Puck’s Tina Nguyen Reports Trump Isn’t Going to Use Project 2025, He Has Another Think Tank’s Agenda In Mind

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Former President Donald Trump is likely to surround himself only with people completely loyal to him during his second term, according to a Wednesday report from Puck News national correspondent Tina Nguyen.

Nguyen, a prominent “MAGA whisperer,” spoke to a source close to Trump who said he would ignore Project 2025 as he promised on the campaign trail in favor of another agenda created for his second term. In a lengthy social media thread, she reported:

Everyone thinks Project 2025 is the playbook of Trump’s next act. Reasonable, considering the August Heritage Foundation got every other conservative think tank to participate. Except one: the America First Policy Institute.

AFPI was founded barely 4 years ago by several former Trump officials and Cabinet members. Their goal: establish the MAGA version of the Heritage Foundation to preserve Trump’s legacy. And within months of rejecting the Project, they launched their OWN transition project: handbooks, job portals, training sessions, etc. If you asked anyone at the time, the difference between the two boiled down to this: Project 2025 was designed for *any* GOP president. The AFPI Transition Project was designed for one: Trump. I wrote about the brewing Cold War between these two last year.

Nguyen suggested that while Project 2025 grabbed its share of attention from the media and Democrats, AFPI’s role could end up being far more influential in shaping Trump’s second administration.

Her report also pointed out that the AFPI Transition Project was specifically tailored to Trump’s vision and needs, unlike Project 2025, which was designed as a broad, “turnkey” guide for any Republican president.

“If you asked anyone at the time, the difference between the two boiled down to this: Project 2025 was designed for any GOP president. The AFPI Transition Project was designed for one: Trump,” she wrote.

Nguyen added:

So what does the next Trump admin look like, and who’s in it? As that source told me, Trump was burned last time by rogue staffers and career officials. This time, “[he] wants people whose only mantra is: Whatever the president wants, we’re gonna do.

She concluded that Trump might be hesitant to trust the Heritage Foundation’s roadmap because of its donor-driven structure. In contrast, AFPI is seen as a group “100 percent beholden” to the former president, making the agenda more enticing to him.