Joe Biden says Republicans let their mask fall about their real goal in the impeachment trial of President Trump.
The Democratic front runner says Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) inadvertently revealed that the GOP really hopes to damage him politically as the primary battle starts in earnest next Tuesday with the Iowa caucus.
“Joni Ernst just spilled the beans. She and Donald Trump are scared to death I’ll be the nominee,” Biden wrote on Twitter.
Biden said Tuesday that Ernst’s remark gives Iowa Democrats the chance to take advantage of a partisan “twofer.”
“You can ruin Donald Trump’s night by caucusing for me,” Biden told a crowd in Muscatine, Iowa. “And you can ruin Joni Ernst’s night as well.”
Ernst is giving Republican leaders a headache with her candid revelation that the GOP hopes that Biden will lose votes in Iowa and elsewhere because of the Ukraine smear campaign against him.
Her claim runs counter to the Republican assertion that the goal of the impeachment is strictly to clear Trump of unfair allegations — not to gain a political edge against Biden.
Trump’s defense team is arguing that Biden should be investigated for corruption over his push for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor while Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, worked for a Ukraine gas firm.
The president’s acolytes have also said Trump was within his rights to push Ukraine to probe Biden, although they deny he put any pressure on the ally.
But Ernst suggested that the real goal has been the same all along: to hurt Biden’s chances of winning the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I’m really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, those Democratic caucus-goers,” Ernst said with a sly grin. “Will they be supporting Vice President Biden at this point? Not certain about that.”
Biden is locked in a tight race in Iowa but is battling Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) and a handful of other hopefuls in the first-in-the-nation contest. Some polls show Biden would be the most formidable opponent for Trump, although his rivals question that assumption.
