Joe Biden To Jimmy Kimmel: Trump Committed “Impeachable Offense”

Joe Biden, appearing on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday, said that “it seems to me it’s awful hard to avoid the conclusion” that President Trump committed “an impeachable offense and a violation of constitutional responsibility.”

“I am confident in the ability of the House and Senate to deal with this,” Biden said. “My job is to just out and flat beat him. What I can’t let happen I can’t let this distract me in a way that takes me away from the issues that really are the reason why I’m running.”

Biden was commenting on the White House release of the non-verbatim transcript memo of a call that Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July.

According to the transcript memo of the call, Trump asked Zelensky to start an investigation of Biden and his son, Hunter. Hunter Biden held a directorship of a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, when his father was vice president. That raised ethical concerns at the time, but according to Politifact, there is no evidence that Biden talked to his son in a substantive way about the company or that his call to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor was an effort to end an investigation into Burisma.

In his interview, Biden pointed to other aspects of the phone call, including Trump’s request that Zelensky speak to his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr about investigating the Bidens.

“The idea that someone would call a head of a foreign state, ahead of time withhold significant military aid that’s badly needed in order to prevent the Russian separatists who are in Ukraine, from taking over Ukraine, and then ask basically, ‘Can you cooperate with Rudy Giuliani? He’s coming over,'” Biden told Kimmel. “And the thing I learned, the thing we all learned recently, in that statement, that 2,000 word statement released, was talked about getting the Justice Department engaged in this. It’s such a blatant abuse of power that I don’t think it can stand.”

Kimmel asked Biden, “How does this rank as far as on the outlandish scale for you the last 48 hours watching this transpire?”

Biden responded, “18 out of 10. This is kind of bizarre and you know, it’s Rudy Giuliani is a great character witness the president has.”

“It’s like his body has been taken over by another being,” Kimmel quipped.

“I didn’t know the president could do that,” Biden said.

Biden also warned against reelecting Trump, telling Kimmel that “eight years of Donald Trump will fundamentally alter the character of this nation, in my view.”

When Kimmel noted that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that he was “very good friends,” then defended Trump’s conversation with the Ukrainian leader, Biden made a sign of the cross.

Biden has been on a fundraising swing through Los Angeles. Earlier on Wednesday, he attended an event in Manhattan Beach at the home of Sanjay Khurana, a surgeon, and his wife Mona, a software engineer. About 150 guests attended the fundraiser, with tickets starting at $250 per person. Those who write checks for the maximum of $2,800 per person got access to a photo with Biden.

On Wednesday evening, Biden attended a fundraiser at the Bel-Air home of Sean Burton, the CEO of investment and development firm Cityview, and his wife Teresa. The co-chairs of the event included Joe Waz, senior strategic adviser to Comcast Corporation, and his wife, Cynthia Telles, founding director of the UCLA Hispanic Neuropsychiatric Center of Excellence.

Among those at the event were Alyssa Milano and Zach Braff.

Biden told those at the event that there was no proof to Trump’s allegations about he and his son.

“This is not about me, and it really isn’t, because not a single publication said anything he has ever said about me or my son is true,” Biden said, according to a pool report. “Everyone has gone and researched it and said it’s not true.”

Biden then got a laugh when he suggested that Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate because “70-something polls show that I’ll kick his … toes.”

Biden relayed stories of how his grandchildren encouraged him to run. He said his youngest grandson showed him a picture of them together at his son Beau Biden’s funeral. In the photo, Biden is shown holding his grandson’s chin while standing in front of Beau’s casket. But trolls on the internet had already labeled the photo as “Joe Biden abusing a child.”

“I’m not saying Trump did that, I’m just saying that’s what it’s going to be,” Biden said.

Kimmel started his show with a monologue focused on the release of the transcript memo of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky.

“So, here’s what’s going on,” Kimmel said. “One day after the Speaker of the House started a formal impeachment inquiry into the actions of our Orange Julius Caesar, the White House fired back this morning they countered with a summarized transcript of Trump’s now-infamous call with the President of Ukraine.

“And what a transcript this was!

“This was like, if OJ told Chris Darden, ‘Hey, you found my glove!”