Here’s how many of Project 2025’s media proposals were implemented in 2025
Source: Poynter
Type: news-reporting
Author: Angela Fu
Source Text
When the Heritage Foundation published a 920-page compendium of policy suggestions called “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” in April 2023, it did so to little fanfare.
By fall 2024, however, Democrats were doing everything they could to tie then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to the document, more commonly known as Project 2025. Inside were sweeping recommendations to reshape entire sections of the federal government and consolidate power under a conservative president.
Trump denied any knowledge of Project 2025. But on his first day in office, he signed several executive orders implementing proposals from the policy blueprint. As of mid-December 2025, trackers run by various progressive groups suggest he’s achieved roughly half of Project 2025’s goals.
Those goals include reforming the government’s relationship with the press. Indeed, many of Trump’s actions against journalists this year draw directly from Project 2025’s media proposals, and contributors to the project have played key roles in the administration’s attempts to stymie the press. Outlets that received federal funding — public broadcasters and United States Agency for Global Media affiliates — have been hit hardest. But even fully independent outlets have been affected.
Here’s a look at the media proposals in Project 2025 that Trump has tackled so far and what he could do in 2026.
What Trump has done so far
Defund public broadcasting
Conservatives have long made it a goal to defund NPR and PBS — a point made in the first sentence of Project 2025’s section on public broadcasting — but Trump this year became the first president to actually do it.
The administration’s campaign against public broadcasting started in April when Trump tried to fire three board members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the independent nonprofit Congress created to distribute federal funds to public broadcasters. He then issued an executive order instructing CPB to stop funding NPR and PBS. Both actions were challenged in court on the grounds that Trump could not withhold funds appropriated by Congress.
To get around that legal hurdle, Trump formally asked Congress to rescind the $1.07 billion it had already allocated to CPB for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. He had made a similar request during his first term but was rejected. This time, however, Congress agreed. Slim majorities of the Republican-led House and Senate approved Trump’s request in July, and by October, CPB — and by extension, NPR, PBS and more than 1,500 local stations — had lost its federal funding.
Dismantle USAGM
Project 2025’s section on USAGM, which helps broadcasters like Voice of America and Radio Free Asia reach audiences in countries that lack a free press, is lengthy. Necessary reforms are so extensive that the agency must be “fully reformed top to bottom,” according to Project 2025. If that is not possible, it should be “defunded and disestablished.”
Trump, with the aid of USAGM senior adviser Kari Lake, opted for the latter. In March, he issued an executive order to eliminate the agency’s nonstatutory functions “to the maximum extent.” The next day, Lake placed more than 1,300 Voice of America employees on leave and suspended congressionally approved grants to Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
Those actions are currently being challenged in court via five different lawsuits, and a federal judge has ordered the restoration of Voice of America’s broadcasting and the disbursement of grants. Despite this, the Trump administration has executed multiple rounds of layoffs and closed many of Voice of America’s offices. As a result, the outlets have severely reduced coverage — at times going completely off air.
Defang the White House Correspondents’ Association
For over a century, the White House Correspondents’ Association acted as an intermediary between the White House and the press, deciding which outlets could accompany the president as part of the official “pool” on any given day. The setup prevented the president from playing favorites since outlets rotated through the pool in schedules set by the WHCA.
That relationship, Project 2025 suggested, needed to be reexamined: “an alternate coordinating body might be more suitable.”
In February, the White House decided that it would serve as the new coordinating body. That month, the White House kicked out The Associated Press over its refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and took over the pool. It removed a guaranteed spot for wire services — affecting Bloomberg and Reuters — and added new spots for television and “new media” outlets. More often than not, those additional spots were reserved for Trump-friendly, conservative outlets, some of which had trafficked far-right conspiracy theories.
The AP challenged its elimination from the pool in court. But while AP journalists have since been allowed to rejoin the pool, its access is much more limited, and the White House retains control of the pool. In July, it kicked out a Wall Street Journal reporter from a travel pool after the outlet published a story about a lewd birthday card Trump allegedly sent to convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Investigate and punish leakers
The first Trump administration was plagued by leaks to the media. Future Republican administrations, according to Project 2025, should investigate leaks and punish anyone found responsible.
