Biden Loses His Cool on Camera, Berates Reporter Over Ukraine 'Conflict of Interest' Question
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden lashed out at the media and then attacked President Donald Trump on Friday after he was asked by a reporter about his son’s work for a Ukrainian energy company during the time that the elder Biden was involved as vice president with matters related to Ukraine.
“How was your role as vice president in charge of policy in Ukraine, and your son’s job in Ukraine — how is that not a conflict of interest,” the reporter asked Biden during an event in Los Angeles.
“It’s not a conflict of interest. There’s been no indication of any conflict of interest,” an angry Biden replied, as Fox News reported.
When a reporter tried to follow up on the issue, Biden demanded the media train its focus on Trump.
“I’m not going to respond to that,” Biden said. “Let’s focus on the problem. Focus on this man. What he’s doing that no president has ever done. No president.”
Joe Biden loses his cool when confronted by a reporter asking whether there was ‘conflict of interest’ regarding his son’s Ukraine/China business scandal. pic.twitter.com/kW2U0IwztJ
— Giovanni Cavalcanti (@giovannicavett) October 4, 2019
“He calls the impeachment proceeding ‘a coup.’ A coup. He talks about how we should handle whistleblowers. He talks about, there will be a civil war,” Biden said, according to ABC News.
Biden also claimed Trump was not mentally capable of being president.
“This is the guy that’s unhinged,” Biden said of Trump.
“He is unhinged. I worry about what he’s going to do — not about me or my family. I’m worried about what he’ll do in the next year in the presidency, as this thing continues to rot on his watch.”
“I’m worried that [Trump] gets so unhinged, under a year left to go in this administration,” Biden said, “he does something really, really, really stupid, in terms of our international interest.”
Biden’s attack on Trump came as Ukraine announced that it would review all past decisions to close corruption investigations, according to NPR.
In 2016, Ukraine made the decision to shut down a probe that targeted Burisma, an energy company that employed the then-vice president’s son, Hunter.
Joe Biden has said he pushed for the prosecutor in charge of the probe to be dismissed, but claims that action had no connection to his son’s interests.
Ukrainian officials said the audit was not linked to the July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Ukraine to look into the dismissal of a prosecutor investigating Burisma.
“The key word [in this audit] is neither Biden nor Burisma,” Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka said.
“The key word is those cases that were either closed or investigated under the previous management, and among them, there may be those with those two words.”
Trump told reporters Friday that he, too, was focusing on corruption, according to a White House media pool report.
“Everything, to me, is about corruption,” Trump said.
“We want to find out what happened with 2016. And, as you know, there’s a lot of work going on, on that. I don’t care about Biden’s campaign, but I do care about corruption. His campaign — that’s up to him. Politics — that’s up to them. I don’t care about politics.”
As President I have an obligation to end CORRUPTION, even if that means requesting the help of a foreign country or countries. It is done all the time. This has NOTHING to do with politics or a political campaign against the Bidens. This does have to do with their corruption!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2019
“What I want to do — and I think I have an obligation to do it, probably a duty to do it: corruption — we are looking for corruption. When you look at what Biden and his son did, and when you look at other people — what they’ve done. And I believe there was tremendous corruption with Biden,” Trump said.
“So, we are looking at corruption. We’re not looking at politics. We’re looking at corruption.”
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