This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross-partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.
Kettering Foundation Senior Fellows David Pepper and Alexander Vindman spoke with the organization’s chief external affairs officer and director of D.C. operations, Brad Rourke, about Project 2025, the controversial Heritage Foundation plan to reshape American democracy.
Pepper is a lawyer, writer, political activist, adjunct professor, former elected official, former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party. While leading the party in Ohio, he was engaged in numerous battles and extensive litigation over voter suppression and election laws in the Buckeye State, as well as reform efforts to enhance voting and end gerrymandering. Pepper is the author of “ Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call from Behind the Lines ” and “ Saving Democracy: A User’s Manual for Every American.”
Vindman, a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, was the director for European affairs on the National Security Council. He previously served at the Pentagon as the political-military affairs officer for Russia and as an attaché at the American embassies in Moscow and Kyiv. While on the joint staff, he authored the U.S. National Military Strategy for Russia. His military awards include two Legions of Merit and the Purple Heart, having sustained wounds in an IED attack during the Iraq War.
Pepper and Vindman unpack the dangers and profound changes posed by Project 2025, including threats to the rule of law, civil service integrity and military loyalty. This eye-opening conversation explores the potential future of U.S. governance and the values at stake.
Enjoy this insightful podcast:
This conversation was filmed on July 10 before the assassination attempt of former President Trump. The Charles F. Kettering Foundation condemns political violence. Such acts work against a healthy, inclusive democracy, and we must work toward a future where everyone can engage in the democratic process without fear.
More in The Fulcrum about Project 2025
- A cross-partisan approach
- An Introduction
- Rumors of Project 2025’s Demise are Greatly Exaggerated
- Department of Education
- Managing the bureaucracy
- Department of Defense
- Department of Energy
- The Environmental Protection Agency
- Education Savings Accounts
- Department of Veterans Affairs
- Department of Homeland Security
- U.S. Agency for International Development
- Affirmative action
- A federal Parents' Bill of Rights
- Department of Labor
- Intelligence community
- Department of State
- Department of the Interior
- Federal Communications Commission
- A perspective from Europe
- Department of Health and Human Services
- Voting Rights Act
- Another look at the Federal Communications Commission
- A Christo-fascist manifesto designing a theocracy
- The Schedule F threat to democracy
- The Department of Justice
- A blueprint for Christian nationalist regime change
- How anti-trans proposals could impact all families
Lorraine Marquez Eiler’s photo of her great-great grandparents and her great-grandparents, who would walk about 50 miles through the Sonoran Desert to the springs.
Construction equipment is seen near the U.S.-Mexico border just west of the Lukeville port of entry on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. Credit: Stephanie Casanova
Rep. Adelita Grijalva, left, and Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon Jose listen as Lorraine Marquez Eiler, a Hia-C’ed O’odham elder, shares how her ancestors would hold ceremonies at Quitobaquito Springs. Grijalva visited the springs with tribal leaders on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. Credit: Stephanie Casanova
Sara Mae Williams, Justice of the Peace in Ajo and a Tohono O’odham citizen, shares their concerns regarding border wall construction on Tohono O’odham land at a town hall at the Ajo Plaza Rec Hall on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. Credit: Stephanie Casanova