Joe Biden has often seemed detached and a bit out of it since starting his campaign, but Trump’s attempt to blackmail Ukraine’s president has him as fired up as he’s been since he was threatening to shove rosary beads down somebody’s throat. Here he is in Des Moines, Iowa, ripping the Marmalade Menace a new one.
“Here’s what I know, I know Trump deserves to be investigated,” said Biden. “He is violating every basic norm of a president. You should be asking him the question, why is he on the phone with a foreign leader trying to intimidate a foreign leader, if that’s what happened? That appears to have happened. You should be looking at Trump. Trump’s doing this because he knows I’ll beat him like a drum and he’s using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me.”
“I know what I’m up against,” Biden added to reporters asking whether it changes anything for his campaign. “I know what I’m up against, a serial abuser. That’s what this guy is. Abuses power anywhere he can, and if he sees any threat to his staying in power, he’ll do whatever he has to do. But this crosses the line. This crosses the line. I’m calling the president to release the transcript of the call, let everybody hear what it is. Let the House see it and see what he did. That’s what I’m calling on.”