CNN
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President Joe Biden said Wednesday he was not convinced there would be a peaceful transition of power if former President Donald Trump loses the election in November, citing comments by the Republican candidate that he could only lose if the election were stolen from him.
“If Trump wins, no, I’m not confident at all,” Biden said in an interview with CBS News, before correcting himself. “I mean, if Trump loses, I’m not confident at all. He means what he says, we don’t take him seriously, he means it – all this talk about there being a bloodbath if we lose, it must have been a stolen election,” he added in his first interview since ending his campaign, which is expected to air in full on Sunday morning.
Trump warned in March that a 2024 election defeat would result in a “bloodbath” for the US auto industry and the country – Biden and his campaign team immediately seized on these comments and accused the former president of inciting political violence.
Biden has long warned that if he loses, Trump is unlikely to concede defeat, and has made protecting democracy a central tenet of his 2024 campaign. In a statement from the Oval Office last month explaining his decision to end his campaign, Biden sought to contrast Trump’s refusal to accept the election results with his own decision to step down as the Democratic nominee.
“Look, I’m not the guy who said on day one that I wanted to be a dictator. I’m not the guy who refused to accept the result of this election,” he said at the time. “I’m not the guy who said he wouldn’t automatically accept the result of this election. You can’t love your country just by winning.”
Since then, the president has largely retreated from the public eye and his public appearances have been limited. Aside from remarks announcing a successful prisoner exchange with Russia and welcoming Americans there, and a brief trip to Texas to mark the anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and mourn the death of the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Biden has made no public appearances since the end of his campaign, largely leaving media presence to Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he supported.
Biden also warned on Wednesday that Trump is preparing to challenge the election results again in November, as he did in 2020, including by using sympathetic local election officials.
“Look what they’re trying to do now in the local precincts where people are counting the votes… they’re putting people in the states to count the votes, right?” he said. “You can’t just love your country when you’re winning.”
