President Biden in a new interview said he’s not at all confident there would be a peaceful transition of power if former President Trump loses the election in November.
Biden sat for an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” on Wednesday, his first since he announced in late July he would not seek reelection.
“If Trump wins, no, I’m not confident at all. I mean if Trump loses I’m not confident at all,” Biden said in a clip of the interview, initially misspeaking before correcting himself.
“He means what he says. We don’t take him seriously. He means it. All this stuff about ‘if we lose, it’ll be a bloodbath,'” Biden continued, referencing comments Trump made in March that he and his allies insisted were about the economy.
Biden also argued Republicans were putting officials in place in local jurisdictions to oversee the vote count, suggesting it was setting the table for a contentious election.
“You can’t love your country only when you win,” Biden said.
Trump refused to accept the results of the 2020 election, when he lost to Biden, insisting in the weeks after the vote that it was rigged, fraudulent and stolen. His claims culminated in violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters clashed with law enforcement and stormed the complex to try and stop the certification of Biden’s victory.
Trump has since been criminally charged in Washington, D.C., and in Georgia for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.
At rallies during the 2024 cycle, Trump still alludes to the 2020 election being rigged and he urges supporters to vote in droves in November to make his victory “too big to rig.”
Biden’s comments come as Democrats have rallied behind Vice President Harris as the party’s new nominee in Biden’s place. Polling has shown a neck and neck race between Harris and Trump roughly three months out from Election Day.