Hillary Clinton warns Joe Biden in private meeting that third-party candidates could prove disastrous for him as White House insider calls situation ‘pretty F-ing concerning’

Hillary Clinton warned President Joe Biden in a private meeting to take the threat of an external challenger seriously.

, Clinton gave the president the warning while she was at the White House with first lady Jill Biden for the Praemium Imperiale Laureate ceremony earlier this month.

Clinton saw her own White House dreams shattered when she lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump – with some Clinton allies labeling Green Party nominee Jill Stein a spoiler.

Now Biden faces potential spoilers from both his political left and right — with Cornel West, a former supporter of progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, coming after votes from Biden’s left flank and the No Labels group hoping to get a moderate outcome at the general election.

“It’s quite concerning,” a source familiar with White House discussions on the matter told NBC.

Polls show the damage a third-party candidate could do.

News released Sunday, Biden and Trump — who is leading the Republican Party’s primaries — are tied for 46 percent support in a general election, with the two of them on the ballot.

But when third-party options are included, Biden loses to Trump 36 to 39 percent.

In that scenario, a Libertarian candidate would take 5 percent of the electorate, a No Labels candidate would siphon 5 percent and a Green Party candidate would receive 4 percent support, the poll found.

Pollsters did not use West’s name when asking respondents about a Green Party choice.

In an interview with The Atlantic in July, West denied that he was about to become a spoiler.

“I would say most people who voted for me would not have voted for Biden,” he said. “They probably would have stayed home.”

Another concern for Bidenworld is that polls show the Democratic electorate is thirsty for choices for 2024.

The NBC News poll found that 59 percent of Democratic primary voters want someone to challenge Biden in a Democratic primary next year.

Only 36 percent said they wanted to leave the 80-year-old Biden unchallenged.

By comparison, before the 2020 election, only 37 percent of Republican primary voters wanted to see Trump challenged, while 59 percent of Republican party primary voters were satisfied with him as the party’s choice.

Biden has attracted two challengers, but neither has previous government experience.

Marianne Williamson, the self-help guru, is running as a Democrat, as is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose prominent vaccine skepticism has made him more popular with the political right than with mainstream Democratic voters.

Polls show the president leading Kennedy by about 50 points and Williamson by 60 points.

That’s why the president’s Democratic allies are more concerned about a third-party threat in the general election.

“In a close election, every vote counts,” a Biden ally told NBC News when asked about the threat of a third-party challenge.

‘Is it located in the back of the brain for many people? Absolute. Should we be careful when we move? Yes, we do,” the source said.

Biden himself is “concerned about it,” another source told the network.