Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney general, is committed to peddling a conservative Christian agenda, raising concerns about how she can ensure equal treatment for all Americans under the law. Bondi is a well-known election denier who served as Trump’s personal secretary during his first impeachment trial. Notably, Bondi refused to rule out probes of Trump’s foes during her Senate confirmation hearings, which would exact retribution against opponents of the president. She also pledged during her confirmation hearing to stop the alleged discrimination by the FBI and the Department of Justice against Christian churches and anti-abortion Americans, which were prompted by a series of leading questions that falsely claimed the Biden administration targeted religious Americans.
During her tenure as Florida attorney general from 2011 to 2019, Bondi prioritized conservative Christian beliefs, opposing legal equality for same-sex couples and fighting to curtail women’s reproductive rights. She also supported weakening state/church separation by advocating for a proposed constitutional amendment that would have stripped language in the state constitution barring public funds from being used “in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.”
After finishing her term as Florida attorney general, Bondi became a corporate lawyer and joined the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank dedicated to promoting policies aligned with Trump’s agenda and often described as “the other Project 2025.” As part of the institute, Bondi filed a lawsuit on behalf of U.S. Air Force members against the Biden administration for their refusal to issue religious exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. She also filed an amicus brief in the case of Coach Joe Kennedy’s imposition of prayer on the Bremerton High School football team, which the Institute described as an “individual religious expression.” Bondi co-authored a Daily Caller op-ed with Trump’s spiritual “adviser” Paula White in support of the coach.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum is a climate skeptic—disputing established climate science, denying that human activity causes climate change and criticizing previous actions taken on climate change mitigation in the United States and abroad. Burgum has consistently pushed for opening public lands to drilling and has accepted hundreds of thousands in campaign funds from Big Oil donors. Burgum has personal investments with Harold Hamm, the devout Catholic oil tycoon who assisted Trump in selecting his energy nominees.
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Burgum emphasized that the Interior Department is key to geopolitical power struggles. He argued that growing nuclear and climate-warming coal, oil and gas energy production is a matter of national security. He also claimed that greenhouse gas emissions can be mitigated using unproven technology and that renewable energy threatens the electrical grid and is too highly subsidized. Following Burgum’s nomination, Trump announced his intention to establish a National Energy Council, which Burgum will chair to “oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE” and to focus on “the battle for AI superiority.”
As governor of North Dakota, Burgum signed a law banning abortion at six weeks, even in cases of rape and incest. Although, as a Methodist, he is not known for often speaking about his faith, he claims faith has sustained him in difficult times: “It’s been a key part of all I’ve done.”
Harmeet K. Dhillon, Trump’s pick to lead the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, will divert the division’s focus from protecting marginalized groups and ensuring equal protection for all Americans under the law and instead prioritize advancing a narrow, sectarian agenda.
Dhillon is an attorney, media personality and Republican Party official who has long been a vocal advocate for policies and legal positions prioritizing religious privilege over individual rights and the separation of state and church. She has championed cases that weaponize religious freedom to undermine reproductive rights, LGBTQ-plus equality and public health protections. While running for the chair of the Republican National Committee in 2024, Dhillon emailed members of the Alabama Republican Party steering committee to assure them that, despite her Sikh faith, she would still “champion our nation’s Judeo-Christian values.”
Dhillon has also legally represented churches that sought to gather in large numbers at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, despite state restrictions. In 2020, the Dhillon Law Group and the Center for American Liberty filed a lawsuit on behalf of California pastors and church members that made it to the Supreme Court. FFRF submitted an amicus brief in the case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, contending that California’s public health orders did not target religious activity because the rules also applied to similarly situated secular gatherings.
Pete Hegseth, who left a job anchoring on Fox News to become defense secretary, is a fervent Christian nationalist with Crusade-era tattoos. He has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 2017 and faces multiple allegations of heavy workplace drinking. Although Hegseth denied the assault and initially used prayer as a defense when the allegations first surfaced, he later paid a settlement to the woman. During his Senate confirmation, allegations from Hegseth’s former sister-in-law emerged, claiming that he caused his ex-wife to fear for her safety.
Hegesth has no experience as a lawmaker or in defense policy and has fully immersed himself in a culture of Christian nationalism and political extremism. His controversial tattoos include a Jerusalem Cross (Crusaders’ Cross) tattooed on his chest, which reportedly prevented him from being part of the security detail for President Biden’s inauguration. He also has “Deus vult,” translated to “God wills it,” tattooed on his bicep, which, notably, was a battle cry used during the First Crusade. The combination of the two tattoos presents a troubling picture of Hegseth’s admiration for religious and political violence. He views America’s military strength as a tool for advancing his warrior vision of Christianity. In his book, “American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free,” Hegeth called for a new “American crusade” against “the Left.” “This time in our history calls for an American Crusade. Yes, a holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom,” writes Hegseth. He calls “Make America Great Again” a “political miracle.”
