US midterms: Biden warns election denial is ‘path to chaos’
US President Joe Biden has warned any candidates who refuse to accept defeat in next week’s midterm elections could set the nation on “the path to chaos”.
He also urged Americans to unite in opposition to “political violence” in the vote on 8 November.
Biden, a Democrat, said former President Donald Trump and his supporters were peddling “lies of conspiracy and malice”.
Republicans hit back that Biden was seeking to “divide and deflect”.
Control of both chambers of Congress and key state governorships are hanging in the balance in next week’s elections.
Most forecasts suggest Republicans will win control of the House of Representatives, while the Senate could go either way.
Biden spoke in nationally televised remarks on Wednesday evening at Washington DC’s Union Station – just a few streets from where Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol last year in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Biden blamed Trump – whom he did not name but referred to as “the defeated former president” – for inspiring threats by some Republican candidates to refuse to accept the outcome should they lose next week.
“That is the path to chaos in America,” said Biden. “It’s unprecedented. It’s unlawful. And it is un-American.”
The president also sought to link Trump’s election rhetoric to a hammer attack last week on the husband of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
He argued that Trump’s “big lie that the election of 2020 had been stolen” was the driving force behind both the assault on 82-year-old Paul Pelosi and the US Capitol riot.
“It’s a lie that fuelled the dangerous rise in political violence and voter intimidation over the past two years,” said Biden.
Agencies