don't want to read it purposely. I'm not going to read it. But a recent analysis by Politico found dozens of instances where President Trump's

executive actions have closely aligned with Project 2025. Megan Messerly is a White House reporter

for Politico and co-authored the piece.

Megan, so good to have you on the program.

Let's start with a big picture overview here.

What policy aspects of the second Trump administration most dovetail with Project 2025,

according to your reporting?

We found significant overlap, you know, on social issues, on immigration, on government

staffing, energy, foreign affairs, the economy.

But really the biggest category that we saw was this sort of social issues category.

You know, as President Trump has really taken this aggressive posture

on culture war issues in the early weeks of his presidency.

So I'm thinking about policies like ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, using

the Civil Rights Act to remove, you know, quote, gender ideology and critical race theory

from schools and also ending government

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