Biden hesitates to say 2022 election results will be legitimate if 'voting rights' bills not passed

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President Biden refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the 2022 midterm elections in a news conference Wednesday.

"Speaking of voting rights legislation, if this isn’t passed, do you still believe the upcoming election will be fairly conducted and its results will be legitimate?" a reporter asked the president.

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"Well, all depends on whether or not we’re able to make the case to the American people that some of this is being set up to try to alter the outcome of the election," Biden said, apparently referring to Republican efforts in various states to shore up what they characterize as election integrity in the wake of permissive 2020 voting rules. "And it’s one thing look, maybe I’m just being too much of an optimist."

Another reporter brought up the remarks in a further question to the president. 

"It easily could be illegitimate," Biden said. "Imagine if, in fact, Trump had succeeded in convincing Pence to not count the votes."

Specifically on 2022, Biden said, "Imagine if those attempts to say that the count was not legit, you have to recount it or we're going to discard the following votes."

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022. Photographer: Oliver Contreras/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images

"The increase of the prospect of it being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these reforms passed," the president added. He added that Democrats are not going to assume "that the attempt fails."

West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, who has bucked Biden on several issues, suggested he disagreed that the midterms might not be legitimate.

"We might have a difference of opinion there. I believe in the Department of Justice doing their job," he said.

Biden has excoriated Republican efforts at election reform, comparing them to Jim Crow segregation. Last year, the president condemned Georgia's election reform law as "Jim Crow on steroids," claiming that restrictions will disproportionately impact Black voters. A Georgia state representative responded by claiming that Georgia's new voting rules are less stringent than the rules in Biden's home state of Delaware. The Washington Post also faulted Biden for falsely claiming that the Georgia law "ends voting hours early."

President Biden (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool)

Earlier this week, Biden tweeted, "Jim Crow 2.0 is about two insidious things: voter suppression and election subversion. It’s about making it harder to vote, who gets to count the vote, and whether your vote counts at all."

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"We have to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act," he continued, referring to legislation that is likely to be locked in a political stalemate in the Senate. 

President Biden (Getty Images)