USA President Joe Biden has stated that he is not certain that the November election would be peaceful. Biden said this on Friday, October 4, 2024, citing fiery remarks made by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who continues to reject his 2020 defeat.
Biden’s warning came as politicians and analysts expressed alarm about the increasingly bellicose campaign language ahead of the vote.
Trump, who escaped an assassination attempt in July and another apparent plot in September, claimed widespread fraud following his defeat to Biden, and pro-Trump rioters enraged by his bogus allegations ransacked the United States Capitol.
Biden told reporters: “I’m confident it will be free and fair. I don’t know whether it will be peaceful.
“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 is due to return to the venue of his first assassination bid in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday – 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 his vice president, Kamala Harris, battles Trump.
Harris and Trump meanwhile were barnstorming the battleground states that are likely to decide who wins the White House.