NewsNation host Chris Cuomo on Thursday rejected Democrats' claims that the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 would turn former President Donald Trump into a “dictator” if re-elected.
Democratic Party Website Cuomo said it was “true” that Project 2025 was “a Trump-led operation designed to enable him to be a dictator from day one,” but the former president has denied any knowledge of or involvement with the plan.The Chris Cuomo Project” rejected the notion that Project 2025 poses an existential threat to democracy, insisting the document outlines “conservative values,” and called on Democrats to stop spreading false claims about the alleged danger posed by Trump. (Related: Kamala Harris once thought a border wall was “un-American.” Now she supports it.)
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“Donald Trump is not a threat to democracy. Project 2025 is a conservative value. Love it or hate it. A unitary executive branch that empowers the president is not the same as making him a tyrant or a dictator. As for abolishing the Department of Education, I don't like that idea. It's not going to destroy democracy, and that distinction is important,” Cuomo said. “Neither of those are threats to change the American system. I don't think so. But Project 2025 says you want to replace the bureaucracy with your own cronies. Well, that's not going to happen either. And even if it did happen, it wouldn't destroy the system, it would just put a bunch of people in it.”
“By the way, he could barely fill judgeships. He could barely staff his administration. Look back and think how many vacancies there were. They'll say, 'Oh, we reduced the size of government.' No, you were bad at hiring. That's easier said than done. That's why I don't believe in threats,” he added. “You may not be satisfied if you want Trump to be the bad guy. He gives you plenty of ammunition. The truth is enough. Don't exaggerate it or distort it lest you become what you claim to be against. That's a subtheme of threats to our democracy.”
President Trump faced a second assassination attempt on Sunday. The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, whom authorities arrested later the same day, had previously posted that “democracy will be on the ballot” in 2024. Appearing on “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Monday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continued to hold her own in the wake of the assassination attempt, repeatedly calling President Trump “dangerous” and mentioning Project 2025 and the former president's “desire to be a dictator.”
“Americans need to understand that they have to take Trump's words seriously and literally. He said what he wanted to do. His and his allies' Project 2025, his desire to be a dictator at least from day one in office, all of that is on the record,” Clinton said. “And I believe more Americans should be willing to put up with what is, frankly, uncomfortable and to some extent painful, to take him at his word and be outraged by what he represents.”
At the Democratic National Convention in August, Michigan Democratic Sen. Mallory McMorrow held up a giant book with the cover of Project 2025, calling it “a plan to turn Donald Trump into a dictator.”
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