Joe Biden says Donald Trump on path to destroy US values

US President Joe Biden claimed Sunday that Donald Trump and his party supporters are determined to destroy American democratic values, calling his opponent legislators extremists who desire to burn the place down, a day after the 80-called his principal 2024 rival "an extremist".

While speaking in an interview aired Sunday, Joe Biden termed Donald Trump's slogan Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republican movement dangerous.

"I think that this is the last gasp or maybe the first big gasp of the MAGA Republicans. And I think Trump has concluded that he has to win," Biden told ProPublica.

Biden also criticised Trump saying: "[Trump] will pull out all the stops. I mean, the quotes he uses are just — I never thought I’d hear a president say some of the stuff he says."

Days earlier, Biden launched attacks on Trump terming him an "extremist" who was posing a grave threat to American democracy and institutions.

Biden regarded Trump as driven by "vengeance and vindictiveness", calling his hard-right Republican friends posing a threat to the freedom of speech and the supremacy of the law.

"We should all remember: democracies don't have to die the end of a rifle," the commander-in-chief had said adding that "they can die when people are silent when they fail to stand up or condemn threats to democracy."

In his accusations on the 77-year-old, Biden said: "Trump and the MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy", rebuking "extremists in Congress who want to “burn the place down."

In his Arizona speech Thursday, Biden avoided commenting on the former president's criminal indictments including Trump's role in subverting 2020 election results that caused a brutal riot which attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

However, the Democrat did not hold back in the speech about what he said the country would risk from a second Trump term.

2024 presidential hopeful said there was "something dangerous happening in America" and that the Republican party was "driven and intimidated" by Trump's MAGA fringe.

"They're not hiding their attacks. They're openly promoting them, attacking the free press as the enemy of the people, attacking the rule of law, fulminating voter suppression."

Biden also lashed out at Republicans in particular for failing to speak up after their party forerunner Trump recently accused a top US military officer of treason.

Donald Trump was criminally charged four times in a number of cases ranging from paying hush money to election subversion in Georgia.

He is facing indictments in cases that include provoking people on his false claims of rigged elections leading to the January 6 2021 riots, retaining classified documents after leaving the Oval Office and election interference and criminal racketeering to overturn the election results in the state of Georgia.

"I worry because I know that if the other team of MAGA Republicans win, they don’t want to pull the rule of law, they want to get rid of the FBI," Biden said.

"I’m not the only Democrat who can protect [democracy]. I just happen to be the Democrat who I think is best position to see to it that the guy [who has us] worried about taking on democracy is not president," Biden added.

Biden further cautioned that "democracy is in jeopardy in other parts of the world as well and that it would be cataclysmic for the free world if it fails here."

"I really do believe that the vast majority of the American people are decent, honourable, straightforward. I mean, I think it’s a minority of minority [that’s the problem]," Biden remarked.

A number of voters in the US showed uneasiness over Biden seeking a second term, Currently, he is the US president in history and will become 86 by the end of a second term were he to reelect in the office.