In an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, the former vice president said that Trump’s efforts to sow doubt in the democratic process by raising concerns about voter fraud, particularly through mail balloting, amounted to a “typical Trump distraction.”

“I just think the people in the country are going to be heard on Nov. 3,” Biden said. “Every vote in this country is going to be heard and they will not be stopped. I’m confident that all of the irresponsible, outrageous attacks on voting, we’ll have an election in this country as we always have had, and he’ll leave,” he said, The Hill reported.

Biden’s remarks came after Trump twice refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses reelection.

The White House has sought to play down his comments, saying that he will accept the outcome of a “free and fair” election, though Trump himself has repeatedly cast doubt on the trustworthiness of the eventual results.

“We want to make sure the election is honest, and I’m not sure that it can be,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “I don’t know that it can be with this whole situation — unsolicited ballots.”

Trump has for years pushed baseless claims of widespread illegal voting. He has also warned that an increase in mail-in and absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic threatens the possibility of an accurate vote count, despite little evidence that vote-by-mail programs carry a substantial risk of fraud.

Biden told Ruhle that despite Trump’s claims of voter fraud, he does not believe that federal law enforcement will back up those claims should Trump try to call the results of the election into question.

“I don’t think he’s going to get the FBI to follow him or get anybody else to enforce something that’s not real,” Biden said.

“There is no doubt – let me be clear – that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the replacement justice for the Senate to consider,” Biden told reporters after learning of the death of Ginsburg.

Biden’s remarks appear to set the stage for a partisan fight over the judiciary that could dominate the fewer than seven weeks remaining until the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Ginsburg, a stalwart liberal on the Supreme Court since 1993, died on Friday at age 87, giving President Donald Trump a narrow window in which to expand the court’s conservative majority with a third appointment during a tough re-election fight.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he intends to act on any nomination Trump makes. Biden’s comments signal he and the party will fight such a move, Reuters reported.

McConnell’s stance reverses the position he took four years ago, when he refused to act on Democratic President Barack Obama’s election-year nomination of centrist appeals court judge Merrick Garland to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016.

Some Democrats accused McConnell and his fellow Republicans of “stealing” a Supreme Court seat by blocking Garland’s appointment. Biden, who was Obama’s vice president, has said he wished Democrats had been “a whole heck of a lot harder” on McConnell during that fight.

McConnell’s explained his position in a statement on Friday, saying that in 2016 the Senate and White House were controlled by different parties, while now they are both controlled by Republicans. Democrats have called McConnell’s about-face hypocrisy.

The Democratic former vice president learned of Ginsburg’s death while flying home from a campaign trip in Minnesota and he delivered brief remarks to reporters at an airport in New Castle, Del., without taking questions. As a senator, Biden presided over Ginsburg’s confirmation hearings for the job in 1993.

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg stood for all of us,” Biden said. “She has been absolutely consistent and reliable and a voice for freedom and opportunity for everyone.”

Ginsburg’s death could dramatically alter the ideological balance of the court, which already had a 5-4 conservative majority, moving it further to the right. The issue thrust courts into the center of an election that had been dominated by the coronavirus and its public health and economic consequences.

Trump on Sept. 9 unveiled a list of potential nominees to fill any future Supreme Court vacancies in a move aimed at bolstering support among conservative voters. Biden has pledged to name a Black woman to the Supreme Court but so far has resisted unveiling his own list of nominees.

Trump made the remark at the end of a speech to supporters in Oshkosh, Wis., on Monday afternoon as he implored them to vote. It follows months of Trump claiming without evidence that widespread mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic would invite fraud into the election.

“We have to win the election. We can’t play games. Go out and vote. Do those beautiful absentee ballots, or just make sure your vote gets counted. Make sure because the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged,” Trump told the group of supporters at the outdoor campaign event.

“Remember that. It’s the only way we’re going to lose this election, so we have to be very careful.”

“The only way they’re going to win is that way. And we can’t let that happen,” Trump said just hours before Democrats are set to begin their 2020 convention to formally nominate Joe Biden as the party’s presidential candidate, The Hill reported.

Biden leads Trump nationally and in a number of key swing states, according to recent polling.

Democrats are increasing their scrutiny of the US Postal Service after it warned states last week that it could not guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election would arrive in time to be counted even if voters follow state guidelines.

The disclosure came after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy adopted several changes to the agency, such as eliminating some mail-sorting machines that have attracted criticism. DeJoy has cast the moves as cost-cutting measures meant to help the agency, which has long faced financial problems.

Trump has backed DeJoy, a Republican megadonor, while denying that his administration is undermining the agency.

“It’s been run horribly. And we’re going to make it good,” Trump said in an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning. “Now what am I supposed to do? Let it continue to run badly? So if you fix it, they say, ‘Oh, he’s tampering with the election.’ No, we’re not tampering.”

House Democrats intend to come back to Washington on Saturday to vote on legislation to block the measures implemented by DeJoy and ensure the agency can handle an expected flood of mail-in ballots ahead of the November election.

Democratic leaders have pressed for billions in additional funding for the Postal Service in the next coronavirus relief bill, but talks with the White House have broken down. DeJoy is also slated to testify before the House Oversight and Reform Committee next Monday.

Trump suggested last week that he was opposed to additional Postal Service funding because it would help implement universal mail-in voting this fall but hours later shifted his position by saying he would approve funding if Democrats made other concessions sought by the White House in coronavirus relief legislation. The president has tried to blame Democrats for a lack of funding for the Postal Service to assist the election.

Trump and his campaign have largely dismissed the surveys showing him trailing Biden, arguing they understate the president’s support as others did during the 2016 cycle.

Trump’s warning about the election being “rigged” punctuates a broader assault on mail-in ballots that the president has waged with fervency since states began efforts to expand mail-in voting so that individuals can cast ballots without having to physically go to the polls during the pandemic.

Experts say, however, that there is scant evidence of meaningful voter fraud associated with mail-in ballots, and critics have viewed the president’s attacks as an effort to sow distrust about the election results.