In Milwaukee, Gov. Tim Walz and other Democrats sound alarm over Trump-Vance ticket, Project 2025

MILWAUKEE - Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz led Democrats’ response to the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, appearing in Wisconsin’s largest city to raise alarm about the Trump-Vance ticket and Project 2025, a conservative plan for the next Republican administration.

Walz was joined by Texas Democratic U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar and abortion rights advocate Amanda Zurawski, who recalled how she nearly died because Texas wouldn’t allow her to get a medically necessary abortion until her life was in danger. They warned that if former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, are elected in November, women nationwide could experience what Zurawski did.

“Republicans should be ashamed that Amanda is standing up here today,” said Walz, an official surrogate of President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. “She nearly lost her damn life because they were in that medical room. They believe it’s their decision on her personal bodily autonomy.”

It took Zurawksi going into septic shock for her doctors — who she said were worried about losing their license and going to jail — to perform her medically necessary abortion. She described what she went through as “nothing short of barbaric” and blamed it squarely on Trump, whose U.S. Supreme Court appointees voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“From Texas to Arizona, Idaho to Georgia, women like me have been told that we’re not sick enough to receive care that we desperately need. We’ve been turned away from hospitals, we’ve been found collapsed on bathroom floors, we have been told to flee our state borders in the hope of receiving basic reproductive care,” she said. “We have been robbed of our freedom.”

Escobar accused the Trump-Vance ticket of not caring about women and said, “There is much at risk for all of us.”

Earlier this week, the RNC approved a new party platform that included a dialed-down abortion stance that Trump supported. The platform opposes late-term abortions while supporting in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and birth control.

But Democrats have said they don’t think it’s genuine, pointing to a number of proposed abortion restrictions included in Project 2025.

The 922-page policy document was put together by a right-leaning think tank, the Heritage Foundation, and dozens of other conservative groups. It outlines a “mandate for conservative leadership” for the next president.

The document calls for limiting the abortion pill, preventing Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds and for the Food and Drug Administration to reverse its approval of abortion drugs, among other abortion-related proposals.

In addition, Project 2025 recommends firing as many as 50,000 federal workers and replacing them with people loyal to Trump. It calls for eliminating the Department of Education, and states the federal government should “maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family.”

“The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before,” the document reads. “The task at hand to reverse this tide and restore our Republic to its original moorings is too great for any one conservative policy shop to spearhead. It requires the collective action of our movement.”

Trump has tried to distance himself from the policy document, posting on Truth Social last week that he knows “nothing about Project 2025″ and blaming Democrats for trying to link him to it. Some of those involved in drafting the 2025 document have strong ties to Trump, having served in his administration.

“I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it,” Trump wrote in his post.

The Republican Party’s new platform that Trump referenced calls for the government to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history,” “end the weaponization of government against the American people” and “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again,” among other things.

Though Trump has tried to steer clear of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation pointed out that the Trump administration “relied heavily” on its previous mandate during his first year in office.

Minnesota GOP Chair David Hann accused Walz and Democrats of “grasping at straws” because Biden is “such a terrible candidate and … can’t even put two sentences together effectively,” referring to the president’s age and poor debate performance.

“Trying to make an issue of [Project] 2025 … really? You think people care about that?” Hann said. “Even Trump has disavowed that. He’s even said some of the things that are in that document … are inconsistent with what his vision is, and he has nothing to do with it.”

In an interview, Walz expressed concern about the possibility of Trump taking more drastic actions in a second term. He said he’s worried Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military to quell protests or unrest in cities.

“It’s something that Donald Trump wants to do, had wanted to do in Minneapolis,” Walz said. “I think fundamentally the idea of local control being taken away by a federalized police force or the military? Terrifying.”

Walz also shared his unease about the idea of firing thousands of federal employees. He said America needs nonpartisan, dedicated civil servants.

“An example might be the Office of the Legislative Auditor. They’re there to critique our work,” Walz said, referring to the state’s nonpartisan watchdog that recently critiqued his agencies. “If I were to say, ‘Put someone in there who’s loyal to us and look the other way, don’t point out things that we can do better,’ it’s incredibly dangerous.”

This story contains material from the Associated Press.