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 \u201cby force\u201d if he loses the November election. The Heritage Foundation\u2019s warning \u2013 which goes against Biden\u2019s public statements \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lawlessness of the Biden Administration \u2013 at the border, in staffing considerations, and routine defiance of court rulings \u2013 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,\u201d 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\u2019s democratic traditions.<\/p>\n
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 weaponised 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 fuelled Trump\u2019s attempts to stay in office despite his 2020 loss to Biden. Those efforts culminated in the violent January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, when rioters sought to stop the peaceful transfer of power.<\/p>\n
During a news conference to discuss the report, the authors warned about the upcoming election, employing a technique Trump has used throughout his political career to cast doubt on the validity of an election in case he loses. \u201cAs things stand right now, there is a zero per cent chance of a free and fair election in the United States of America,\u201d Mike Howell, executive director of the foundation\u2019s Oversight Project, said. The report alarmed experts who pointed out that there\u2019s been no indication Biden intends to hold onto the presidency if he loses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is gaslighting and it is dangerous in fanning flames that could lead to potential violence,\u201d said Rick Hasen, an election law expert and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Biden has said he will accept the election results. \u201cLike President Biden has previously committed, he will accept the will of the American people,\u201d his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters in May. \u201cThat is a commitment from the president.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Biden campaign on Thursday denounced the claim and noted that the group is the same one pushing Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page blueprint for dismantling many parts of the federal government and making far-reaching changes that include rolling back protections for the LGBTQ community and infusing Christianity more deeply into society. It said the group was \u201claying the groundwork to try and steal another election.\u201d \u201cThis document is nothing more than an attempt to justify their efforts to suppress the vote, undermine the election, and ultimately another January 6,\u201d said James Singer, a spokesperson for the campaign.<\/p>\n
Trump has stopped short of making a commitment to accept the results, saying in CNN\u2019s recent presidential debate that he would do so \u201cif it\u2019s a fair and legal and good election.\u201d The Heritage Foundation report details the results of two role-playing exercises it says were conducted by a bipartisan group of participants who it declined to name, saying it kept them secret for safety reasons. It lists several key lessons and findings, largely centred around potential left-wing efforts to interfere with the election. It instructs the public to \u201creflexively disbelieve and challenge the intelligence community\u2019s allegations regarding Trump, foreign interference, and Republican efforts to legally win the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hasen said those recommendations seem aimed at sowing doubt about institutions that \u201chelp protect election integrity and give voters truthful information they need to evaluate evidence before them.\u201d The report was created as part of a collaboration dubbed the \u201cTransition Integrity Project\u201d, which Heritage says formed in January in response to Biden\u2019s \u201cweaponisation of government\u201d and \u201crecord of violating norms and constitutional limitations on executive power.\u201d The authors took inspiration from a different group by the same name that ran an exercise in 2020 anticipating that Trump would likely contest that year\u2019s election results. Howell said he felt that group\u2019s efforts were ideologically biased while his own project was bipartisan.<\/p>\n
Rosa Brooks, one of the organizers of the 2020 exercise, said of the new report that she would have \u201cwelcomed a good faith assessment of the vulnerabilities, but this isn\u2019t it.\u201d She said she has criticisms of Biden, but \u201cI don\u2019t have the slightest concern that he will refuse to accept the results of the election.\u201d The report\u2019s release comes a week after Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said on Steve Bannon\u2019s \u201cWar Room\u201d podcast that the country is in the midst of a \u201csecond American Revolution\u201d that will be bloodless \u201cif the left allows it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A conservative think tank that is planning for a complete overhaul of the federal government in the event of a\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":47872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[14960,14964,168,10282,14963,679,101,14966,14961,14962,14965,3530,95],"class_list":["post-47871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-conservative-think-tank","tag-contesting-election-results","tag-donald-trump","tag-election-results","tag-false-report","tag-january-6-riots","tag-joe-biden","tag-peaceful-transfer-of-power","tag-report","tag-the-heritage-foundation","tag-transition","tag-us-2024-presidential-elections","tag-usa"],"reading_time":"5 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}