A month out from Election Day, President Joe Biden emphasized he was “confident it will be free and fair” — but said he was “concerned” about the transfer of power being “peaceful.”
“The things that Trump has said and the things he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous,” Biden told reporters Friday during a surprise appearance at a White House press briefing. “I noticed that the vice presidential Republican candidate did not say he’d accept the outcome of the election and hasn’t even accepted the outcome of the last election.”
I’m concerned about what they’re going to do,” he continued.
The president was referring to a bombshell moment during Tuesday’s vice presidential debate when Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the GOP vice presidential nominee, refused to acknowledge that former President Donald Trump had lost the 2020 election and said he and Trump were “focused on the future” — a spin his Democratic opponent, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, called “a damning non-answer.”
Asked at the debate if he would accept the results of the 2024 election, even if Trump lost, Vance did not provide a straightforward answer, pivoting to instead discuss Democratic “censorship.”
When pressed, Vance said: “We are going to shake hands after this debate and after this election. Of course, I hope that we win and I think we’re going to win, but if Tim Walz is the next vice president, he’ll have my prayers, he’ll have my best wishes and he’ll have my help whenever he wants it.”
“Kamala Harris ignored the will of millions of primary voters to become the Democrat Party nominee, and she and Joe Biden weaponized our justice system in order to sway an election,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement to POLITICO. She added that “Under Harris and Biden, Americans have felt anything but peace.”
Trump has continuously denied losing the 2020 election to Biden, and his campaign and affiliates filed dozens of lawsuits contesting the results. Trump has been charged both federally and in Georgia for election interference and was impeached by the House for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on the Capitol.
In the final sprint to Election Day, Trump has adopted a new rallying cry to promote get out the vote efforts at his rallies: “Too big to rig.”