Donald Trump’s transition team is reportedly preparing a blacklist of potential officials to be excluded from a future administration, with a particular focus on those with ties to the radical Project 2025 to transform the US government.

According to Politico, the former president’s eldest son, Donald Jr., is leading the effort to create a list of banned employees, citing a former official in the first Trump administration.

“Apparently people working on Project 2025 are blacklisted,” another former official told the site.

The Republican candidate publicly rejected the 922-page document, prepared by the Heritage Foundation think tank, after polls showed his ideologically motivated policies – including mass firings of civil servants and plans to ban abortion – were an electoral liability.

Many of its leading architects, including its former principal Paul Dans, served in the Trump administration. Since then, Dans has criticized some of the Republican candidate’s senior campaign aides for influencing his decision to distance himself from the project.

Also excluded will be those who resigned in protest of the January 6 insurrection, when a Trump-inspired mob attacked the US Capitol to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

Some of Trump’s top officials resigned in the final days of their term in protest over the incident, which was widely – and incorrectly – viewed at the time as the end of his political career. They included Education Secretary Betsy DeVos; Mick Mulvaney, the former White House chief of staff; and Elaine Chao, the former transportation secretary and wife of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Those deemed disloyal are also subject to exclusion orders. Trump has repeatedly made it clear that he sees loyalty as the top criterion when selecting top employees.

The blacklist appears to signal that a future Trump presidency will be different from the first term, which was marked by a record turnover rate compared to previous presidents and was staffed by officials who often saw an important part of their role as overshadowing Trump’s role in the To keep the most extreme instincts in check.

Howard Lutnick, co-chair of Trump’s transition team, said appointees must show “loyalty” to the former president and his plans.

Lutnick told the New York Post this month that the Heritage Foundation was “radioactive” because of its intimate role in Project 2025 and that no one associated with the project would be included. “This is a clear position,” he said.

Others expressed skepticism, pointing out that an estimated 18,000 Republicans and 100 think tanks were involved in drafting the document, meaning a complete ban would make recruiting more difficult.

Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has long-standing ties to the Heritage Foundation and wrote the foreword to a forthcoming book by its president, Kevin Roberts.