Fox News Host Mocks Trump’s Previous Claims of Ignorance About Right-Wing Agenda: ‘Did He Just Learn About Project 2025?’

 

Fox News host John Roberts expressed amusement at President Donald Trump’s supposedly newfound affinity for Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint that the president previously tried to distance himself from.

Amid the ongoing government shutdown, Trump is threatening to downsize and shutter additional government agencies. Early on Thursday morning, the president said he would meet with Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought was a co-author of Project 2025, a massive compendium of conservative policy proposals compiled by Trump allies and other conservatives.

“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” the president posted on Truth Social.”

Roberts guest-hosted Thursday’s Special Report on Fox News, where he read Trump’s post and juxtaposed it with the president’s previous statements about Project 2025.

“Remember what Donald Trump said a year ago,” Roberts said, teeing up a Trump post from July 2024 when he was running for president.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump said at the time. “I have no idea who’s behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.”

“So, I’m wondering,” Roberts reacted. “Did he just learn about Project 2025 in the last year, or did he know about it all along?”

Guest and USA Today White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers expressed doubt that Trump would be involved in cutting agencies at a granular level.

“And it’s also not clear, John, whether or not he was actually sitting there with Russ Vought and going line by line himself and deciding what is and what isn’t being cut here because, of course, prior to this, the Office of Management and Budget as well as the Office of Personnel Management sent out messages to these various agencies saying, ‘No, you send us plans for you think that you should cut and then we’ll approve them.'”

Watch above via Fox News.

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Mike is a Mediaite senior editor who covers the news in primetime. Follow him on Bluesky.