Joe Biden’s pitch to voters about his strong working relationship with congressional Republicans, should he be elected to the White House, has taken a hit as House Democrats proceed with their impeachment inquiry of President Trump.
On the campaign trail, Biden touts his record of collaborating with GOP colleagues during his 36-year tenure representing Delaware in the Senate, as well as his efforts shepherding President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda on Capitol Hill.
“I know how to make government work,” Biden said at his 2020 bid’s May “kickoff” event in Philadelphia. “Not because I’ve talked or tweeted about it, but because I’ve done it. I’ve worked across the aisle to reach consensus to help make government work in the past. I can do that again, with your help.”
But as House Democrats investigate accusations Trump improperly leveraged military aid to pressure Ukraine into digging up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter, among other claims involving the Biden family, the top-tier presidential candidate has found himself in the middle of one of Congress’ most highly partisan processes: impeachment.
Darrell West, Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies vice president and Center for Technology Innovation director, said Biden’s argument may soon become untenable.
“Each side feels the other has crossed the line and that poisons the atmosphere for the parties to work together. Turning the clock back to a time when the parties cooperated is not where many Democrats are right now,” West told the Washington Examiner via email.
Larry Levine, a Democratic strategist who’s donated to Biden, conceded his favorite’s “aspirational” message is better suited to a general election. He said Biden’s problem was obviously that “the primary voter is not the general election voter.”
“Those on the left edge of the Democratic activist community don’t want to hear any of this ‘Bring us together.’ They want to hear, ‘Screw you. I’m going to win and I’m going to ram all these policies down your throat.’ Well, you’re not,” he said. “It’s a dog whistle to the left, but how you’re going to get it done?”
Regarding the Ukraine affair, Trump and his supporters counterallege Joe Biden engaged in a potential conflict of interest because as vice president he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if the Eastern European country didn’t fire its top prosecutor, who had investigated oligarch-owned energy company Burisma Holdings. Hunter Biden served on Burisma Holdings’ board from 2014 to 2019, earning $50,000 a month, but the inquiry was “dormant” at the time of the older Biden’s threat.
To defend their candidate, Biden’s campaign quickly seized on a 2016 letter signed by Republican Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Mark Kirk of Illinois, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, which put into writing their endorsement of the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s ouster because of corruption.
While Johnson initially told the Wall Street Journal that he “winced” at Trump’s suggestion to Ukraine that it helped him with a rival, he more stridently stood up for the president on NBC’s Meet the Press on the weekend, getting into a heated exchange with host Chuck Todd. Johnson’s flip-flop comes after Meghan McCain predicted on ABC’s The View that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will likely “get extremely dirty” and “bring Joe Biden and his son on the stand to testify” if the House passes articles of impeachment.
To Levine, Johnson’s rhetoric pivot doesn’t necessarily mean all of Biden’s relationships in Congress are doomed because it is fueled, in part, by a fear of Trump. The president’s reprisals are becoming less potent, and he won’t be in office if Biden wins, he told the Washington Examiner.
“I think the country has Trump fatigue,” Levine said. “He’s stagnated, he’s been stagnated since the day he was elected in the polls. He is not attracting anybody new, and he’s probably turning off some of his own people.”