Project 2025 specifically names U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the U.S. Intelligence Community as groups that require attention. Intelligence Community agencies, Project 2025 suggests, should “minimize their public presence” and investigate all leaks, including those of unclassified information. The document further argues that the president should revoke security clearances of any former senior intelligence officials who discuss their work publicly without permission.
Trump has gone far beyond this guidance in his attempts to stop leaks. The Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have all polygraphed employees to identify leaks. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has started monitoring its staff’s communications for leaks. And the Department of Defense has made plans to require all of its employees to sign nondisclosure agreements preventing them from releasing nonpublic information without approval.
Trump has also revoked the security clearances of dozens of former national security officials. Many of them have spoken publicly about national security matters, according to The New York Times. He has also stripped political opponents of their security clearances.
Project 2025 further advocated that the Department of Justice rescind guidance limiting investigators’ ability to identify records of leaks to the media. Attorney General Pam Bondi did just that in April when she issued a memo allowing the department to use subpoenas, court orders and search warrants to force journalists to give up newsgathering material during leak investigations.
What Trump could do next
Eliminate FCC regulations
“Few appointments to (the independent regulatory agencies) will be as important as the President’s selection of the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission,” reads Project 2025. Trump made a statement, then, when he appointed Brendan Carr, who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the FCC, to the job on Inauguration Day.
Carr has since wielded his power to threaten and investigate media companies, including ABC, NBC, NPR and PBS. But he has yet to fully execute his Project 2025 proposal to eliminate “heavy-handed FCC regulations,” especially those around media ownership. That could soon change, however.
In June, the FCC announced it was seeking the public’s input on its rule preventing companies from owning enough television stations to reach more than 39% of American households. A few months later, it announced reviews of caps on the number of television and radio stations a company can own in a single market. The FCC is also reviewing a rule prohibiting mergers between the “big four” networks — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.
Media companies, meanwhile, are waiting in the wings. Nexstar and Tegna announced a $6.2 billion merger in August that would capture more than 54.5% of the television audiences if approved. Last month, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook boasted that, like the Trump administration, the company is focused on deregulation, and that his company is “the anti-fake news.”
Bar reporters from the White House
In November, the Pentagon made headlines for implementing media guidelines so restrictive that nearly its entire press corps decided it would rather give up press credentials than agree to the new rules. Within days, a new crop of “journalists” had taken their place. A group of mostly pro-Trump outlets and influencers — including far-right influencer Laura Loomer and former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz — signed onto the new guidelines and gained access to the building.
A similar scene could take place at the White House next year. Project 2025 notes, “No legal entitlement exists for the provision of permanent space for media on the White House campus, and the next Administration should reexamine the balance between media demands and space constraints on the White House premises.”
Already, the White House has reshaped its press pool to make room for conservative outlets. In October, it also barred journalists from accessing certain West Wing offices belonging to senior communications staff without an appointment. The Pentagon had made a similar move in May, when it limited the spaces journalists could access without an escort.
Revoke noncommercial education status from public broadcasters
While much of Project 2025’s chapter on the Corporation of Public Broadcasting focuses on its defunding, a section at the end advocates for the FCC to revoke noncommercial education status from stations affiliated with PBS and NPR.
Noncommercial education stations, which are not permitted to air commercial advertisements, enjoy certain privileges. They do not pay licensing fees, and the FCC reserves a band of lower radio frequency specifically for them. Losing that status would be an additional financial blow to public broadcasters that are already struggling due to the administration’s defunding of CPB.
Carr has indicated some interest in the subject. In January, he told NPR and PBS that he was opening an investigation into whether their member stations had broadcast “underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”
Events Citing This Source
| Event | Date | Category |
|---|---|---|
| White House Press Access | Feb 2025, ongoing | Abuse of Power |
People Mentioned
| Person | Role |
|---|
Institutions Mentioned
| Institution | Description |
|---|
Related Sources
| Source | Type | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Trump White House seeks tighter grip on message with new limits on press | news-reporting | NPR |
| White House says it will decide which news organizations routinely cover the president | news-reporting | PBS |