Two Texas Democrats took aim at the controversial Project 2025 plan during a House Oversight Committee hearing that was scrutinizing policies from the Biden administration. The more than 4-hour long hearing on Thursday, September 19, was titled, “A Legacy of Incompetence: Consequences of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Policy Failures.”
Witnesses questioned at the hearing included Brendan Carr and Project 2025 Advisory Board member Mark Krikorian. Carr is a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission, that authored a chapter in Project 2025 on the FCC. Lawmakers asked for an ethics investigation into Carr earlier for “misusing his official position as an executive-level employee of the FCC.”
Krikorian is the Executive Director at the Center for Immigration Studies, a policy think-tank that has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “an anti-immigrant hate group.” The organization bills itself as “low immigration, pro-immigrant.” The Center for Immigration Studies is among the 100 groups that make up the coalition supporting Project 2025.
Rep. Greg Casar, who represents Texas’s 35th District that stretches from downtown San Antonio northwest through Austin to Pflugerville, called out Krikorian for past comments about Haitian immigrants. Krikorian acknowledged comments where he said that, “Haiti is so screwed up because it was not colonized long enough.”
Haitian migrants became the subject of a viral moment at the presidential debate on September 10 and have continued to remain in the zeitgeist as Republican candidate for Vice President J.D. Vance has spread unsubstantiated rumors of Haitian migrants eating pets and says he will continue calling migrants given Temporary Protected Status as illegal aliens.
Casar and Krikorian spar over the comments by speaking over each other, where Krikorian says the Haitans who were enslaved by the French “would have been free 30 years later.” He denied Casar’s allegation that his comments meant he wanted 30 more years of slavery in the country, likening the scenario to the eventual abolition of slavery over the Martinique people by the French, who Krikorian said are “much better off now.”
Jasmine Crockett, who represents Texas’ 30th District that encompasses downtown Dallas and southern portions of the city, called out the distance that Trump has attempted to give the controversial manifesto from his campaign in the last few months, asking Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, whether the former President’s name is in the document. His name is included in the more-than 900 page document approximately 312 times, according to Crockett.
In July, the former president said he has “no idea who is behind it,” though a CNN analysis found that at least 140 people who worked for the Trump administration “had a hand in Project 2025.” On August 10, Pro Publica shared a report on the training courses that are part of the Project 2025 plan, and revealed that 29 of the 36 speakers in the videos have worked for the former president ” in some capacity.
“This election is the best example of why y’all are so afraid of diversity, equity and inclusion,” Crockett said in her remarks. “Because then you can’t have a simple-minded, under-qualified white man somehow end up ascending. Instead you’ve got to pay attention to the qualified Black woman that is on the other side.”
Project 2025 serves as a blueprint for a the next conservative presidency. Policy points included in the document include education, law enforcement, reproductive healthcare and more, with access to the full 922 document available for the public to read.
You can read takeaways for proposed changes to the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Justice, and Department of Education in our previous coverage.
In April 2022, Trump said the Heritage Foundation is “going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do,” during a keynote address at a Heritage conference, according to the Washington Post.