President Joe Biden on Friday said he was unsure whether the US presidential election in November would be held peacefully, citing inflammatory comments from Republican candidate Donald Trump, who is still denying his 2020 loss. said.
Biden’s warning comes as lawmakers and analysts express concern about increasingly combative campaign language ahead of the vote.
Trump, who survived an assassination attempt in July and an apparent plot in September, claimed widespread fraud after his loss to Biden in 2020, pro-Trump fans outraged by Trump’s false claims. Rioters ransacked the Capitol.
“I’m confident it will be free and fair. I don’t know if it will be peaceful,” Biden told reporters while talking about the election.
“President Trump’s statements, and his previous statements that he didn’t like the outcome of the election, were very dangerous.”
In 2021, Trump said hundreds of his supporters, encouraged by defeated Republicans to “fight like hell,” smashed windows and burst through doors at the Capitol and assaulted police. He was later impeached for inciting rebellion.
– “Angry Crowd” –
He is charged with what prosecutors say was a “personal criminal act” to overturn the election that amounted to violence.
The indictment says that “when all else failed,” Trump directed an “angry mob” to disrupt the certification of the vote.
Trump, who is scheduled to return to the site of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, this weekend has long been criticized for his violent rhetoric.
Mr. Biden appeared in the White House briefing room for the first time since taking office, touting the Democratic Party’s accomplishments and joining in the criticism as Vice President Kamala Harris prepares to take on Mr. Trump.
Trump campaigned in Georgia on Friday. Georgia is a battleground state that was narrowly claimed by Biden four years ago but won by Trump in 2016, and is one of the biggest takeaways from the 2024 electoral map.
Republicans became active in Georgia politics after their 2020 loss, asking Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a now-infamous phone call to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s victory. .
Trump, 78, was indicted by state prosecutors on racketeering charges, and the case has been suspended and is expected to resume after the election. He vehemently denies any wrongdoing.
He accused Mr. Raffensperger and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp of refusing to help him reverse his defeat, and unsuccessfully tried to expel them both.
– “Terrible response” –
His failed revenge plans and repeated denigrations of Kemp at rallies and on social media raised questions about his influence within the party in one of the country’s key battlegrounds.
But Mr. Trump and Mr. Kemp have since resolved the issue, and the governor has endorsed the Republican presidential candidate.
The two spoke together in Augusta after being briefed on the damage caused by Hurricane Helen, the worst storm to hit the continental United States since Katrina in 2005.
President Trump has repeatedly spread misinformation about the federal government’s response to the disaster, falsely claiming relief funds were being diverted by Harris and directed to immigrants.
He appeared to repeat the claims made in Georgia, baselessly claiming: “The White House’s response has been terrible. They’re losing $1 billion that was used for other purposes, and no one has ever seen anything like it.”
Harris, who is tied with Trump in all seven battleground states, was scheduled to hold a rally on Friday in Michigan, a union stronghold that symbolizes the decline of American manufacturing in the 1980s.
The Democratic nominee was expected to accuse President Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, of endangering Michigan’s auto jobs.
“This is a man who has only fought for himself. This is a man who has been a union saboteur all his life,” she said during an earlier visit to Detroit.
Ms. Harris, 59, is scheduled to appear this evening in Flint, a predominantly black city where a scandal over lead-tainted water in the 2010s has led to government mismanagement and unfair treatment of poor and non-white communities. The damage was revealed.
Harris’ campaign announced that the country’s first black president, Barack Obama, will win support from her in Pennsylvania and other key battleground states starting next week to woo undecided voters in the nation’s heartland.
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