Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden on Friday said President Trump is becoming more “erratic” and predicted that the president will double down on his “worst instincts” if the economy moves closer to a recession.

Mr. Biden, who has faced questions over his own series of recent verbal misfires on the presidential campaign trail, said the current president’s behavior is cause for concern.

“Now that the president is feeling pressure on the economy, he’s becoming — and we’re teetering on a recession — he’s becoming more erratic,” Mr. Biden, the front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, said at a town hall-style event in New Hampshire.

Mr. Biden said the president inherited a “pretty good economy” from President Obama - “just like he inherited everything in his life.”

“Now he’s in the process of squandering it — just like he [has] squandered everything else he’s inherited,” Mr. Biden said. “I believe he’s going to double down on his worst instincts — to attack immigrants, to inflame racial divisions, to tear this nation apart — as and if the economy continues to move toward recession.”

Earlier Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy added 130,000 jobs in August, which came in below forecasters’ expectations, while the unemployment rate held steady at 3.7%.

Mr. Biden has repeatedly said Mr. Trump’s response to the white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 was a defining moment that helped prod him to enter the 2020 presidential race.

On Friday, he twice mentioned “Charlotte” instead of “Charlottesville” before quickly correcting himself the second time.

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