Joe Biden said he is “not confident at all” that there will be a peaceful transfer of power if Donald Trump loses the November 5 US presidential election.
The 81-year-old president issued the warning in his first TV interview since he announced on July 21 that he would not be seeking re-election.
Asked if he believes there will be a peaceful transfer of power in January, the timescale after an election, Mr Biden told CBS News: “If Trump loses, I’m not confident at all.”
His comments echo his earlier warnings about Trump and democracy.
“He means what he says,” he added, arguing: “You can’t love your country only when you win.”
Republican Trump, 78, the first former or sitting president to be convicted of a crime, appeared according to polls to be heading back to the White House for a second term after the failed assassination attempt against him last month.
But Mr Biden’s decision to pull out of the race, and the way vice president Kamala Harris has seized the Democratic nomination, has electified the contest, with nationwide polls now showing her narrowly ahead.
The US presidential election, though, is often decided in a handful of swing states including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia.
Ms Harris, 59, declared herself and her new running mate Tim Walz as “joyful warriors” against Trump on Wednesday as they spent their first full day campaigning together across the Midwest.
They got an unusual glimpse of how hotly contested the region will be when they overlapped at a Wisconsin airport with Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance.
The Democrats visited Wisconsin and Michigan, hoping to shore up support among the younger, diverse voters who were key in helping Mr Biden win the 2020 election.
The vice president told the day’s first rally in Eau Claire that she and Minnesota Govenor Mr Walz look at the future with optimism as she accused Trump of being stuck in the past and preferring a confrontational style of politics.
“Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States should never again have the chance to sit behind the seal of the United States,” she said.
Trump, meanwhile, has sought to boost his appeal to Midwestern voters with his choice of Mr Vance, an Ohio senator, as his running mate.
Mr Vance and Ms Harris’ campaign almost came face to face at Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Wisconsin.
“I just wanted to check out my future plane,” Mr Vance quipped, referring to travelling on the vice president’s aircraft Air Force Two should he and Trump be elected in November.
He also hit out at Mr Walz who had described him and Mr Trump as “weird”.
