But this massive enterprise which reportedly includes over 1000 individuals, at least 140 of whom have ties to the Trump administration, is likely not going to just disappear.

“To be clear,” Sollenberger adds, “this isn’t ideological & doesn’t mean Project 2025’s goals & policies are rejected—years of work led by former Trump admin officials. There’s a long-running rivalry over controlling a next admin. Senior Trump adviser Chris LaCivita led the charge against Dans.”

But Politicosays Dans departing, “does not mean the project, which has been repeatedly criticized by Democrats as well as Donald Trump, is shutting down.”

Sollenberger goes on to say, “Top Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita ‘put the screws’ to Project 2025 director Paul Dans, per source familiar, forcing him out amid popular backlash to the politically toxic right-wing policy manifesto.”

In his new reporting at The Daily Beast, Sollenberger adds, “There’s just one glaring problem with the Trump camp’s attempt to distance itself from Project 2025: J.D. Vance’s fingerprints are all over the right-wing project.”

The Brookings Institution’s Norm Eisen, a CNN legal analyst, responded to the news saying, “The firing of Project 2025 head Paul Dans was an admission of guilt! Dans told the truth about the hoped-for autocracy.”

“That’s a crime in Trump world. We have the receipts,” he added, pointing to Just Security’s “American Autocracy Threat Tracker,” which “comprehensively catalogs all of Trump’s and his allies’ Project 2025 and other specific plans and promises.”

Project 2025 is backed by over 100 groups, including Southern Poverty Law Center-listed hate groups, and its public 920-page blueprint, authored by top Trump acolytes and advisors, is still readily available online.

Trump has claimed he knows nothing about Project 2025, but The Wall Street Journalon Tuesday, reporting on Dans’ exit, noted, “Trump has privately expressed annoyance that Project 2025 has received so much attention, and he resents the notion that the group is ghostwriting his policies and choosing candidates to fill the top ranks of his administration, according to associates.”

Just weeks agoThe Daily Beastreported, “Donald Trump is going to great lengths on the campaign trail to distance himself from Project 2025, the controversial blueprint for his second administration—but he can’t seem to outrun his past praise for the people behind it, or their past claims that he is fully on board with their plans.”