Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance (Republican of Ohio), now view Project 2025 as a major liability for their campaign. Both are trying to distance themselves from the Heritage Foundation’s controversial plan for a second Trump administration – and repeatedly claim they had nothing to do with the proposals in the 920-page document.

However, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign team reminds voters that Project 2025 was put together by Trump’s closest allies. There is even an entire section on Harris’ website dedicated to the Heritage document.

Project 2025 has been the focus of countless articles, but in a Politico report published on August 29, journalists Hailey Fuchs and Meridith McGraw point out that Heritage is not the only right-wing think tank planning a second Trump administration. The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) has a detailed Trump 2.0 plan that has been “years in the making,” according to Fuchs and McGraw.

READ MORE: “Particularly impressive”: Harris campaign counters Trump’s attack with two words

“This planning has largely taken place outside the official Trump campaign, whose own transition planning is months behind the schedule of his first run for the White House,” Fuchs and McGraw explain. “But Trump and his top advisers are aware of the outside efforts, and many Republicans view them as an important complement to Trump’s official transition efforts, as long as they are out of the spotlight – and Trump is not angered.”

AFPI was founded in 2021 and CEO Brooke Rollins is a longtime Trump ally. Former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway leads AFPI’s Center for the American Child.

Conway told Politico: “For three and a half years, AFPI has been focused on personnel and policy. It was founded by and is full of senior staff from the first Trump administration whose goal is to be ready on day one. Linda McMahon, Brooke Rollins and the team planned with precision and executed with the humility that forces you to keep your head down.”

Fuchs and McGraw point out that AFPI’s “connections and access to Trump and his allies are very extensive,” including McMahon, the AFPI’s board chairman.

READ MORE: Why JD Vance’s efforts to blame staff for ‘bizarre and unpleasant’ bakery visit fall flat: Analysis

Right-wing lobbyist Bryan Lanza told Politico: “They got permission from Trump. Linda is a former Cabinet official and is now in the transition phase. I think that shows there is some connection there.”

Fuchs and McGraw point to the AFPI’s “dark money” support.

“The group is well-funded, although as a 501(c)(3) dark money nonprofit it does not disclose its donors,” Politico report. “In 2022, it took in $23.6 million in revenue, according to a recently filed tax return, and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation to a number of former Trump administration officials. Trump loyalists within the group, sometimes referred to as the former president’s ‘White House in waiting,’ include Rollins – Trump’s former director of the Domestic Policy Council – and Larry Kudlow, his former director of the National Economic Council.”

“Trump has hosted fundraisers for AFPI at his Mar-a-Lago club, his PAC Save America has donated to the group, and his first major speech in Washington since leaving the White House came at an AFPI event,” they added.

READ MORE: MAGA Senator Josh Hawley is criticized for his push to “control us in the bedroom”

Read Politico’s full report at this link.