DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement: 

“Donald Trump continues to threaten our democracy and his Project 2025 cronies are laying out a blueprint for him to make good on his pledge to be a dictator on ‘day one.’ This far-right agenda will let Trump purge the federal government to replace civil servants with MAGA loyalists and even deploy the military against Americans as part of his dangerous plans. These are the stakes this November: President Biden is running to defend democracy while Trump’s extreme Project 2025 agenda would put our basic values as Americans at risk.”

Trump has promised to be a dictator on “day one,” continues to defend and praise violent insurrectionists who believe in his Big Lie, and praises dictators. 

Trump: “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said, ‘No, no, no, other than day one.’”

Doug Heye, CNN: “That is what we’ve come to expect from Donald Trump. He always says the quiet part not out loud — very, very loud. And I think that we know that you can’t be a dictator on day one, and then day two revert back to democracy. Day one is going to last for a long time.”

New York Magazine: “This exchange is best understood as Trump enjoying the idea of himself as dictator. Trump has always admired dictators and has longed to be granted the obsequious deference they are afforded. As president, his favorite moments were trips to places like North Korea, where he spoke admiringly about the way his counterparties were treated. (‘He’s the head of the country,’ Trump said of Kim Jong-un. ‘And I mean, he’s the strong head. Don’t let anyone think anything different. … He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.’)”

Forbes: “Trump said of his relationships with dictators, ‘the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them,’ which he insisted is ‘not a bad thing.’ 

“‘The easy ones,’ Trump said, referring to America’s allies, ‘I maybe don’t like as much or don’t get along with as much.’”

CNN: “Trump former advisers sound the alarm that he praises despots in private and on the campaign trail”

“‘He thought Putin was an OK guy and Kim was an OK guy — that we had pushed North Korea into a corner,’ retired Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, told me. ‘To him, it was like we were goading these guys. “If we didn’t have NATO, then Putin wouldn’t be doing these things.”’”

Trump’s extreme Project 2025 allies are calling on Trump to gut the federal workforce by making civil servants more easily fireable and installing MAGA loyalists.

Associated Press: “The unprecedented effort is being orchestrated with dozens of right-flank organizations, many new to Washington, and represents a changed approach from conservatives, who traditionally have sought to limit the federal government by cutting federal taxes and slashing federal spending. Instead, Trump-era conservatives want to gut the ‘administrative state’ from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing.”

The Atlantic: “At the top of Vought and Dans’s must-do list for the next president: reissuing an executive order that Trump signed during his final months in office—and which President Joe Biden promptly reversed—that would allow the government to remove civil-service protections from as many as 50,000 federal jobs. The move would create a new class of employees known as Schedule F whom the president could fire at will. It would essentially supersize the number of political appointees in senior positions in the government, currently about 4,000.”

Project 2025 is also crafting plans that allow Trump to deploy the military against American citizens.

Washington Post: “Dubbed ‘Project 2025,’ the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act, according to a person involved in those conversations and internal communications reviewed by The Washington Post. The law, last updated in 1871, authorizes the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement. The proposal was identified in internal discussions as an immediate priority, the communications showed. In the final year of his presidency, some of Trump’s supporters urged him to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down unrest after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, but he never did it. Trump has publicly expressed regret about not deploying more federal force and said he would not hesitate to do so in the future.”

Trump’s Project 2025 allies are even laying the foundation to allow Trump to serve a third term if he is reelected in November.

People: “In March, The American Conservative — a right-wing blog — published an article in support of repealing the 22nd Amendment, which was ratified after FDR’s tenure to prohibit people from being elected president more than twice.

“The blog, which is a partner of the Christian nationalist movement Project 2025, advocates for Trump to be able to serve a third term as president in 2028 if he wins the current election.

“Project 2025 is described as a ‘a broad coalition of conservative organizations,’ many of which have links to several former members of the Trump administration, including Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows. The group aims to ‘take back the government’ and ensure a Republican win in this year’s election.”

MSNBC: “Trump again floats the idea of serving a third presidential term”

“Alas, this was not an isolated comment. Five years ago this month, Trump retweeted Jerry Falwell Jr. — before his ignominious fall from grace — arguing that the president deserves a six-year first term ‘as payback for time stolen’ by the investigation into the Russia scandal. Trump echoed Falwell’s sentiment in a pair of tweets an hour later, writing that nefarious forces ‘have stolen two years of my (our) Presidency (Collusion Delusion) that we will never be able to get back.’

“A year later, as Election Day 2020 drew closer, the Republican started pushing the line with greater frequency — and apparent sincerity.

“At a campaign stop in Arizona in August 2020, for example, Trump was greeted by supporters chanting, ‘Four more years.’ Before the then-president could even begin his remarks in earnest, he endorsed the chant and added some related thoughts: ‘Thank you very much. And you know, considering that we caught President Obama and sleepy Joe Biden, spying on our campaign — treason — we’ll probably be entitled to another four more years after that.’”