In his book “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” Hegseth claimed that “woke” generals have left the military “effeminate” and that “the next commander in chief will need to clean house.” In November 2024, he said, “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective.” In his book, Hegseth also criticized policies allowing gay people to serve openly in the U.S. military as a part of a “Marxist” agenda, bringing broad cultural change that undermines military effectiveness.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s health secretary, is a clear danger to public health, notorious for his outspoken denunciations of vaccinations and publicizing the widely discredited claim that childhood vaccines cause autism. Kennedy is a prominent player in the decrease in vaccinations nationwide, and, notably, he was a leading opponent of immunization during the Covid-19 pandemic and is morally implicated in the unnecessary deaths of many children in Samoa during a measles outbreak. He continually promotes dangerous public health falsities, such as insisting fluoride is “lowering IQ in our children.” Kennedy’s brand of anti-scientific rhetoric predicts he will seek to dismantle evidence-based medical knowledge. He has specifically said he’d like to give “infectious disease a break for about eight years.” Kennedy is an attorney with no degrees in medicine or public health, and his anti-science views are almost certain to further politicize public health measures.
Trump instructed Kennedy to “go wild on health … go wild on medicines.” Before being confirmed by the Senate, Kennedy promised “control” of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and federal health care agencies. He also pledged to “clear out” entire Food and Drug Administration departments. Trump and Kennedy’s hostility toward U.S. public health agencies will undoubtedly endanger the tracking of diseases and the ability of Americans to rely on federal public health websites as reliable sources of information.
Kennedy has vowed, “FDA’s war on public health is about to end,” while purporting that the FDA has suppressed a long list of treatments, including “sunshine.” Also included in Kennedy’s list is the discredited “ivermectin,” a drug usually prescribed to treat parasitic worms in livestock that pseudoscientists promoted to treat Covid. Kennedy made clear his allegiance to Trump, not public health, while alluding to God during his swearing-in: “For 20 years I’ve [unclear] been on my knees every morning and prayed if God would put me in a position where I could end the childhood chronic disease epidemic in this country. On Aug. 23 of last year, God sent me President Trump.”
Linda McMahon, Trump’s education secretary, is a loyal member of Trump’s inner circle. It appears McMahon will gladly fulfill Trump’s goal of dismantling the Education Department and expanding voucher programs that divert funding from public schools to religious private schools. “As Secretary of Education, Linda will fight tirelessly to expand ‘Choice’ to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families,” Trump proclaimed while announcing McMahon’s nomination.
McMahon is the chair of the board of the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank founded to promote Trump’s agenda and initially listed among the contributors to Project 2025. She helped start the think tank alongside Tim Dunn, the billionaire Christian nationalist pastor seeking to destroy secular public education, privatize public schools and create a theocracy. The Institute’s America First Agenda outlines the radical transformation it has planned for America’s education system in “Pillar IV: Give Parents More Control Over the Education of Their Children.” The policy blueprint also encompasses a radical vision of “religious freedom.” Her experience in education is limited to serving briefly on a board that set school policy and being a longtime trustee of a private Catholic college. She is best known as the former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment.
Elon Musk, the tech billionaire, was appointed a “special government employee” by Trump to head the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, shortly after returning to the Oval Office. DOGE’s purpose is to carry out spending cuts and to “[modernize] federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” Musk has directed the efficiency department to unprecedentedly gut public services and target international development and humanitarian assistance. Musk is working to put the United States Agency for International Development into “the wood chipper,” which some allege is due to a “personal vendetta” against USAID for its role in helping to overthrow the apartheid government of his native South Africa.
Musk’s position appears to be what political economists call “state capture,” which “occurs when wealthy private interests influence a government to such a degree that they can freely direct policy decisions and public funds for their own benefit or for the benefit of their ideological fellow travelers (or both).” Musk has a long laundry list of destructive opinions: “border security, vaccine skepticism, pronoun jokes, red-pilling, stop-the-stealing,” along with his battle against “the woke mind virus,” which he blames for one of his children transitioning as a teenager. In 2024, Musk promoted the great replacement conspiracy theory, the idea that Jewish people encourage “nonwhite people” to immigrate to Western countries to ensure “white genocide.”
Beginning in 2022, Musk began making a series of pro-Christianity statements, asserting that he was “a cultural Christian” and proclaiming, “I believe in the teachings of Christ. I believe in the Christian principles,” at a Trump rally. On his X social media platform, Musk complained that “Christianity has become toothless.” He cautioned, “Unless there is more bravery to stand up for what is fair and right, Christianity will perish.” Furthermore, Musk told a German periodical in early 2025, “When a culture loses its religion, it starts to become anti-natalist and decline in numbers.” Musk is a staunch pronatalist and has continually promoted extremist panic of declining global fertility rates and a supposed “population collapse”.
