Long before President Trump’s second inauguration in January, it was clear that the Project 2025 blueprint for his administration’s Department of Defense would lead to executive overreach and would make the United States less safe. Aspects of the plan called for overstepping constitutional boundaries, engaging in an overtly partisan approach, and undermining congressional authority.
So, over two months into the second Trump presidency, how closely is his administration following the plan? Close enough that the director of the project, Paul Dans, has said that Trump’s actions are proving to go “ way beyond my wildest dreams ”. What does that look like?
A National Emergency at the Southern Border
One of the many actions issued on day one of Trump’s current presidency was “ Declaring A National Emergency At The Southern Border Of The United States.” This was a clearly defined goal of Project 2025, and though it is laid out in the chapter on the Department of Homeland Security, it calls for the Department of Defense to:
“Assist in aggressively building the border wall system on America’s southern border. Additionally, explicitly acknowledge and adjust personnel and priorities to participate actively in the defense of America’s borders, including using military personnel and hardware to prevent illegal crossings between ports of entry and channel all cross-border traffic to legal ports of entry.”
Consequently, Trump’s January 20th action calls for the Secretary of Defense to deploy the military to support the Secretary of Homeland Security in securing the southern border, including:
· Providing detention space, transportation (such as aircraft), and other logistical support for civilian law enforcement operations.
· Taking immediate action to construct additional physical barriers along the southern border.
· Revising policies and strategies to prioritize preventing unauthorized physical entry of individuals across the southern border.
· Ensuring that use-of-force policies prioritize the safety and security of Department of Homeland Security personnel and members of the Armed Forces.
Addressing Culture Wars
One of the most specific goals laid out by Christopher Miller, former Secretary of Defense and author of the Department of Defense chapter of Project 2025, was to kick transgender individuals out of the military. He called to:
“Restore standards of lethality and excellence. Entrance criteria for military service and specific occupational career fields should be based on the needs of those positions. Exceptions for individuals who are already predisposed to require medical treatment (for example, HIV positive or suffering from gender dysphoria) should be removed, and those with gender dysphoria should be expelled from military service.”
In “ Prioritizing Military Excellence And Readiness ”, issued on January 27th, Trump ordered that it be “the policy of the United States Government to establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity. This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria. This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.”
A New ‘Star Wars’ For a New Generation
One of the primary goals listed in the Project 2025 DOD section is to champion the benefits of missile defense.
“Invest in new track-and-intercept capabilities ... Accelerate the program to deploy space-based sensors that can detect and track missiles flying on nonballistic trajectories.”
In quick fulfillment of this recommendation, Trump issued “ The Iron Dome for America ” Executive Order on January 27, just one week into his presidency. It calls upon the Secretary of Defense to provide the President, within 60 days, a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield.
Reinstating COVID Vaccination Refusers
Another very specific goal of Project 2025 was to “reinstate servicemembers to active duty who were discharged for not receiving the COVID vaccine, restore their appropriate rank, and provide back pay.”
In the Executive Order “ Reinstating Service Members Discharged Under The Military’s COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate,” Trump ordered exactly that be done, ordering the Secretary of Defense to “make reinstatement available to all members of the military (active and reserve) who were discharged solely for refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and who request to be reinstated ... enable those service members reinstated under this section to revert to their former rank and receive full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation.”
Kristina Becvar is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and Executive Director of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.