Tag: Joe Biden

McConnell once called Biden ‘a real friend’ and a ‘trusted partner.’ Now he’s quiet as Trump, GOP attack him.

Washington Post logoThree years ago, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell paid tribute to a former colleague in the most personal of ways. Leading off tributes from the Senate floor, the Kentucky Republican hailed the honoree’s rise from “unknowing despair” to forge “unlikely friendships” and whose word was so good you could “trust him implicitly.”

Finally, McConnell looked up at the Senate’s presiding officer, growing slightly emotional. “You’ve been a real friend, you’ve been a trusted partner, and it’s been an honor to serve with you,” McConnell told Joe Biden, then serving out his final weeks as vice president, on Dec. 7, 2016. “We’re all going to miss you.”

Now, McConnell has remained conspicuously quiet as three Senate committee chairmen have begun two separate probes into his onetime “trusted partner.”

View the complete November 30 article by Paul Kane on The Washington Post website here.

What Joe Biden Actually Did in Ukraine

New York Times logoWhen Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2014, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. pressed President Barack Obama to take decisive action, and fast, to make Moscow “pay in blood and money” for its aggression. The president, a Biden aide recalled, was having none of it.

Mr. Biden worked Mr. Obama during their weekly private lunches, imploring him to increase lethal aid, backing a push to ship FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missiles to Kiev. The president flatly rejected the idea and dispatched him to the region as an emissary, cautioning him “about not overpromising to the Ukrainian government,” Mr. Biden would later write in a memoir.

So, Mr. Biden threw himself into what seemed like standard-issue vice-presidential stuff: prodding Ukraine’s leaders to tackle the rampant corruption that made their country a risky bet for international lenders — and pushing reform of Ukraine’s cronyism-ridden energy industry.

View the complete November 10 article by Glenn Thrush and Kennth P. Vogel on The New York Times website here.

GOP cautions Graham against hauling Biden before Senate

The Hill logoSenate Republicans are cautioning Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) against the prospect of bringing former Vice President Joe Biden before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about Ukrainian corruption, saying such a move could backfire.

Graham initially ruled out the possibility of having Biden or his son Hunter testify before the Judiciary panel about their actions related to Ukraine, but he is now open to the idea, which is being pushed by President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate GOP leader, on Wednesday said it’s ultimately up to Graham whether to request the Bidens answer questions about whether they played any role in shielding a Ukrainian gas company from a corruption investigation.

View the complete October 17 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

‘Are you really not capable of answering a question?’ CNN’s Tapper hammers GOP senator ranting about Mueller and Biden when asked about Trump’s Ukraine scandal

AlterNet logoCNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday hammered Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) over whether it’s appropriate for President Donald Trump to ask Ukraine and China to investigate his political rival, Democratic candidate Joe Biden, as the Republican senator repeatedly tried to deflect questions about the president’s alleged impropriety.

“As a hypothetical, just because I think there are a lot of people concerned about the precedent this is setting, would you have found it acceptable if ahead of the 2012 election then President Obama had asked a foreign leader to investigate one of Mitt Romney’s sons? Would that be okay with you?” Tapper asked Cramer.

Cramer bizarrely referenced special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 presidential election, insisting “the corruption involves a former vice president” and “rooting out corruption in other countries was something that Democrats thought they were doing with the Mueller investigation.”

View the complete October 13 article by Elizabeth Preza on the AlterNet website here.

Memo: Trump asked Ukraine to work with Giuliani, Barr to investigate Biden

Axios logoThe White House on Wednesday released a memorandum of a July 25 call in which President Trump pressed the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. The memo notes that it is not a verbatim transcript.

The big picture: After discussing the Ukrainian election, Trump told President Volodymyr Zelensky he should work with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr to look into allegations that Joe Biden fired a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating his son. Trump has previously confirmed that he discussed these allegations against Biden — for which there is no evidence — with Zelensky. It was not previously known that Trump asked Zelensky to work with Barr.