Kristi Noem, Trump’s pick for homeland security secretary, is a devoted Christian nationalist who claims to be divinely called to office. Her campaign website quotes Noem as saying, “I want to be obedient to whatever God has called me to do.” On her first full day as governor of South Dakota, she sponsored a church service in the Capitol rotunda, billed as an “Inaugural Worship Service with Governor Noem,” which directly linked the religious event to her inauguration into public office. Every aspect of the event was distinctly Christian in nature, despite assurances that “all [were] welcome.” One pastor said: “We thank you Lord God that we have faith and that the Holy Spirit absolutely takes over every corner and every crevice of this Capitol and of this state.” Her official gubernatorial bio was headlined, “South Dakota: Under God, the People Rule.” Noem has disputed that the U.S. Constitution separates religion from government.
Noem once told South Dakota Public Radio, “My relationship with the Lord is my foundation in all things. As a result, the values I hold according to biblical principles impact my decisions.” Noem has been called “America’s most pro-life governor” and advocates for school prayer. In 2019, she successfully mandated that every public school prominently display “In God We Trust,” and has been closely linked to Moms For Liberty, the anti-LGBTQ-plus organization aiming to integrate Christianity into U.S. public schools. In 2021, Noem signed a religious refusal bill into law, granting a license to discriminate against the LGBTQ-plus community. She also endorsed Trump’s discriminatory actions during his first administration, which banned Muslims from seven countries from U.S. refugee programs and immigration. She is expected to fall into lockstep with Trump in renewing these bans during his second administration.
Noem is notoriously known for her memoir titled “No Going Back,” which recounts her decision two decades ago to shoot her 14-month-old dog Cricket after leading her to a gravel pit.
Russell Vought, Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is a major player in implementing Project 2025. Vought authored the Project 2025 chapter that covers the “Executive Office of the President,” laying the groundwork for a broad expansion of presidential powers. He previously served as OMB director from 2020 to 2021. During his tenure, Vought sought to use Trump’s 2020 “Schedule F” executive order to strip away job protections for nonpartisan government workers, sought cuts to science-based programs and health initiatives, favored faith-based initiatives over secular and science-based programs and supported religious exemptions that allowed organizations to discriminate against LGBTQ-plus individuals and others under the pretext of religious freedom. Additionally, Vought has long advocated for reinstating the presidential “impoundment” power to withhold funds appropriated by Congress. Before his role in the first Trump administration, Vought was the vice president of Heritage Action for America, affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, the think tank behind Project 2025.
After leaving the first Trump administration, Vought promoted religious extremism through his organization, the Center for Renewing America. The Center actively champions policies rooted in Christian nationalism. The Center’s mission is to “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God,” and its work focuses on blocking regulations affecting conservative big tech companies, opposing the spread of critical race theory and advocating for stricter security measures in U.S. elections. The group was part of the advisory board for Project 2025.
In 2021, Vought unabashedly embraced Christian nationalism in an essay titled, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’” The essay argued for “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.” In a 2024 podcast interview, Vought said it’s appropriate to question whether immigrants “have any sense of the Judeo-Christian worldview that this country was founded on,” adding, “And that doesn’t mean we don’t give religious liberty, but it does mean — are they wanting to come here and assimilate?” Before the 2024 election, a British nonprofit released hidden camera footage of Vought discussing the blueprint for a second Trump term and his work to prepare policy for Trump. In the footage, Vought complained that the Republican party was too focused on “religious liberty” instead of “Christian nationism.” While Trump publicly rejected Project 2025 during campaigning, Vought was working with the Center to prepare how to implement his dangerous policy ideas by drafting hundreds of executive orders, regulations and memos. Vought asserted that Trump “blessed” his organization in the footage.
Chris Wright, Trump’s energy secretary, is a chief executive of a fracking company. He has “made a fortune from gas and oil,” and his nomination was supported by Harold Hamm, the religious oil tycoon who assisted Trump in selecting his energy nominees. In 2023, Wright made a series of inflammatory statements disputing climate change. At his Senate confirmation hearing, Wright claimed that he does not deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change, while also arguing that climate change does not warrant any reductions in fossil fuel production. In the past, Wright has called fossil fuels a solution to global poverty.
Zeldin, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator, said that “climate change is real” in 2016, but now supports Trump’s agenda of “energy dominance.” Zeldin is a former member of Congress and is part of the America First Policy Institute, founded to promote Trump’s agenda and initially listed among the contributors to Project 2025. He received a 14 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters, a national environmental advocacy group.
