Project 2025’s next chapter

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Today, Explained 28 min 13 speakers 2 chapters transcribed
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What is Project Esther and how does it relate to Project 2025?

Russell Contreras (Senior Reporter at Axios) 1:54
Well, there is a playbook that was created by the Heritage Foundation called Project Esther. Many listeners may remember the Heritage Foundation for their Project 2025. Yes. And so Project Esther could be seen as an addendum.
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Project Esther, a national strategy to combat anti-Semitism.
Russell Contreras (Senior Reporter at Axios) 2:20
It's a blueprint for the administration. It was released around October of last year, before the election, not a lot of press. It calls for an administration to rebrand pro-Palestinian protesters as Hamas supporters.
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The Hamas support network and its nihilist supporters indoctrinate the gullible into supporting Hamas and hating Israel to create the street mayhem that serves their ends.

How does Project Esther define and target pro-Palestinian protesters?

Russell Contreras (Senior Reporter at Axios) 2:47
It also calls for the administration to go after any funders, nonprofits, progressive-leaning groups who are supporting protesters.
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We have several laws at our disposal that may help to exploit Hamas support network and Hamas support organization vulnerabilities, such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Russell Contreras (Senior Reporter at Axios) 3:07
Project Esther lays out a plan for administration to implement that, and that's what happened when the Trump administration came in. The plan was right there.
DHS Official 3:15
If you tell us when you apply for your visa, and by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, anti-Semitic activities. I intend to shut down your universities. If you told us all these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa. I hope we would. If you actually end up doing that once you're in this country on such a visa, we will revoke it.
Noel King 3:37
Okay, so Project Esther comes from the Heritage Foundation. Who wrote it exactly?
Russell Contreras (Senior Reporter at Axios) 3:42
It looks like it was a coalition of Heritage Foundation authors. The document clearly states that we're doing this because we have concluded there's been Jewish complacency. That means Jewish American groups, American Jews have not done enough to fight anti-Semitism.
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Some may be in such disbelief that they cannot even acknowledge the threat. More likely, many simply do not know what to do and are waiting for leadership to guide them.

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