Joe Biden: Trump’s Ukraine Pressure “Totally Inappropriate”

Former Vice President Joe Biden responded in Iowa today to the reports that President Donald Trump had pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden and his family.

“It’s concerning to me that a president would do something like that,” Biden told Iowa Starting Line in an interview after a climate town hall in Cedar Rapids Friday afternoon.

Earlier today, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had personally, repeatedly pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden during a phone call. He urged Zelensky “about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, on a probe.”

There’s been significant concern that Trump, despite the lengthy investigations into his relationship with Russia during the last campaign, may once again invite foreign interference into American elections.

“It’s totally inappropriate for a president to try to get a foreign leader to say something that is untrue about any political opponent,” Biden said. “I’ve never heard of it before. I’ve never heard of it before. But I think that Congress is looking into it, and I think they should.”

The Trump Administration had been holding back military aid for Ukraine for part of this year. They relented last week, around the same time that news of a government whistleblower on a matter of foreign security began to spread.

Biden also dismissed the legitimacy of any sort of probe by Trump or his team into Biden’s son, Hunter.

“Every single outlet that’s looked at this said there’s nothing there there. And me, nor anyone in my family did anything inappropriate,” Biden said. “And every major outlet has acknowledged that. I just find it very Trump-like.”

Starting Line will have more on our conversation with the former Vice President, mostly on issues of climate change, in a later story.

by Isabella Murray
Photo by Julie Fleming
Posted 9/20/19