photo credit: Representative Jared Huffman

There's been a whirlwind of political news the past two weeks, to get one perspective, KRCB News spoke with North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman about his views on Project 2025 and the state of national politics.

Huffman has taken the lead in forming the Stop Project 2025 Congressional Task Force.

Below is the full conversation between KRCB's Noah Abrams and Huffman.

Noah Abrams: "Please just start by telling...folks who might not have heard of it yet, what exactly the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 is."

Rep. J. Huffman: "So, Trump's Project 2025, it's more than just the Heritage Foundation. It's over 110 MAGA groups that have come together on this, including dozens and dozens of alumni from the first Trump administration and people from his inner political circle, people who will definitely be part of a second Trump administration."

"So when I talk about Project 2025 I call it what it is, which is Trump's Project 2025; and it is a 920 page, very specific plan that they have published laying out in detail all of the extreme measures that they intend to take under a second Trump administration. It touches every part of government. It takes total control not only over our government, but over many of our individual freedoms, and the more people learn about it, we're finding that the more alarmed they are."

NA: "Are there some specific policies, personnel management recommendations or regulatory positions that have been outlined in Project 2025 that you're chiefly concerned about..ones that might have the most material impact on residents in California's Second Congressional district?"

JH: "Yes, certainly...Everybody in America is gonna be affected by these. So let's start with the plan to fire more than...55,000 federal employees across the whole of government. And these people are gonna be fired based on political reasons. Anybody who has been part of a diversity, equity or inclusion program, anybody that has ever donated to a Democrat in their life, anybody who has been working on climate change or something that's a little bit too science-like for the sensibilities of this extreme, often Christian nationalist movement that is driving, Project 2025; they're gone, summarily gone and they're gonna be replaced."

"This is your new federal workforce under Trump's Project 2025 with a cadre of MAGA loyalists that will have gone through a political training academy. These academies are up and running now. A database of these people is being developed. They say that it's at least 10 or 11,000 strong right now. So these are your future food inspectors, and air traffic controllers, and federal workers across the workforce. A full politicization of the federal workforce so that everyone at every level will be assured to do exactly what Donald Trump wants them to do."

NA: "I think the departure from the norms of bureaucratic standards that were established through the 20th century, I think it can't be understated how much this would be."

JH: "Just another note on that...they call it Schedule F reform. It's basically a gutting of the civil service system. They tried to do it in the first Trump administration. So this is not...a farfetched scheme at all. This is something that they did try, they couldn't get it done, in part because they just weren't very good at navigating the Administrative Procedures Act and other things."

photo credit: Project 2025
Project 2025 handbook cover

"This time around, they've got a much more insidious plan to actually do it, and you gotta believe them when they say this is what they're going to do. And that plan includes literally challenging the courts to stop them. And many of the folks behind Project 2025, including people like JD Vance, the vice presidential nominee, have said if they get any adverse rulings as they roll out this extreme agenda, they're gonna just dare courts to enforce their own orders. This has taken us up all the way back to the, the Andrew Jackson era of daring courts to actually enforce orders. [Be]cause courts can't enforce their own orders. These are the elements of essentially a totalitarian state, a dictatorship."

NA: "Representative, you beat me to my high school social science. I was gonna pull out Marshall and, and Jackson, and 'the court has made the decision, let them enforce it.'"

JH: "Yeah, they, they are going full Andrew Jackson as a way to make sure they can do whatever they want. They're gonna provoke constitutional crises. It's not just personnel purges that they're gonna do, they're gonna do it with something called the Impoundment Act. So one of the ways Congress provides a check and balance on too much executive power is the power of the purse. Under our Constitution, Congress makes the spending decisions. Well they believe that a president under this unitary executive theory, theirs ought to be able to just ignore Congress's appropriations bills and, and budgets and either not spend money or maybe withhold money to leverage political outcomes."

"So let's say there's another terrible fire in Northern California, they want to be able to tell FEMA not to issue disaster dollars unless California stops maybe treating immigrants a certain way, unless California changes its marriage and family policies and its abortion policies. They lay it all out and then they would dare the courts to enforce the Impoundment Act, which they believe is unconstitutional, and they think that their friendly judges will overrule it."

NA: "Are there concrete actions that you support, obviously you've started the Stop Project 2025 Task Force, you have congressional allies that are hoping to push back, you know, I've, I've read through your scathing critique of the presidential immunity ruling. I know that environmental law is such a big part of your policy expertise; obviously the rollback of the Chevron deference, you know, I think that most acutely probably will be felt by residents here in Northern California with how much environmental protection is a cornerstone of legislating around here."

