Despite Republican senators marching in lockstep to protect President Donald Trump from impeachment over a scheme to withhold military aid from Ukraine to pressure the country into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden in order to damage Biden politically, the Democratic presidential hopeful on Monday claimed that if elected he would be able to work with the GOP.
"It hasn't shaken my faith in being able to work with at least somewhere between seven and 15 of the Republicans who are there" in the Senate, Biden told NBC News reporter Savannah Guthrie.
Biden did not say which senators he was referring to.
Watch the full interview:
As Common Dreamsreported, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said in an interview Sunday that the GOP could act to impeach a Democratic president—specifically Biden—immediately.
"Joe Biden should be very careful what he's asking for," said Ernst, "because, you know, we can have a situation where if it should ever be President Biden, that immediately, people, right the day after he would be elected would be saying, 'Well, we're going to impeach him.'"
Trump was impeached by the House in December for an unsuccessful attempt to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden's son Hunter Biden's employment by Ukrainian gas giant Burisma. Congressional Republicans have stood by the president.
The former vice president's comments on cooperation struck Guthrie as ironic given the topic of impeachment and the "certain irony" that the impeachment process has brought Hunter Biden and Burisma front and center into the news.
In response, Biden insisted that his son had done nothing wrong though he conceded the situation "set a bad image."
"Do you think it was wrong for him to take that position, knowing that it was really because that company wanted access to you?" Guthrie asked.
Biden pushed back, saying that the NBC News journalist did not know what she was talking about and that the claims Hunter Biden got the job because of his father were "not true."
"Don't you think that it's just one of those things where people think, well, that seems kind of sleazy," Guthrie continued. "Why would he have that job if not for who his father was?"
His son got the job "because he's a bright guy," Biden replied.
In October, Hunter Biden toldABC News his family connections were likely the reason he was named to the board of Burisma.
"I think that it is impossible for me to be on any of the boards I just mentioned without saying that I'm the son of the vice president of the United States," said Hunter Biden.