Biden says he wouldn't comply with Senate subpoena in Trump impeachment trial

Meredith Newman | The News Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Joe Biden makes remarks at Veterans Day ceremony Before heading to Iowa for campaign stops, Joe Biden attended the state's Veterans Day ceremony on Monday.

Joe Biden said in an NPR interview published on Monday that he would not comply if the U.S. Senate subpoenaed him during its impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

"No, I will not yield to what everybody is looking for here," the former vice president told Morning Edition host Rachel Martin. "And that is to take the eye off the ball."

"Everybody knows the issue here is not what I did," Biden continued, "because no one has proved one scintilla of evidence that I did anything other than do my job for America as well as anybody could have done it. Making sure that we, in fact, got rid of a corrupt prosecutor who everybody, including our allies as well as ... the IMF and everyone else said has to go. I did my job incredibly well."

Martin interviewed Biden when he was campaigning in Iowa last weekend. The interview also focused on how Biden is doing in the polls, health care, climate change and Biden's viral interaction with a voter at a recent town hall.

President Trump is under investigation in an impeachment inquiry, accused of pressuring Ukraine's president to open an investigation into Biden and his son and using military aid money as leverage.

Trump has claimed, despite a lack of evidence, that Biden used his influence as vice president to get a Ukrainian prosecutor fired in order to help his son, Hunter. Biden's son served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, that was being investigated.

There is no evidence that Biden or his son have committed any wrongdoing.

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When Martin pressed Biden in the interview about how former White House aides tried to warn the vice president's staff of potential conflicts of interest, Biden replied that "nobody warned me about a potential conflict of interest."

Biden also spoke about the how his family pushed him to run for president for the third time. He told Martin that his oldest granddaughter, Naomi, called for a family meeting — a Biden family tradition — with him and wife Jill. They wanted their grandfather to run for president, despite a likely ugly campaign.

"Each of my, each of my grandchildren gave examples of what they knew was going to happen," Biden recalled of the meeting. "But they said, 'Pop, you gotta run. You gotta run. Daddy would want you to run.'

"And the reason I'm running is because this man, the future of my grandchildren, if he's reelected, are gonna be marginalized in ways that I don't think anybody fully understands," Biden continued.

"He's different than any other president."

Contact Meredith Newman at (302) 324-2386 or mnewman@delawareonline.com and on Twitter @MereNewman.