Andra Watkins discusses the current government shutdown, suspension of Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) food and nutrition benefits that relate to her recent, timely discussion and articles, “How Project 2025 Plans to Starve You into Faith” and “How to Starve Fascists and Cause Their Christian Nationalist Takeover of SNAP and Other Welfare Assistance to Backfire.”
SCOTT HARRIS: I’m very happy to welcome back to our program Andra Watkins, a New York Times best-selling author and Project 2025 investigator. And you can find a lot of her really fascinating and valuable commentaries and investigations on a wide range of subjects on her Substack newsletter titled “For Such a Time as This.” Andra, thanks for making time to be on our program tonight.
ANDRA WATKINS: Thanks for having me, Scott.
SCOTT HARRIS: So I always like to have you tell our listeners about your newsletter For Such a Time as This and the in-depth research on the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 that you’ve been spending years now on. That is of course being used as a blueprint in really executing the policies of this second Trump administration, which I know we’ll talk about in a moment. But tell us about the Substack page you’re on.
ANDRA WATKINS: I started writing my Substack last January, 2024. It was called at the time “How Project 2025 will Ruin Your Life.” And that turned out to be pretty prophetic after the election. I changed the name to “For Such a Time as This” and have been writing about how to interpret what they’re doing, how to interpret Christian nationalist language because I grew up in that in the American South in the 1970s and ’80s and escaped it in my 30. So I give a window into what this administration is doing vis-a-vis their language, their Christian nationalist goals to create a theocracy and how they’re implementing Project 2025 every day.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, Andra. I wonder if you talk about your recent articles and online discussions you’ve had regarding your reading of Project 2025’s, policy recommendations for dismantling public assistance programs and funneling billions of dollars in federal funds into church-run programs whose goal is to force recipients of aid to receive Christian nationalist religious indoctrination in exchange for that assistance.
ANDRA WATKINS: Thanks for having me, Scott.
SCOTT HARRIS: So I always like to have you tell our listeners about your newsletter For Such a Time as This and the in-depth research on the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 that you’ve been spending years now on. That is of course being used as a blueprint in really executing the policies of this second Trump administration, which I know we’ll talk about in a moment. But tell us about the Substack page you’re on.
ANDRA WATKINS: I started writing my Substack last January, 2024. It was called at the time “How Project 2025 will Ruin Your Life.” And that turned out to be pretty prophetic after the election. I changed the name to “For Such a Time as This” and have been writing about how to interpret what they’re doing, how to interpret Christian nationalist language because I grew up in that in the American South in the 1970s and ’80s and escaped it in my 30. So I give a window into what this administration is doing vis-a-vis their language, their Christian nationalist goals to create a theocracy and how they’re implementing Project 2025 every day.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, Andra. I wonder if you talk about your recent articles and online discussions you’ve had regarding your reading of Project 2025’s, policy recommendations for dismantling public assistance programs and funneling billions of dollars in federal funds into church-run programs whose goal is to force recipients of aid to receive Christian nationalist religious indoctrination in exchange for that assistance.
And that’s something that I might not have thought about, but we have come to expect the unexpected from this administration. Certainly, the second term of the Trump administration. Although it’s all laid out in Project 2025 as you said, but you’re one of the few people who’ve dissected this 900 -page monstrous document to know the details. But share that with us in terms of the future under a Trump regime of these federal social safety net programs.
ANDRA WATKINS: Last February, 2024, one of the first things that I wrote about that was alarming to me in Project 2025 was an outline to fund religious institutions, churches, religious nonprofits with taxpayer dollars to give people welfare assistance to help them avoid jail. And it was another big piece of how to fund what ultimately would become a new USAID. So I wrote multiple articles about that last year. Anyone who’s listening in the audience who is from the American South as I am, is accustomed to seeing religious organizations being the primary drivers of distribution of all types of assistance. There are gospel missions that are funded by religious groups, there are food pantries that are in many of these locations. So what Project 2025 wanted to do was formalize that and do away with welfare assistance that’s managed by the government and have it be managed by these religious organizations.
