Project 2025 calls for dismantling of US federal agencies
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00:00Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are visiting some of the areas worst hit by Hurricane Helene
00:08this Wednesday as residents struggle with the fallout from the storm that killed more
00:13than 160 people during its rampage through southeastern U.S. states.
00:18Before leaving Washington, the president announced the deployment of up to 1,000 active duty
00:23soldiers to North Carolina to boost the emergency response effort.
00:28Harris' Republican rival Donald Trump has meanwhile been seeking to turn the Democrats'
00:33handling of the disaster into campaign fodder, as Laurent Bristecker explains.
00:41Floating piles of debris, stretching as far as the eye can see.
00:46The waters of Lake Lure were barely visible under the wreckage as North Carolina reckoned
00:51with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
00:54Still across the southeastern U.S. coast, residents and federal workers were coming
00:59to terms with the trail of destruction left by the powerful storm.
01:04In Asheville, Georgia, which was laid to waste by devastating floods, the mayor called on
01:08federal authorities to provide urgent and sustained assistance.
01:13We have damage to our transportation, just roads buckled and collapsed and is the cost
01:21and the time that's going to be needed to restore this community and I don't want that
01:28to fade away in terms of the priority of our nation.
01:35Rebuilding vital infrastructure, restoring power to over a million households, and providing
01:41shelter, food and other essential goods to affected communities.
01:45A monumental task which U.S. officials already warned could take billions of dollars and
01:50several years to complete.
01:53On Wednesday, Joe Biden headed to North and South Carolina, where he took an aerial tour
01:57of some of the area's hardest hit by the storm.
02:01The president then vowed to provide relief and support for as long as necessary.
02:06The damage is still being assessed but many people are still unaccounted for.
02:12So I'm here to say the United States, the nation, has your back.
02:17The nation has your back.
02:18We're not leaving your back on your feet completely.
02:20There are no Democrats or Republicans, only Americans.
02:24And our job is to help as many people as we can, as quickly as we can and as thoroughly
02:29as we can.
02:31The White House on Wednesday also greenlit the deployment of 1,000 additional soldiers.
02:36They will join more than 10,000 National Guard and federal aid workers already on the ground
02:41to help with rescue and relief efforts.
02:45For more, let's bring in our Washington correspondent, Fraser Jackson.
02:49Fraser, Joe Biden then visiting some of the worst hit areas this hurricane.
02:55Government agencies had of course been tracking it, giving warnings about its strength.
02:59But the very future of those agencies and the work that they do, they could be under
03:04threat by a potential Trump presidency.
03:07Tell us more about that.
03:10Yeah, this is all revolving around something called Project 2025, which is a blueprint
03:16for a future Republican presidency put forward by a conservative think tank called the Heritage
03:21Foundation.
03:23Trump says that he doesn't have anything to do with this Project 2025.
03:27But it must be said, a lot of the people who are the architects of this mandate are former
03:33Trump officials.
03:34So a lot of the Democrats in the United States are saying that this is what Donald Trump
03:38would be using if he were to get reelected.
03:41Under it, it calls for a host of different things, but some of the federal agencies that
03:45this mandate would dismantle or at least massively restructure include FEMA, who are overseeing
03:51the disaster relief in the wake of this hurricane, and also NOAA as well, which is the National
03:57Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
03:59Now, NOAA has a lot under its mandate, including weather forecasting, but also climate monitoring,
04:06as well as coastal restoration and fisheries and more.
04:10Its mandate affects about a third of the American GDP.
04:13So it is a significant mandate that it has, and two of the organizations which fall under
04:18it include the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center, which of course
04:22both were pivotal in tracking Hurricane Helene as it made its way across the Gulf of Mexico
04:29and the Caribbean.
04:30Now, the Project 2025 calls for the full commercialization and full commercialization
04:37of forecasting models made by the National Weather Service, and it must be said as well
04:42that also already happens.
04:44Things like people like AccuWeather and local TV forecasters used the NOAA data, the forecast
04:50models that it comes up with in their forecasts.
04:54So it is critical data, and ultimately this all really comes down to climate change.
04:59The Project 2025 calls for the climate change, the way that NOAA collects and assembles climate
05:09change data to be changed and to be less political in the eyes of this conservative think tank.
05:15It also says that NOAA is, quote, one of the primary components of the climate change alarm
05:20industry.
05:21It also is calling for a review of the National Hurricane Center, saying that its documentation
05:26should be presented neutrally rather than in what it says is a partisan way.
05:31And this all, again, stemming from that climate change debate, which some conservative parts
05:35of the United States are skeptical about.
05:39But one person who isn't skeptical about that is, of course, Joe Biden.
05:42He was asked the other day whether Hurricane Helene was the result of climate change, and
05:46he said absolutely, positively, unequivocally, yes, yes, yes.
05:51The data also should be pointed out that science does show that the hurricanes at the
05:57moment are becoming more intense and more frequent because of climate change, but that
06:02climate change itself is not the sole driver of these hurricanes.
06:06And Fraser, what other proposals fall under this Project 2025, and how are the two candidates
06:12talking about it?
06:14Well, there really is a big umbrella, four different pillars, really, of how a conservative
06:21presidency would look.
06:23Especially one of those pillars is a playbook, effectively, for the first 180 days of a presidency.
06:30The other parts of it call for disbanding things like the Department of Education, disbanding
06:36Homeland Security, and also rejigging the FBI as well.
06:40The quote from Project 2025 is that the FBI is a bloated, arrogant, and increasingly lawless
06:46organisation.
06:47It must be said, it's not exactly a bastion of liberalism.
06:50Donald Trump is trying to distance himself from this, saying that he doesn't know what
06:54this is about and he has no connection to it, but the Democrats are trying to tie it
06:57around his neck and say that it ultimately is Donald Trump's playbook if he does get
07:02into power once again.
07:03Fraser, we'll leave it there for now, but thank you so much for joining us.
07:06That's our Washington correspondent, Fraser Jackson.