"I know you've called for the investigation into ethics violations by FCC Commissioner Carr for his contributions to Project 2025. You know, are there other steps, maybe repeal the Comstock Act? I saw that you brought that up recently in addresses that there's concerns about its utilization to, to roll back abortion rights."

JH: "Yeah, we should maybe explain what the Comstock Act is, because it features pretty prominently in Trump's Project 2025. So these are these morality codes that were passed in the 1870's, and it basically declares a whole bunch of different things to be indecent and obscene. So not just, you know, hardcore pornography, but anything that could be used to terminate a pregnancy; that's right there in the Comstock Act."

"Project 2025 kind of dusts off this ancient morality code from the 1870’s [that] hasn't been applied in decades because most people think it's unconstitutional. But they would...use it sweepingly to define basically anything that deals with gender or family in a non-biblical way that they think is obscene; and so teachers who talk about homosexuality or sex education or transgender issues or anything like that, they could be prosecuted under this law and Project 2025 calls for that."

"Anything that is used in connection with an abortion nationwide, even in a state like California where we've protected abortion rights, their interpretation of the Comstock Act would say that if you are, you know, one of the 60% of abortions that is done with mifepristone, a drug that's mailed, in most cases, that's criminal, you can't do it. And let's say you're a Planned Parenthood clinic in California. If you get any of your supplies sent to you, not just through the US Mail, but by FedEx or Amazon, or shipped to you in any way from out of state, that's criminal too. So the effect of this is a nationwide abortion ban and nationwide imposition of these morality codes that most people would find quite draconian and want nothing to do with."

NA: "Any chance there's a repeal of the Comstock Act in Congress. Do you think that could happen or?"

JH: "Yeah, there should be. Now the, the one tricky thing about that, we, we of course are gonna propose that, but you know, we're in the minority right now in the House [of Representatives], and I'm not sure we would have the votes to get, we wouldn't to get around a filibuster in the Senate. But we're gonna try, and I think it's unlikely to happen if we win this election, absolutely we can open up the Comstock Act."

"Now, one part of the Comstock Act that has continued to be used in recent days is the provision that allows prosecution of like child pornography and child sex trafficking and things like that. So there is a way to hang on to pieces of it that may still be, that are still useful without allowing this sort of 1870's biblical morality code imposition that Trump's Project 2025 is proposing."

NA: "Any other thoughts about what constituents, residents, listeners, voters should know about the Stop Project 2025 Task Force and your efforts along with your, your allies in Congress to push back against this?"

JH: "Yeah, well, we're working hard. People should know that. I've got three dozen colleagues now in the House that have joined the task force. The issue has taken on such importance that the entire Democratic caucus has basically adopted it as a priority message for the next a hundred days. We think the American people need to really understand what's coming in Trump's Project 2025, because the, the polling shows that, you know, still most people haven't heard of it. As soon as they do, they want nothing to do with it. And so we need to educate them in the next three months so that, you know, the best way to stop Project 2025 is to stop it at the ballot box."

NA: "So a lot has happened in the US and world politics in the past, let's say two weeks. What have you or what do you make of everything from the attempt on former President Trump's life? The messages and scenes we saw at the Republican National Convention? And then...President Biden's momentous decision on Sunday to end his campaign and support Vice President Harris for the nomination."

JH: "Remarkable times. Yeah, it feels like we've lived about, you know, a decade of history in 30 days or less. So my head is spinning in a way, but at the same time, this is just a super important moment. These things that are happening are going to shape our, our country for generations to come. And my priority, of course is winning the election. You know, we...have just been talking about Trump's Project 2025. It's a real thing. You can look it up, you can Google it. This is not something I'm telling you about or Democrats are telling you about. This is something that Donald Trump's political circle has put out as what they call their war plan. And you need to know what's coming 'cause it's extreme. And if we don't win this election, it's gonna be very, very hard to stop it."

"So that's why I put my neck out very far, right after Joe Biden's terrible debate performance. Once it became clear that that was probably gonna fatally constrain his campaign...he was not gonna be able to recover from that in...the opinion of just about every knowledgeable political expert I know, and the polls began to show that right away. So we needed either [to] make a change or lose the election, and as painful as it was, 'cause none of us wanted to go public in a way that could be seen as disrespecting Joe Biden, we revere this guy, but we had to. Especially after the first couple of weeks when the, the private pressure campaign wasn't working, we had to start going public; and I was one of those who did it, and it wasn't fun, it wasn't pleasant, but I had to do it. And we also pushed to make sure that the Democratic National Committee under under Biden's campaign team direction didn't jam through this virtual roll call in a way that would've prevented us from changing the ticket. So it, it, it all ended well on Sunday with President Biden's decision. In like 48 hours, the entire world has changed, and that has just been one of the most remarkable 48 hours of my life. I've never seen anything like it."

