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NewsNation host Chris Cuomo on Thursday refuted Democrats’ assertions that The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 would turn former President Donald Trump into a “dictator” if re-elected.

The Democratic Party’s website states that it is a “fact” that Project 2025 is a “‘Trump-Driven Operation’ To Let Him Be a Dictator on Day One” despite the former president denying any awareness or involvement with the initiative. Cuomo, on “The Chris Cuomo Project,” dismissed the notion that Project 2025 poses an existential threat to democracy, arguing the document outlines “conservative values” and urging Democrats to stop spreading false claims about the dangers Trump allegedly presents.

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“Donald Trump is not a threat to democracy. Project 2025, it’s conservative values — like them, don’t like them. Unitary executive, giving a president more power, it’s not the same as making him a despot or a dictator, okay? Getting rid of the Department of Education — I don’t like the idea, it’s not destroying democracy, and the distinction matters,” Cuomo said. “Neither is a threat to changing America’s institutions. I don’t believe that. But Project 2025 says he wants to replace the bureaucracy with his own people. Yeah, it’s also not going to happen. And even if it did, it wouldn’t destroy the institution, it would just put a bunch of people in there.”

“And, by the way, he could barely fill his judgeships. He barely staffed his administration. Go back and look how many open places there were. They’ll say, ‘Oh, we reduced the size of government.’ No, you were inept at hiring. It’s harder to do than saying it. So I don’t believe in the threat,” he added. “Now, you may find that unsatisfying because you want Trump to be bad. He gives you enough ammo. The truth is enough. Don’t stretch it and pervert it, because then you are becoming what you say you oppose, which is a sub-theme to the threat to our democracy.”

Trump faced a second assassination attempt on Sunday and the suspect that authorities apprehended later the same day, Ryan Wesley Routh, previously posted that “democracy is on the ballot” in 2024. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on “The Rachel Maddow Show” Monday did not tamp down her rhetoric after the attempt, repeatedly characterizing Trump as “dangerous” and mentioning Project 2025 as well as the former president’s “desire to be a dictator.”

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“Americans need to understand that they have to take Trump both seriously and literally. He has said what he wants to do. He and his allies with Project 2025, his desire to be a dictator at least on day one. All of that is in the public record,” Clinton said. And I believe that more Americans have to be willing to endure what frankly is discomforting and to some extent kind of painful, to take him at his word and to be outraged by what he represents.”

Democratic Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, during the August Democratic National Convention, held a massive book with the cover of Project 2025 and called it a “plan to turn Donald Trump into a dictator.”

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