DNC ties Trump to Project 2025 in paid media push

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) rolled out its first paid media campaign linking former President Trump to the Heritage Foundation’s conservative governing agenda known as Project 2025. 

The campaign consists of billboards that will be launched in major cities in large battleground states, including Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C.; Philadelphia; Atlanta; Detroit, Lansing and Grand Rapids, Mich.; Green Bay, Wis.; Phoenix, and Las Vegas.

“Trump’s Plan to be a dictator day one: Project 2025. Google it,” one of the billboards reads. Another billboard accuses Project 2025 of gutting checks and balances, seeking revenge, and banning abortion nationwide. 

“They know that when Americans hear about Project 2025, they do not support it. The DNC won’t let them get away with it. Democrats, on the other hand, have three and a half years of historic accomplishment and a popular, winning agenda to run on,” said DNC communications director Rosemary Boeglin. 

Project 2025 is a 900-page “governing agenda” that maps out conservative aims in the case that a Republican wins the presidency in November. Trump has distanced himself from the agenda, saying any attempt to tie him to it is “pure disinformation.”

“I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. 

A number of former Trump administration officials, including Ben Carson and Ken Cuccinelli, were contributors to the plan. 

Biden’s campaign and Democrats have increasingly worked to hit Trump with Project 2025 as Biden has grappled with a negative news cycle and growing calls from Democrats to step down from his campaign.

Updated at 7:31 a.m. EDT