Jake Tapper Grills Joni Ernst on Biden Comments: You ‘Undermined’ GOP Claim Ukraine Push Isn’t About the Election
CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) on whether she revealed more than she meant to with her recent comments about former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump.
When the Senate was debating whether to call witnesses for Trump’s impeachment trial last week, Ernst made headlines when she said she’d be “really interested” to see what kind of effect this will have on Biden’s presidential campaign. Since Trump’s impeachment is rooted in his efforts to pressure a foreign government into investigating Biden’s family, the ex-veep is holding up Ernst’s remarks as an admission that Trump’s prime directive with the Ukraine scandal was to “smear” him, not fight corruption.
When Tapper asked Ernst about this, she insisted she was making a point about how many times the Biden family and Burisma were invoked throughout the impeachment process.
“So I was just pointing out that Iowa has very smart voters, very educated caucus-goers, and if they are paying attention to all of the dynamics with the candidates, that might be something that they would take into consideration,” Ernst said.
“The Republicans have been defending President Trump saying his pressure campaign with Ukraine had nothing to do with the electoral politics, had nothing to do with Biden’s campaign,” Tapper followed up. “I am wondering if you think that, by linking them, you undermined the argument at all?”
“I don’t think it undermined at all,” Ernst replied. “We’ve seen the Democrats presenting the case, and I think it really did show that there was something of concern with Burisma. And so I think that the Democrats can follow that, they will make that decision as they are going to the caucuses tonight. But overall, there is a corruption issue in Ukraine, and we have pointed it out for years.”
After Ernst conceded to Tapper’s point that Burisma’s possible corruption is “not necessarily” about the Bidens, the CNN anchor returned to her remarks again.
“That does seem to undermine the argument that this wasn’t about electoral politics, given that you are saying you want to see how the mention of Joe and Hunter Biden – and we should point out no evidence that anybody did anything illegal regarding the Bidens and Ukraine,” Tapper said. “It does seem to suggest that you think that it could have an effect.”
“I think this does, and whether that was the intention or not, now everything is tied together,” Ernst said. “The information about the Bidens is out there, and so now it is up to the American people to decide, you know, was that a good choice for Hunter Biden to be on that board, especially at a time when his father was trying to ferret out corruption in Ukraine.”
Ernst went on to say “the president has a lot of latitude to do what he wants to do,” and that “generally speaking, going after corruption would be the right thing to do. He did it maybe in the wrong manner. But I think that he could have done it through different channels.”
Watch above, via CNN.
