President Joe Biden has warned that the November election may not be peaceful – blaming Donald Trump’s inflammatory comments in 2020.
Biden did not reveal any additional planning for that possibility, but he did point to recent comments from Trump running mate JD Vance when he declined to say directly that Trump had lost the election.
His dark warning came during a surprise news conference in the White House briefing room, after Biden took questions from reporters after touting new economic data showing a 254,000 job gain in September.
He was asked whether he had confidence that the elections would be free and fair and whether they would be peaceful.
Biden said these were “two separate questions.”
‘I am confident that it will be free and fair. I don’t know if it will be peaceful,” he replied.
President Joe Biden has warned that the November election may not be peaceful, but said he was confident it would be free and fair. He pointed to Trump’s rhetoric about 2020, calling it ‘very dangerous’
“Things that Trump said and the things he said last time, when he didn’t like the outcome of the election, were very dangerous,” Biden continued. “Did you notice – I noticed – that the Republican vice presidential candidate did not say he would accept the outcome of the election. And have you accepted the results of the last elections? So I’m worried about what they’re going to do.”
Biden answered questions during a week in which a federal judge unsealed a 165-page dossier from special counsel Jack Smith that ran through Trump’s string of election fraud claims, even as he was told by his own top advisers that the evidence was weak and A top aide said the claims sounded like they came from outer space.
The filing also drew on Trump’s own efforts to call protesters to D.C. on Jan. 6, claiming it would be “wild” and urging them to “fight.”
During Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, Tim Walz asked Trump running mate JD Vance point-blank, “Did he lose the 2020 election?”
Walz asked Vance after debate moderators drafted a lengthy question for the Ohio senator that included pointing out that Trump and his allies had thrown out 62 election claims in court.
“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance said. Then he tried to change the subject. “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from expressing their opinions in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation,” Vance responded.
“I can only hope that it will be free and fair,” Trump said in Georgia
“It’s a damn non-answer,” Walz interjected.
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Trump was asked on Tuesday whether he “trusts the process this time.”
“I’ll let you know in about 33 days,” Trump responded. The comment raises the possibility that Trump will again claim that the election was rigged or that there was widespread fraud that would deny him victory.
Smith’s filing goes through some of those claims made by Trump and allies in battleground states, but found his statements about thousands of dead voters were untrue.
“The defendant was made aware early on that his claims of election fraud in Georgia were false. Around mid-November, the campaign consultant (redacted) told the defendant that his claim that a large number of dead people had voted in Georgia was false. The defendant continued to press the claim anyway.”
Asked about Biden’s comments in Georgia, Trump told reporters on Friday that he had not heard them.
‘I can only hope that it will be free and fair. I think it will be that way in this state and I hope it will be that way in every state, and I think we’re going to do very well.”
“But right now we’re focusing on this, not the election.”
Then he appeared to concede that he had lost Georgia, despite his infamous 2020 phone call asking Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes.
‘Well, I won that easily in 2016. We were actually very close last time. And at this point the recent poll came up… We seem to be going up and she seems to be going down. So I hope we’ll keep it that way,” Trump said.