Donald Trump Is Already Casting His 2025 Staff

Allies of Donald Trump are already looking to build an administration-in-waiting in the case that the former president can successfully win the Republican nomination and go on to beat Joe Biden in the 2024 election.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, is taking applications for what it describes as its "Presidential Transition Project Talent Database," as part of Project 2025.

According to a recent Axios report, citing those involved in the effort, the program is harnessing artificial intelligence to screen applicants' ideologies to ensure they align with Trump's, as part of a bid to ensure he can install like-minded individuals at every level of government. Newsweek could not immediately verify this information.

While the operation may at first glance as a precautionary move—many of Trump's cabinet and White House staff at the start of his first term were conventional Republicans, while others are now cooperating with prosecutors in a criminal investigation against him—one expert described it as a "political strategy" to make a successful presidential run seem "inevitable."

"Trump knows his opposition will go psychotic just knowing that he's doing it," Thomas Gift, a professor of American political science at University College London, told Newsweek.

Newsweek approached the Trump campaign and Project 2025 via email for comment on Tuesday.

According to the Project 2025 website, it is "not enough for conservatives to win elections," but also required is "a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration."

It promises to "pave the way for an effective conservative administration" including developing a policy agenda, as well as training for the personnel it recruits. Its advisory board is formed of more than 80 conservative organizations sympathetic to the former president, including Turning Point U.S.A. and the anti-abortion Alliance Defending Freedom.

While Trump will likely struggle to bring back old faces into any new administration, he remains popular with the party faithful.

The Republican presidential primary has already seen several figures from Trump's first administration launch campaigns against him, including his former vice president, Mike Pence, who dropped out of the race at the end of October, and Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

"If Trump retakes the White House, there's no doubt he'll have trouble handpicking the kind of talent he did in the first term," Gift said. "Few serious public servants will want to touch his administration with a ten-foot pole."

He added: "They saw what happened in Round 1. Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci lasting for a whole of about 15 seconds. A round-robin of chiefs of staff. Musical chairs among his cabinet. And plenty of top officials resigning en masse in the wake of January 6."

But the former president's prospective hiring outfit may serve another purpose as he continues to perform well in primary polls.

According to the latest Morning Consult survey of 3,619 likely voters, conducted between November 17-19, 66 percent of Republicans said they would back Trump to 13 percent support for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his main rival in the GOP primary. Recent national polls by FiveThirtyEight also give Trump a smaller lead over Biden.

Despite facing several legal battles that could hamper his chances of being re-elected, the former president appears sure that he will win a second term. "2024 is our final battle," he wrote on his Truth social media platform on Sunday. "We will evict Joe Biden from the White House, and we will FINISH THE JOB ONCE AND FOR ALL!"

"Of course, it's premature to be thinking seriously about 'naming names' so far in advance—or at least leaking this kind of information," Gift commented. "But that's exactly the point.

"Trump's 2024 run so far has been defined by one word: inevitable. Brainstorming potential cabinet picks a year before the election fits into that theme perfectly. It projects the kind of excessive faith in his ability to win that he hopes supporters will find infectious, and critics will find demoralizing."