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Because it was a plan created by a group of non-Trump Republicans and contained elements that he disagreed with, some of which were mined for political attacks by those claiming it was his plan. That doesn't mean that he disagrees with everything in it - both Trump and the authors are Republicans, so naturally they have overlap in policy. Nor does it mean that Trump considers people radioactive and unhireable for contributing to it, once again they are Republicans and agree on many things. It just means that people quoting from it as "Trump's plan" were being dishonest, an honest critic could have either quoted Agenda 47 instead or made predictions about his actions without claiming they were from Trump's published plan. I don't think this is ordinarily a concept people have difficulty with, activist groups and think-tanks publish proposals that have partial overlap with politician's actual plans all the time.
I'm guessing the very fact that it wasn't his plan contributed to the focus on it. For anything in Agenda 47 he could just say "yeah that's my plan, it's great!". Whereas the fact that Project 2025 wasn't actually his plan meant that he denied it, which looks weaker and like he has something to hide.
The people running project 2025 (Paul Dans, Russel Vought, John McEntee) had held prominent positions in the first Trump administration, and expected to have prominent positions in a second Trump administration.
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Project 2025 also contains a lot of things that Trump, most Republicans, and virtually all Democrats would disagree with -- I recall there being a lot of debate over a passage in it that called for restrictions on condoms, for instance. It was far more radical than Trump and most Trump supporters, and so tarring him with it was a way to label him extreme. These were fertile areas of attack, which were hard to resist for the Biden/Harris campaign.
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