In his first interview since ending his re-election campaign, President Biden on Wednesday expressed doubts that there would be a peaceful transfer of power if former President Donald Trump loses the 2024 election.
“If Trump wins, no, I’m not confident at all,” the 81-year-old president told CBS News Sunday Morning before quickly recovering.
“I mean, if Trump loses, I’m not confident at all,” Biden said in the interview recorded at the White House on Wednesday, which will be broadcast in full on Sunday.
“He means what he says. We don’t take him seriously,” the president said of the Republican candidate. “All this talk that if we lose there will be a bloodbath, it’s election fraud – look at what they’re trying to do now in the local precincts where the votes are counted, by sending people to the states where they count the votes.”
“You can only love your country when you win,” Biden argued.
During a campaign rally in Ohio in March, Trump, 78, predicted a “bloodbath” in the auto industry if he does not win the November election.
Still, the line generated scathing headlines that portrayed Trump’s rhetoric as a warning of a literal “bloodbath” if he lost the election.
“That’s Donald Trump: a loser who is defeated by over 7 million votes and then, instead of appealing to a wider mainstream audience, doubles down on his threats of political violence,” Biden-Harris spokesman James Singer said in a statement at the time.
The latest on President Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential campaign:
“He wants another January 6, but the American people will inflict another electoral defeat on him in November because they continue to reject his extremism, his penchant for violence and his thirst for revenge.”
Trump was asked directly in his debate with Biden in June whether he would accept the outcome of the November election, to which he replied that he would do so “if it is a fair, legal and good election.”
“I’ll tell you what, I doubt you’ll accept it because you’re such a whiner,” Biden replied during the debate. “The idea that you’ll accept anything if you lose again, you can’t handle the loss, something inside you broke the last time you lost.”
Biden withdrew from the race just over a month after his disastrous debate against Trump on June 20.
The president immediately endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who secured the Democratic nomination earlier this week, and named Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.
Harris, 59, has not given interviews or held press conferences since replacing Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.
This is a developing story, please check back later for further updates.
