Trump has long tried to distance himself from Project 2025. Now that he has won, his supporters say it is the plan for a second term.Steven Senne/AP

On Wednesday morning, Some of Trump's favorite fans finally felt comfortable joking about what the next president had long denied: Project 2025 was always the plan for a second Trump term.

“Now that the election is over, I think we can finally say that the 2025 project is actually on the agenda. Lol,” wrote right-wing podcast host Matt Walsh in a post on X of the 900-plus page extremist guide. Walsh's message was soon picked up and spread by Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist, who was recently released from prison, where he ended up after ignoring a Jan. 6 House committee subpoena. “Fabulous,” Bannon said with a chuckle after reading Walsh’s post aloud War room Podcast today. “Maybe we need to put this everywhere.”

Benny Johnson, a conservative YouTuber with 2.59 million followers who called affirmative action “Nazi-level thinking” and said Trump should prosecute Biden for immigrant trafficking, also agreed: “It’s an honor to serve you to share everything about Project 2025. “Real all the time,” he posted on X.

Bo French, a local Texas GOP official who recently came under fire for using slurs about gays and people with disabilities on social media, wrote: “Can we now admit that we will implement the project in 2025?”

Walsh, Bannon and the others are not the only people in Trump's circle who have made these promises. While Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, there is a long list of his ties to it, including many people who have also said that Trump plans to implement the policies if re-elected. Russell Vought, a potential next chief of staff profiled by my colleague Isabela Dias, said in a secretly recorded meeting that Project 2025 was the true Trump plan and the distancing tactic was merely a campaign necessity.

Spokespeople for the Trump campaign, the RNC and the Heritage Foundation — the right-wing think tank behind the plan — did not respond to repeated requests for comment Mother Jones.

If these claims are true, Trump could potentially see a decline in support from his base. As I reported in September, an NBC News poll found that only 7 percent of GOP voters had a positive opinion of Project 2025, while 33 percent had a negative opinion. That's not entirely surprising, considering the drastic ways in which it could radically change American life if implemented. She calls for a nationwide ban on abortion pills; using big technology to monitor abortion access; withdrawal of climate policy; enabling discrimination in the workplace; and increasing wealth inequality.