2020 White House hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) passed on an opportunity to discuss allegations of international corruption against Hunter Biden during Tuesday’s Democrat presidential debate in Westerville, Ohio.
A partial transcript is as follows:
ANDERSON COOPER: Your son today gave an interview where he said he made a mistake and [showed] poor judgment by serving on the [Burisma Holdings] board in Ukraine. Did you make a mistake by letting him? You were the point person on Ukraine at the time.
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Look, my son’s statement speaks for itself. I did my job. I never discussed a single thing with my son on anything to do with Ukraine. No one has indicated I have. I had everything separate. Even when my son was the attorney general of the state of Delaware, we never discussed anything. There was no potential conflict. My son made a judgment, I’m proud of his judgment that he made. I’m proud of what he had to say. Let’s focus on this: that fact of the matter in this is Trump’s corruption. That’s what we should be focusing on.
COOPER: Senator Sanders, your response.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: It is absolutely imperative we go forward with impeachment. I hope that he is impeached. But, I think what would be a disaster is if all the American people believe that all we were doing is taking on Trump while 87 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. We’re forgetting the existential threat of climate change. We are forgetting about the fact that half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. What we have got to do is end this corruption, set a precedent for future history that says presidents like this cannot behand this way. But we cannot and must not turn our backs on the pain of the working class of this country.