Inside the legal plans by foes of Donald Trump and Project 2025 to fight his second-term agenda

CNN —

If Donald Trump is elected, he’ll take office next year having learned the lessons of four years of legal battles in his first term, during which inexperienced personnel, slapdash policymaking and his own indifference to how the federal government worked made his agenda especially vulnerable to legal challenges.

The 2024 Republican nominee already has a clear idea of how he’d jumpstart a second term, with plans to immediately enact hardline immigration policies and to dismantle civil service protections for thousands of federal employees.

Paul Dans, director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation, speaks at the National Religious Broadcasters convention on February 22 in Nashville.

Related article Project 2025 director steps down amid backlash from Trump

His allies, including the influential conservative organizations that have participated in the endeavor known as Project 2025, have crafted policy papers and vetted potential Trump-aligned staff that could swiftly be hired to the federal government, so that his vision could be quickly and effectively implemented. (Trump himself has tried to distance himself from Project 2025 but many of his policies and goals overlap.)

“Honestly, the Trump administration was often sloppy in the way they rolled out these executive orders, including the first Muslim travel ban,” Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson told CNN, referring to the Trump ban on migrants from several Muslim-majority countries that was the target of one of nearly 100 lawsuits brought by the Evergreen State against the Trump administration.

Ferguson said his office was “building the airplane as we were flying it” at the time. Now, the Washington Democrat – who is running for governor – has