As race for White House picks pace, US President Joe Biden on Wednesday raised concerns about Trump's willingness for peaceful transfer of power if he loses the November elections.
Biden said he is "not confident" Donald Trump would concede peacefully if he loses the US election, as the Republican's rival Kamala Harris warned a Trump victory would usher in a lawless administration set on curtailing Americans' freedoms.
The president's remarks, which air fully on Sunday, came soon after Harris had sounded the alarm over Trump's conduct in the opposite scenario -- victory for the 78-year-old billionaire.
"If Trump loses, I'm not confident at all," Biden told the US network in the interview, which was due to air fully on Sunday, when asked if he believed there would be a calm transfer in January 2025.
"He means what he says. We don't take him seriously," Biden warned. "He means it."
"He means what he says. We don't take him seriously. He means it -- all the stuff about 'if we lose there'll be a bloodbath,'" added Biden.
Biden, 81, who dropped out of the White House race in July and was replaced by Vice President Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee, said Trump's hints on the campaign trail about not accepting a defeat should be taken seriously.
Notably, Biden while campaigning earlier this year, regularly brought up the fact that Trump's supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, after Biden beat him in the 2020 election.
Trump has been impeached twice and indicted twice over various alleged attempts to cheat in the 2020 election -- which he still has not acknowledged he lost -- and was convicted of 34 felonies over a hush money scheme to deceive voters in 2016.
His false claims of widespread fraud in 2020 preceded the storming of the US Capitol -- and the wounding of more than 100 police officers -- by a violent mob determined to prevent the certification of his defeat.
(With agency inputs)
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