'Joe, he can't win': Biden says global leaders terrified of Trump's return as US President

US President Joe Biden said that global leaders, whom he met recently, are terrified of what Donald Trump’s return to the White House could do to democratic rule around the world.  

“Every international meeting I attend,” Biden said, specifically referencing his whirlwind trip to Germany last week, “They pull me aside — one leader after the other, quietly — and say, ‘Joe, he can’t win.’ My democracy is at stake.”

Biden made the statement in New Hampshire’s capital of Concord on Tuesday where he was supposed to give a speech on healthcare.  

Raising his pitch, Biden then asked if “America walks away, who leads the world? Who? Name me a country.”

‘We’ve to lock Trump up’

Finishing his speech, Biden then headed to a campaign office to support New Hampshire Democratic candidates. Over there too, he continued his broadsides against Trump and at one point he said: “We’ve got to lock him up.”  

Some supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket in July, have yelled that during her rallies, though such chants actually have their origin with Trump supporters demanding jail time for his 2016 opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Biden evoking it drew applause from those assembled at the campaign office, but he quickly said: “Politically lock him up. Lock him out, that’s what we have to do."

‘Democrats can’t beat Trump fair & square’

Reacting to Biden’s remarks, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the US President “just admitted the truth: he and Kamala’s plan all along has been to politically persecute their opponent President Trump because they can’t beat him fair and square.”

Harris did not surface much in Biden’s comments on Tuesday, though the President noted that she’d been endorsed by some high-profile Republicans. That includes former Rep. Liz Cheney, the GOP’s onetime No. 3 in the House and daughter of ex-Vice President Dick Cheney.  

Biden, instead, centered his focus on Trump, slamming him for being proud about being friends with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and joking that Trump “believes in the free press like I believe I can climb Mt. Everest.”

The US President went on to say that Trump and supporters of his “Make America Great Again (MAGA)” movement have “anti-democratic” attitudes toward the way the Constitution functions and “virtually no regard” for it.

“Think about what would happen if Donald Trump were to win this election. He’s not joking about it, he’s deadly earnest. It’s a serious, serious problem,” Biden said.  

“We must win," the US President said.

In Concord, Biden was with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the last candidate he defeated to win the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. They both appeared at Concord Community College to trumpet the Department of Health and Human Services finding that almost 1.5 million Medicare enrollees saved nearly $1 billion on prescription drugs during the first half of the year.

With inputs from AP.