“The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.”

View the complete September 25 article on the Axios website here.

Trump’s Pinocchio-laden claims about Joe Biden, Ukraine and polls

Washington Post logo“We’re putting up the bulk of the money. … Europe has to put up money for Ukraine also.”

— President Trump, in remarks to reporters at the United Nations, Sept. 24, 2019

Before giving his annual speech to the United Nations General Assembly, President Trump paused to speak to reporters about the growing controversy over his dealings with Ukraine. In doing so, he provided a string of false and misleading statements designed to obscure his actions and confuse Americans.

Before we tour through Trump’s comments, here’s a quick refresher. On July 25, Trump spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Just days earlier, Trump unexpectedly ordered the withholding of nearly $400 million in military aid to the country, which is battling a separatist conflict backed by Russia on its Eastern border. What was said on the call is not precisely known — though Trump has said he will release the transcript — but Trump has acknowledged he raised former vice president Joe Biden, currently leading in the polls for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Trump originally said he halted the aid because of worries about corruption — suggesting also that “corruption” by Biden was a concern — but at the United Nations, he changed his story. Now he says it was because the Europeans were not contributing enough to Ukraine.

View the complete September 25 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

Sarah Sanders Says Trump and Kim ‘Agree in Their Assessment’ of Biden

President Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, “agree” in their negative assessment of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said on Sunday.

Ms. Sanders, in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” also defended the president’s approach to efforts to denuclearize North Korea and deflected questions about whether Mr. Trump’s declaration of “treason” had predetermined the outcome of a review of the Russia investigation’s roots.

On Saturday, Mr. Trump seemed gratified that North Korea’s state media had described Mr. Biden, the Democratic candidate he views as the biggest threat to him in 2020, as a “fool of low IQ.”

View the complete May 26 article by Maggie Haberman on The New York Times website here.

Trump Can’t Stop Attacking Biden. G.O.P. Strategists Wish He Would.

WASHINGTON — As President Trump has struggled to explain the difficulty of negotiating a trade agreement with China, he has embraced a side argument: A Democratic president would only agree to a worse deal.

But not just any Democratic president.

“China is DREAMING that Sleepy Joe Biden, or any of the others, gets elected in 2020,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday. “They LOVE ripping off America!”

View the complete May 14 article by Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman on The New York Times website here.

Kellyanne Conway Broke the Law Attacking Joe Biden in the White House Driveway and Should Be Fired: Bush Ethics Chief

A chief ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush accused Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway of breaking federal law yet again for bashing former Vice President and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on the White House driveway the past two days.

Conway, while speaking to reporters on Tuesday and Wednesday, talked down Biden. Former ethics chief Richard Painter flagged these actions as violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees other than elected officials from using their official positions to influence the result of an election.

“Oh we must be worried about Biden,” Conway said on Wednesday. “Look at what Kellyanne said today, so thanks for the free commercial on all the things Joe Biden didn’t get done for the eight years he was vice president.”

View the complete May 2 article by Jessica Kwong on The Newsweek website here.

Biden Gives Midterm Pep Talk at Rebooted Retreat

The following article by Simone Pathé was posted on the Roll Call website February 7, 2018:

Former vice president says Democrats need to not lose focus on working class

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. speaks during the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference in the Capitol Visitor Center auditorium on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2018. Credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. took the stage at House Democrats’ retreat on Wednesday to cheers of “Let’s go, Joe!” and a solitary cheer of, “Run Joe, run!”

He dismissed the remark, but told the room he’ll do whatever he can to help Democrats win the House majority in November.

“We have a real opportunity to take back the House,” Biden said, before suggesting there’s a chance Democrats could flip the Senate, too.

Democrats need to gain 24 seats to win a House majority. Democrats must pick up two Senate seats, but are currently defending 10 seats in states President Donald Trump won in 2016. Continue reading “Biden Gives Midterm Pep Talk at Rebooted Retreat”