President Trump on Friday said Democrats looking for a “quid pro quo” in his push to solicit foreign help in combating corruption won’t find one.

He also insisted his main focus is on rooting out wrongdoing involving Americans abroad, not kneecapping one of his main Democratic rivals — one day after he said Ukraine and China ought to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden and his son Hunter.

“I’m only interested in corruption. I don’t care about politics. I don’t care about Biden’s politics,” Mr. Trump told White House reporters on his way to visit wounded veterans at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Mr. Trump, furiously combating House Democrats pursuing impeachment, alleges Hunter Biden inappropriately leveraged his father’s position in the Obama administration to line his pockets around the globe.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, he said Ukraine and China ought to look into it all, prompting Democrats to accuse him of committing crimes in broad daylight, namely by soliciting foreign help in domestic politics.

Some critics were especially concerned that Beijing would tie the call for an investigation to an ongoing trade dispute.

Mr. Trump said the Bidens are the ones vulnerable vis-a-vis Beijing, citing Hunter Biden’s ties to an investment fund that dealt with the Bank of China.

He said Mr. Biden, as president, would “give them everything” on trade.

“Joe Biden would just roll out the red carpet,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump says he has a “duty” to look into corruption, even if it means getting help from other countries, though Democrats say his newfound mission pivots on the man who leads him many 2020 polls.

Democrats mainly have faulted Mr. Trump for asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into the Bidens and a Democratic National Committee server from 2016 during a July 25 phone call.

Mr. Trump says there is nothing in the call that suggests a quid pro quo, meaning a request for help in exchange for something material, such as the military aid he held back from Kyiv for weeks.

“That’s the whole ballgame,” he told reporters Friday.

Democrats released text messages from State Department officials late Thursday that they said reflected concerns Mr. Trump did, in fact, withhold aid to Ukraine to pressure the country into launching “politically motivated” investigations.

Mr. Trump said he didn’t see anything nefarious.

“There is no pro quo,” Mr. Trump said. “That was in the text message that I saw and it nullified everything.”

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