US President Joe Biden on Friday said he was not confident next month’s US election would be peaceful, citing incendiary comments by Republican contender former US president Donald Trump, who still rejects his 2020 defeat.
Biden’s warning came with lawmakers and analysts voicing concern over increasingly bellicose campaign language ahead of the vote.
Trump — who survived an assassination attempt in July and another apparent plot last month — alleged widespread fraud after his defeat to Biden, and pro-Trump rioters riled up by his false claims ransacked the US Capitol.
Photo: AP
“I’m confident it will be free and fair. I don’t know whether it will be peaceful,” Biden told reporters as he discussed the election. “The things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous.”
Trump was impeached in 2021 for inciting the insurrection after hundreds of his supporters — exhorted by the defeated Republican to “fight like hell” — battered police as they smashed windows at the Capitol and broke through doors.
He has been indicted over what prosecutors allege was a “private criminal effort” to subvert the election that culminated in the violence.
Trump — who was yesterday due to return to the venue of his first assassination bid in Butler, Pennsylvania — has long been assailed over his violent rhetoric.
Biden made his comments during what was the first appearance of his presidency in the White House briefing room, where he touted his administration’s achievements as US Vice President Kamala Harris battles Trump.
Trump on Friday campaigned in North Carolina, where he reprised his claims of 2020 voter fraud.
“We should get elected, but remember this, they cheat like hell,” he said.
He also visited neighboring Georgia, a swing state narrowly claimed by Biden four years ago, but won by Trump in 2016 — and one of the biggest prizes of the election map.
After his 2020 defeat, the Republican pushed for state officials to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s victory.
Trump, 78, was charged by state prosecutors with racketeering, in a case that is on pause and expected to start up again after the election. He denies wrongdoing.
On Friday, Trump joined Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp after receiving a briefing on the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Helene, the deadliest storm to hit the US mainland since Katrina in 2005.
Trump has repeatedly spread misinformation about the federal response to the disaster, falsely alleging that funding for relief has been misappropriated by Harris and redirected toward migrants.
Meanwhile, Trump on Friday promoted a fake endorsement from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who has not taken a side in the US presidential election.
Trump posted to his Truth Social platform a photograph of Dimon with the headline “New: Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has endorsed Trump for President.”
A JPMorgan spokesman said the longtime bank head has not taken a side in the race.
“That report was false,” JPMorgan spokesman Joe Evangelisti said in an e-mail. “Jamie has not endorsed a candidate.”
Trump in August shared doctored images that purported to show Taylor Swift supporting his presidential campaign, but the superstar singer last month delivered a sweeping endorsement to Harris.
Harris, who is neck-and-neck with Trump in all seven swing states, on Friday rallied in Michigan — a union stronghold that epitomized the US manufacturing decline of the 1980s.
The Democratic contender accused Trump of jeopardizing Michigan auto jobs.
“This is a man who has only ever fought for himself. This is a man who has been a union buster his entire career,” she said at a stop in Detroit.
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