ANDRA WATKINS: Last February, 2024, one of the first things that I wrote about that was alarming to me in Project 2025 was an outline to fund religious institutions, churches, religious nonprofits with taxpayer dollars to give people welfare assistance to help them avoid jail. And it was another big piece of how to fund what ultimately would become a new USAID. So I wrote multiple articles about that last year. Anyone who’s listening in the audience who is from the American South as I am, is accustomed to seeing religious organizations being the primary drivers of distribution of all types of assistance. There are gospel missions that are funded by religious groups, there are food pantries that are in many of these locations. So what Project 2025 wanted to do was formalize that and do away with welfare assistance that’s managed by the government and have it be managed by these religious organizations.
So if somebody is unhoused and they want to come to a gospel mission for a bed and a meal, maybe there are certainly rules that people have to abide by in those situations. But in a religious situation, it might be that you’d have to sign a standard of conduct committing to not do certain things that violate their interpretation of the Bible while you’re there. You might have to agree to go to service every day or multiple times a week. Or go to Bible studies every day. Or meet with some sort of unlicensed counselor who’s really just a church member who has no training, who reads the Bible and prays with you and helps you understand how your life choices, your “sinful choices,” to use Christian nationalist language got you into this situation of being unhoused.
Last year, I wrote about a politician in Dane County, Wisconsin who refused to vote to fund a secular men’s shelter because he said “sin is the root cause of homelessness and we shouldn’t be funding things if we’re not getting to the essence of the sin that these people are committing that are causing them to be in this situation.
So he was giving himself and his Christian nationalist cohorts all kinds of ability to probe into people’s lives in exchange for help. We have examples of single mothers who go to places for help with their babies and they have to agree to certain Christian nationalist life choices in exchange for diapers and formula and other kinds of help. So there are numerous examples of this kind of thing already extent, but Project 2025 wanted to make it the backbone of our welfare assistance in all areas across the board in government.
SCOTT HARRIS: Andra, I wondered if you talk about a term that one of the architects of Project 2025 and now the head of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, he talked about something called soul crafting, which figures directly into what you’re talking about here. And maybe you could describe what this means in terms of people who are down on their luck, deserve to be down on their luck.
ANDRA WATKINS: Exactly. It’s another thing that I wrote about last year where a Missouri state legislator voted against rape and incest exceptions in their abortion ban at the time because they said forced birth can be the greatest healing agent. And so that is an example of what Russell Vought is talking about with soul crafting. If a person is hurting, if a person is desperate, if they are suffering, if they are in a position of need or desperation, then that gives a Christian nationalist the perfect opportunity to come in and point out to them how their bad choices got them into this situation.
And in exchange for help, which is not something Jesus Christ ever did, but in their view, in exchange for help, “We will help you fix your soul, fix your relationship with God or come to a relationship with God such that it will heal your relationship with God and give you the proper kind of relationship with God and our Christian nationalist viewpoint.” Russell Vought is a very big proponent of that kind of help.
SCOTT HARRIS: We’re speaking with Andra Watkins, New York Times best-selling author and she writes the Substack newsletter “For Such a Time as This.” Andra has spent years now researching Project 2025 and its blueprint for the Trump regime. That is, they’re checking the boxes every day, are they not, Andra? They’re pretty close. How far along are they now?
SCOTT HARRIS: We’re speaking with Andra Watkins, New York Times best-selling author and she writes the Substack newsletter “For Such a Time as This.” Andra has spent years now researching Project 2025 and its blueprint for the Trump regime. That is, they’re checking the boxes every day, are they not, Andra? They’re pretty close. How far along are they now?
ANDRA WATKINS: They’re a little over 60 percent done, but in some aspects, they are all done. So with USAID, they are all done. And I mentioned them earlier to point out that the second phase of USAID was a turning that into a Christian nationalist missionary program so that they would retrain everyone who would go out on USAID and white Christian nationalist dogma and then they would go to these different countries and only issue aid and care and help in exchange for people agreeing to live by that dogma. And that was in Project 2025 as well.
SCOTT HARRIS: Andra, I did want to ask you to comment on some of the things you’ve recently written about in terms of your concern about where the Trump regime is headed with these social safety net programs and turning them over to Christian nationalist groups using federal taxpayer dollars to fund these groups and their goals of indoctrination. You talk about donating and volunteering at local secular food banks and to give gifts in the name of your MAGA family members and friends names as opposed to maybe a regular Christmas gift. But tell us a little bit about the broader ideas that you have of how we as secular citizens, whether religious individually or not, but certainly we believe that there should be no state religion in the United States as laid out in our Constitution and many of us do, of course.
