‘Project 2025’ Director Departs Role After Clashing With Trump; Plan Would Slash Abortion Rights, Medicaid

The Hill: Project 2025 Director Steps Down Amid Trump Campaign Criticism
The director of the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025, Paul Dans, is departing from the role, the conservative think tank’s president, Kevin Roberts, said Tuesday. “When we began Project 2025 in April 2022, we set a timeline for the project to conclude its policy drafting after the two party conventions this year, and we are sticking to that timeline,” Roberts said in a statement. ... The project, made up of a coalition of more conservative organizations and many Trump allies, includes a 900-page hard-right policy blueprint intended to guide the next conservative administration and a bank of individuals who could staff it. Trump and his campaign have distanced themselves from Project 2025, which takes a farther right stance on some issues than Trump does. (Brooks, 7/30)

Forbes: What Is Project 2025? Trump’s Potential Policy Agenda Explained As Its Director Steps Down
While Project 2025 doesn’t explicitly call for an abortion ban, it would take many steps to restrict the procedure, including directing the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its approval of abortion drug mifepristone, using the Comstock Act to block any abortion equipment or medication from being mailed—which abortion rights advocates have said would be a “backdoor” way to ban abortion—barring federal funds being used to provide healthcare coverage for abortion and requiring states to report all abortions that take place there to the federal government. (Durkee, 7/30)

Mother Jones: Here’s How The GOP Platform Could Lead To A Nationwide Abortion Ban 
In drafting their platform, the GOP claimed the party does not plan to ban abortion nationwide (maybe because they know it is extremely politically unpopular). But the latest person to say that position is not, exactly, true is Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, an influential anti-abortion advocacy group. In an interview published Monday, Hawkins told the New York Times that, contrary to some mainstream headlines, the latest GOP platform does not represent a “softening” on abortion. (McShane, 7/30)

USA Today: Project 2025 Decried As Racist. Some Contributors Have Trail Of Racist Writings, Activity
Billed as a vision built by conservatives for conservatives, the effort “dismantles the unaccountable Deep State, taking power away from Leftist elites and giving it back to the American people and duly-elected President,” according to its website.  But for months commentators and academics have been sounding the alarm on Project 2025. The effort, they say, is a deeply racist endeavor that actually is aimed at dismantling many protections and aid programs for Americans of color. (Carless, 7/29)

Stat: Predicting The Key Players In Shaping Health Policy Under Trump 
A second Trump administration would bring a new wave of health policy officials into power in Washington. But many of those faces may be familiar. (Owermohle and Zhang, 7/31)

In election updates from the Democrats —

Politico: Harris To Hold First Rally With Running Mate Tuesday In Philadelphia
Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to announce her running mate by Tuesday, when she will hold her first rally with her pick in Philadelphia. The two will barnstorm cities in seven swing states in four days. In addition to Philadelphia, they’ll hit western Wisconsin, Detroit, Raleigh, Savannah, Phoenix and Las Vegas. (Otterbein and Daniels, 7/30)

Politico: Will Harris Move Faster Than Biden On Supreme Court Reform? 
Vice President Kamala Harris is embracing President Joe Biden’s call to revamp the Supreme Court. Like her boss, it’s the first time she has ever endorsed structural changes to the court. But there are small signs that, if elected president, Harris would prioritize the issue more forcefully than Biden ever has. Unlike Biden, who flatly rejected term limits for the justices when he was a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris said at the time that she was open to the idea. She even professed openness to a more radical proposal: expanding the size of the court. (Gerstein and Latson, 7/31)

Modern Healthcare: Health Rules 2024: What’s Next For Medicare, Prior Authorization
President Joe Biden has some unfinished business on health policy, and the final months of his term in office will feature a flurry of regulations touching areas from Medicare payments to prior authorizations to cybersecurity. ... While Harris likely would continue along a similar trajectory as Biden, she would put her own stamp on policy from the White House as president, while Trump's record and agenda indicate he would take health policy in a very different direction. (Early, 7/30)