Biden and Harris warn of Trump threat to democracy as US election looms

EAU CLAIRE, Wisconsin - President Joe Biden said on Aug 7 he is “not confident” Donald Trump would concede peacefully if he loses the US election, as the Republican’s rival Kamala Harris warned that a Trump victory would usher in a lawless administration set on curtailing Americans’ freedoms.

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.

“If Trump loses, I am not confident at all,” Mr Biden told US network CBS after he was asked if he expected a peaceful transfer of power in 2025. “He means what he says. We don’t take him seriously. He means it.”

Mr Biden’s remarks, which will air fully on Aug 11 following a brief preview by CBS, came soon after Ms Harris sounded the alarm over Trump’s conduct in the opposite scenario – victory for the 78-year-old billionaire.

Speaking to a crowd in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, as part of a multi-day tour of swing states, she used the former president’s own words – as well as his felony convictions – to argue that a second Trump term would be a disaster for the country.

She pointed to his vow to be a dictator “on day one”, his threats to weaponise the Justice Department against his political enemies, and his 2022 comment demanding the “termination” of constitutional provisions over his defeat in the last election.

“Someone who suggests that we should terminate the Constitution of the United States should never again have a chance to stand behind the seal of the President of the United States,” she said, exhorting Americans to reject the “chaos, fear and hate” of Trumpism.

The 59-year-old Vice-President was on day two of a blitz of the most closely fought election battlegrounds as she seeks to capitalise on a surging excitement since she replaced Mr Biden atop the Democratic ticket in July.

Ms Harris and her

new running mate

, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will take their double act later to a rally in Detroit, Michigan, and there will be further stops through Aug 10 in the racially diverse “Sun Belt” states of Arizona and Nevada.

‘Far worse’

In Wisconsin, she and Mr Walz sketched out a vision of future prosperity for the middle class, repeatedly speaking of their pride in the country and making a virtue of the patriotism more associated with Republican rhetoric in the pre-Trump era.

But Ms Harris cautioned that allowing Trump back into office would take the country backwards.

Recalling that while she took on frauds and sexual abusers as California’s attorney general, Trump had been found liable for the sexual assault of a New York writer and had been both convicted and sued for millions of dollars for fraud.

“In this campaign, I’ll tell you, I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week,” she said.

The rally came a day Ms Harris and Mr Walz held the biggest Democratic event of the election so far in front of a raucous crowd of around 14,000 in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania.

Seen initially as an outsider for the vice-president pick, Mr Walz enjoyed viral success in distilling Democrats’ attack lines against Republicans into a relatable one-word characterisation – “weird” – that propelled him up Ms Harris’ shortlist.

The 60-year-old former Army National Guard officer railed against the “dangerous and backward beliefs” of Trump and his running mate, US senator J.D. Vance, leading a chant of the Harris campaign slogan “We’re not going back”.

Ms Harris selected Mr Walz over Mr Josh Shapiro, the moderate governor of the highly prized swing state of Pennsylvania, and Republicans have sought to brand her pick as much further left than the candidate who lost out.

Trump has declined to focus on his opponents’ vulnerabilities on policy, instead favouring personal attacks against Ms Harris that have had little impact on her rise in the polls.

Ms Harris has a 51 per cent to 48 per cent lead over Trump in the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist survey, and has edged ahead by 0.5 percentage point in the RealClearPolitics nationwide average of polls. The organisation had Trump three points ahead of Mr Biden at the point when the President made way for Ms Harris 17 days ago. AFP