Updated

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton says Democrats can still pull the November elections out of the fire if they refute Republican arguments and keep the vote from becoming a referendum on President Barack Obama.

In an interview with the Associated Press Wednesday, Clinton warns that "if it's a referendum on anger, apathy, laced with amnesia, they're going to have a problem."

Clinton says the Democrats should be telling voters that they gave the Republicans eight years "to dig this hole," double the debt, not produce jobs and then have a financial collapse — so they should at least give the Democrats four years "to dig out of it."

If the Democrats fail after four years, he said, "throw us out, but don't bring back the people who dug the hole."