NA: "I haven't seen any statements, so forgive me if I missed it, but are you throwing your support behind Vice President Harris as the nominee at the moment? Or would you like to see [an open convention]?"

JH: "Yeah, I, I threw my support behind her right after the debate. You know, even before I called on the president to pass the torch, I started saying, 'listen, you should think about this because we've got this great candidate waiting in the wings,' and I started talking about how great Kamala could be, how she could re-energize the race. And that was one of my main messages for the last three weeks, really, was to focus people on the upside of this moment, right. There was a lot of angst and doom and gloom, oh no, changing tickets. And, you know, to me, I always saw a great upside, the potential to just reset this race and catch lightning in a bottle and win. And I think, you know, it's, it's early still, but I think that's happening."

NA: "So I think the debate obviously played a really big role in the President being asked to end his candidacy, but I think, you know, his role in relation to the conflict in Gaza probably can't be ignored; and the uncommitted vote campaigns that we've seen in other states. Do you have any thoughts about where that issue's headed? About Vice President Harris choosing not to attend Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech? And if I can ask too, are you planning to attend his address to Congress?"

JH: "No, I'm not going to attend, and I'm glad that Vice President Harris is not attending. You know, the truth is this appearance by Netanyahu is a political stunt. It is a partisan political stunt by House Republicans, and I'm not interested in being a prop for both Netanyahu and Speaker Mike Johnson to try to score political points when they designed this at the expense of Joe Biden. Had Kamala Harris been presiding, it would've been at the expense of her. And every single time she stood or didn't stand or clapped or didn't clap, you know, would've been put under a microscope; and I think she made the right decision not to be there. So, look I am no fan of Netanyahu. This war needs to end. It is terrible and tragic...I don't like the way this war has been fought."

"It began as what I would call a just war. Although, you know, that is a term that you never feel wildly comfortable with. All war is brutal. But the October 7th attack by Hamas was, was a terrible thing. And any country would have responded....and Israel did. It spiraled into something though that became completely untenable...not long after it started. Honestly the humanitarian toll on innocent civilians was just extreme, and Israel, I think made some of the same mistakes we made in the aftermath of 9-11. We acted out of rage in trying to avenge the attack on the World Trade Center, and we did some dumb things, and I think Israel did that as well."

"And of course, this extreme government that Netanyahu is clinging to includes some really un-tethered people that are, you know, in their own right racists and want to establish dominion over Gaza and the West Bank in ways that I could never support. So...it's an awful situation, and I am no fan of the occupation of West Bank. I'm no fan of the way Gaza has been blockaded. Of course, I'm no fan of Hamas either. And I think their absolute primary culpability in all of this can't be lost...but it's a mess, and...we need a ceasefire. We need to end this war."

NA: "So I got one last big question for you. Any positive developments that you're clocking within the district that we shouldn't lose sight of?"

JH: "Oh my goodness, yes. In the district, there's some very exciting things happening. I mean we're investing in infrastructure like we haven't in decades, and it's not just roads and bridges. I mean the smart train is extending up to Windsor in the months ahead. We've got the funding to get it over the river into Healdsburg. We're gonna get it to Cloverdale. We are investing in broadband throughout rural Sonoma County and the rest of the North Coast. The investments and economic development work that we're doing in Indian Country is just transforming lives. Our clean energy investments are really paying off a little further north. This offshore wind project in Humboldt County is exciting. There's thousands and thousands of permanent, good quality union jobs coming to an area that has struggled to find sustainable economic development for the last several decades."

"And the value chain for that offshore wind industry in Humboldt County is gonna extend throughout the North Bay and the North Coast. They're gonna be companies providing all kinds of services and components. So it's exciting, it's great news. The Klamath dams are coming out. We're gonna land the plane on the Potter Valley Project, decommissioning in a way that protects everybody's water supply, but also opens up this incredible wild free flowing river for the Eel River. So, good things are absolutely happening, and I could go on and on, but, there's plenty to celebrate, you know...while we worry frankly about the fate of our democracy and the fate of the world hanging in the balance in this election."

NA: "Representative Huffman, thank you so much for speaking with me and with our listeners at KRCB. I really appreciate it."

An earlier version of this story has been updated to reflect the whole conversation between Representative Huffman and KRCB's Noah Abrams.