Project 2025 Is the Rare Policy Tome to Go Viral

You may have heard of it, but have you read it? Most of the chatter about Project 2025 is secondhand, for good reason, as Bloomberg Businessweek editor Reyhan Harmanci writes today: It’s almost a thousand pages of dense DC policy talk. Should we take it literally, or seriously, or both? Plus: An undersea cable mystery, a tour of an ice cream cone factory and the answers to the July magazine’s Letter Quest. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up.

In April 2023, the Heritage Foundation, a US conservative think tank, dropped a huge document: 900-plus pages of policy proposals with the title Project 2025. It got coverage from national outlets immediately, although some of the earliest stories focused on its attempt to create a LinkedIn-style database across 50 conservative groups for people who could staff a Republican White House, rather than the document itself. The attention continued through the late summer and early fall last year; big pieces from the New York Times and Politico dropped, asking readers to take heed. For people wondering what a second term for President Donald Trump would look like, these stories said, it would be wise to examine this tome. The results could be a radical change in American governance.