US Vice President Joe Biden. MSNBC US Vice President Joe Biden is warning voters to take Donald Trump's presidential candidacy "very seriously."

In a MSNBC interview with Rachel Maddow on Thursday, Biden said that the reality television star has a decent shot at securing the Republican nomination, but would have a tough time winning the general election.

"I think it's very possible he could be nominated, and depending on how this all plays out, I'd take him very seriously in terms of being able to win," Biden said.

He continued: "I'm not very good at prognosticating. I would not be surprised if he gets the nomination. I would be surprised if he got elected."

Critiquing Trump's inflammatory campaign rhetoric, the vice president said that the candidate's domination of the Republican primary demonstrated the weakness of the field on the right.

"Everybody asks me, 'Why is Trump able to win?'" Biden said. "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

While US President Barack Obama has repeatedly dodged questions about the validity of Trump's candidacy, Biden has speculated that the real-estate mogul could clinch the nomination.

In January, Biden told ABC that he believed it was possible that Trump could win the nomination, but said he would need to get serious about studying policy.

Biden said:

I hope that if that were to occur — I hope it doesn't because I have fundamentally different views than he does — I'd hope that he gets a lot more serious about the issues, a lot more serious about gaining knowledge about [how] this nation functions and foreign policy and domestic policy, but look, that's a long way off.