US President Joe Biden Speech

 US President Joe Biden has accused his predecessor Donald Trump and his supporters of undermining democracy, ahead of next week's midterm elections.

"Make no mistake, democracy is on the ballot for all of us," Mr Biden, a Democrat, said, referring to threats by some Republicans candidates to refuse to accept the outcome should they lose.

Republicans hit back, saying Mr Biden was seeking to "divide and deflect".

Control of both chambers of Congress is at stake in the 8 November vote.

Most forecasts suggesting that Republicans will win control of the House of Representatives, while the Senate could go either way. The political make-up of the chambers has a huge bearing on how easily Mr Biden and his party can get new laws passed.

In his nationally televised remarks on Wednesday night, Mr Biden accused former President Trump of fuelling anger, hate, violence and vitriol and by refusing to accept the results and decisions of the year 2020 presidential election.

Referring to the very fresh attack on the husband of the Democrat House speaker Nancy Pelosi, he said violence was the consequence of lies born out of malice and conspiracy.

The United States government last week distributed a bulletin to law enforcement agencies warning of a "heightened threat" of domestic violent extremism ahead of the mid-terms, adding that candidates and election workers could be targeted by individuals with "ideological grievances".

Mr Biden's speech and statements was delivered at Washington DC's Union Station, a few streets from where Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol last year in an attempt to overturn the results of the  year 2020 election.

"As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America - for governor, for attorney General, for Congress, for secretary of state - who won't commit to accepting the decisions of the elections they're in," he said.

Republicans said President Biden was trying to distract Americans from US inflation and from his low approval ratings.

House Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who would become speaker of the lower chamber of Congress should his party win control in the next coming week, tweeted: "President Biden is trying to divide and deflect at a time when America needs to unite - because he can't talk about his policies that have driven up the cost of living.

"The American people aren't buying it."

A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll this week found that half of Americans believe voter fraud is a widespread problem, even though such cases are extremely rare.