Watch Joe Biden react to Trump impeachment inquiry – Los Angeles Times

Former Vice President Joe Biden summed up events leading to the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into President Trump in one word: “bizarre.”

While visiting “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Wednesday, Biden responded to reports that Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine before asking its president to launch an investigation into Biden ahead of the 2020 election. The politician ranked the rapidly unfolding details an “18 out of 10″ on the “outlandish scale.”

“There’s much more at stake than whether or not he’s acting so bizarrely,” Biden said. “The idea that someone would call the head of a foreign state, ahead of time withhold significant military aid that’s badly needed in order to prevent the Russian separatists, who are in Ukraine, from taking over Ukraine … It’s such a blatant abuse of power that it just — I don’t think it can stand.”

Biden’s comments come after the White House released notes of the July phone call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which confirmed Trump did urge Zelensky to investigate Biden. A redacted version of a whistleblower complaint from someone in the intelligence community, released Thursday, also accused the White House of trying to cover up records of Trump and Zelensky’s conversation.

“Based on the material that they acknowledged today, it seems to me, it’s awful hard to avoid the conclusion that it is an impeachable offense and a violation of constitutional responsibility,” Biden said Wednesday. “I am confident in the ability of the House and Senate to deal with this. My job is just to go out and flat beat him.”

Biden went on to discuss healthcare and other issues important to his campaign, as well as what prompted him to run for president in the first place, admitting that he probably wouldn’t have entered the race had Trump not been in office.

“I can’t let this distract me in a way that takes me away from the issues that really are the reason why I’m running,” he said. “We have to restore the soul of this country, who we are, our values.”