Conservative Group Behind Project 2025 Floats Conspiracy Idea That Biden Could Retain Power By Force

WASHINGTON (AP) — A conservative think tank that is planning for a complete overhaul of the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential win is suggesting that President Joe Biden might try to hold the White House “by force” if he loses the November election.

The Heritage Foundation’s warning — which goes against Biden’s own public statements — appeared in a report released Thursday that the group said resulted from a role-playing exercise gaming out potential scenarios before and after the 2024 election.

“The lawlessness of the Biden Administration — at the border, in staffing considerations, and in routine defiance of court rulings — makes clear that the current president and his administration not only possesses the means, but perhaps also the intent, to circumvent constitutional limits and disregard the will of the voters should they demand a new president,” the report reads.

The report, issued just ahead of the Republican National Convention and four months from the presidential election, shows how conservative groups supportive of former President Donald Trump are trying to turn the tables on the narrative of which candidate represents the greatest threat to the country’s democratic traditions. Biden has dedicated a handful of speeches to laying out the case against Trump, while Trump and his supporters have pointed to his four criminal cases to suggest that Democrats have weaponized the justice system against their chief political opponent.

The Heritage Foundation and other pro-Trump groups have continued to promote the same false claims of election fraud that fueled Trump’s attempts to stay in office despite his 2020 loss to Biden. Those efforts culminated in the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on