GOP Rep. Scott Perry Went From Hailing Project 2025 To Knowing Nothing About It

“I don’t even know how many pages it is,” the Pennsylvania Republican told a constituent, a month after praising the far-right policy roadmap for its “accountability.”

WASHINGTON ― Ahead of the November elections, Republicans have been scrambling to distance themselves from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page, right-wing policy blueprint for radically restructuring the U.S. government under a second Trump presidency.

For Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who is running for reelection in a very tight race, the exact moment he backed away from it appears to have been between July and August, when he suddenly shifted from celebrating Project 2025 to pretending he didn’t know much about it at all.

The issue could come up ― and could prove to be awkward ― during Perry’s Tuesday night debate with his Democratic challenger, former TV news anchor Janelle Stelson. It’s their first and only debate before the November election. The Cook Political Report’s rating for this seat in Pennsylvania’s 10th congressional district is “lean Republican.” Perry and Stelson are virtually tied in the polls, per the polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight.

Perry was asked about Project 2025 in a July 13 interview with conservative radio show host Chris Stigall. Democrats and constitutional law experts have been denouncing the plan, which would expand presidential power and aims to impose an ultra-conservative social agenda on the country, as “extremist” and a “significant move to an authoritarian government.”

But in his interview, Perry said he agreed with Stigall in that there’s nothing “secret or subversive” about Project 2025, which was put together by former Trump administration officials, and calls for purging thousands of career civil servants from federal government agencies and replacing them with vetted conservatives in a second Trump administration.