Rightwing thinktank booked to brief Kevin Rudd on Project 2025 months before Trump win, documents reveal
Share:
Heritage Foundation officials were due to outline their conservative blueprint at Australian embassy, correspondence shows. The rightwing thinktank behind Project 2025 – cast as a playbook for Donald Trump’s second presidential term – was scheduled to brief Australian ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, on the manifesto months before last year’s election, documents reveal.
![[Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/47f6fb50a5131de6264fda6a1376e3c5457180cb/0_0_1920_1080/master/1920.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The Heritage Foundation was due to be hosted at the Australian embassy in Washington early last year to present its 2025 presidential transition project, which features a detailed conservative blueprint to overhaul US democracy. A run-sheet for the 8 February event was included in correspondence released under freedom of information laws, which also revealed Australian officials discussed arranging meetings for a top Heritage Foundation adviser during his visit to Australia in June.
The high-level interactions with the Heritage Foundation suggest Project 2025 was being treated seriously in Canberra and show the effort Rudd was making to build ties with conservative figures who could play a role in a second Trump administration. The 920-page policy playbook at the heart of Project 2025 – titled Mandate for Leadership – became a major US election issue after Democrats began describing it as Trump’s secret agenda for a second term in the Oval Office.
The document includes proposals to dramatically expand presidential power and make it easier to replace civil servants with political appointees, restrict access to abortion pills, reverse Biden-era climate policies, ban pornography and enforce mass deportations.