ANDRA WATKINS: And what I proposed in my writings was one support the big beautiful boycott that is happening between Nov. 25th and Dec. 2nd. You can find more about that online. It’s a week, I know it’s through Thanksgiving. I know it encompasses Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but withdrawing our money and our attention and our support of this economy during that time could send a big message about what we value as Americans— and cripple this regime and its advancement. So that was one thing I recommended. Another thing that I recommended was to stop funding Christian nationalist help and charities and churches.
It’s imperative that communities come up with secular means that are non-denominational and not religious that are providing help for people. And in some cases, there are examples of multiple churches who fund a community center and they don’t force people to accept religious indoctrination as change for help. And I’m not talking about those kinds of groups. There are plenty of those kinds of groups that are wonderful.
But if you’re going to a group and they’re giving people a list of things they must do and change about their lives in order to be eligible for help, then that is a red flag. So stop funding those kinds of groups because that is giving people religious indoctrination in exchange for help.
I thought one of my readers actually said giving donations to secular organizations in a MAGA family member’s name for Christmas would be a funny thing to do. And I think that’s a funny thing to do. I don’t know how productive it would be, but it might be an interesting thing to do and instead of buying a thing and giving to them this year because there are people who are suffering and will be suffering because of these decisions.
SCOTT HARRIS: Andra, is there anything on the horizon in terms of legislation? I don’t think the Trump or regime is going in for much legislation these days. It’s all executive orders, but are they looking to formally change any of the social safety net programs and funnel the federal funds to these Christian nationalist groups? Are there big changes being planned or actually underway as far as far as you know?
ANDRA WATKINS: As far as I know there aren’t plans. What was laid out in Project 2025 was we’re just not going to, as a federal government fund the things we’ve been funding and we’re going to break it all, which is what they’re in the process of doing.
And then we’re going to come back and decide that churches, faith-based organizations and religious organizations should be the ones distributing this money and applying for these grants. And they lay that out very clearly. They use the words “faith-based organizations, religious organizations, religious religion,” almost 200 times in Project 2025 and specifically identified those kinds of groups as the proper places for distributing these funds in the future.
So on the horizon, I do see them rolling out some means of funding those things and making those kinds of groups have precedence over all the other groups and saying, “We need to give money to them.” I also saw that the regime announced quietly over the weekend that they were going to come up with a way to defund 400,000 SSI and SSDI recipients who are not receiving Social Security or disability benefits as retirement, but that are receiving them through disability, some sort of mental health exception and etc. And that was also outlined in Project 2025. So that’s the next thing that I see them rolling out in a big way and taking away from people.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well, Andra, thank you. We’re just about out of time, but mention again if you would before we close out, the Black Out the System Boycott from Nov. 25 to Dec. 2. I just found the website, it’s simply blackoutthesystem.com and there’s more details there. But yeah, tell us what you think the importance of this movement is.
ANDRA WATKINS: I think that withholding our money and our attention in a nonviolent way can have a much bigger impact on their progress toward converting our country into a Christo-fascist theocracy. So for example, if you can afford not to spend money during that week, then don’t spend money. If you can afford to not eat out, don’t go to restaurants. Don’t go shopping. Don’t spend money. Withhold your money as much as you can.
If you’re in a position where it won’t jeopardize your job to not go to work—and a lot of people are in a position where they can’t do that—but if you’re in a position where you can afford to not go to work and withhold your labor, then do that. They also have tips for you to use to go to work, but still comply with the spirit of this boycott. So they have a lot of resources on that website and I strongly urge people to consider participating in that. These kinds of nonviolent boycotts throughout history have really changed the course of things. If a big percentage of people participate in them, they can have a big impact.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well, Andra, leave us with your own website for your Substack, “For Such a Time as This,” if you would.
ANDRA WATKINS: It is my name, Andra Watkins, at Substack. So if you look for that, the title of my Substack is “For Such a Time as This.” You might also find it by the former name, “How Project 2025 will Ruin Your Life.” And I’d love to see people there.
SCOTT HARRIS: Andra, it’s always great talking with you and thanks for the important information and certainly the insight into Project 2025. There’s much many of us are concerned about. We don’t know the details like you do. So thanks for sharing that.
ANDRA WATKINS: It’s always great to be here, Scott. Thanks for having me.
SCOTT HARRIS: Goodnight. That’s Andra Watkins, New York Times best-selling author and the Substack newsletter, author of “For Such a Time as This.”
