The White House on Thursday denied President Joe Biden thinks the 2022 midterm election will be illegitimate - their second clean up from his press conference the previous day.
But the messaging got mixed when a prominent black Democratic lawmaker said he was 'absolutely concerned' this year's election won't be legitimate.
Biden, in his nearly two-hour press conference on Wednesday, was asked if the 2022 election would be legitimate if Democrats' voting rights package didn't pass in the Senate.
'I’m not going to say it’s going to be legit,' he said in response. 'The increase and the prospect of being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these reforms passed.'
Critics immediately lashed out, asking how Biden could question the legitimacy of the election after slamming Donald Trump for his false claim he won in the 2020 contest.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki took to Twitter Thursday morning to clarify.
'Lets be clear: @POTUS was not casting doubt on the legitimacy of the 2022 election. He was making the opposite point: In 2020, a record number of voters turned out in the face of a pandemic, and election officials made sure they could vote and have those votes counted,' she wrote.
'He was explaining that the results would be illegitimate if states do what the former president asked them to do after the 2020 election: toss out ballots and overturn results after the fact. The Big Lie is putting our democracy at risk. We’re fighting to protect it,' she added.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki denied President Joe Biden thinks the 2022 midterm election will be illegitimate
But some Democrats are concerned the 2022 midterm won't be a legitimate election, citing a slew of new voting laws passed in GOP-led states.
'I'm absolutely concerned about that,' Rep. James Clyburn told CNN. He cited concerns that black voters have a history of being disinfranchised and the Supreme Court striking down portions of the Voting Rights Act.
Between January 1 and December 7, 2021, at least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting, the nonpartisan Brennan Center found. More than 440 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions, the center said.
The Democrats' massive federal voting law package would address those Democratic concerns. But that legislation died in the Senate Wednesday night when Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema refused to join their fellow Democrats in killing the Republicans' filibuster.
Republicans objected to the legislation, saying elections are state issues and should not be run on the federal level.
It was the second incident the White House had to clear up after Biden took questions from more than 20 reporters on Wednesday. The first
