Biden: Impeachment hearings show ‘Trump doesn’t want me to be the nominee’

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday said that he learned from the impeachment hearings on Capitol Hill that President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin do not want him to be the Democratic presidential nominee. 

“I’ve learned something from these impeachment trials — I’ve learned that Donald Trump doesn’t want me to be the nominee,” Biden told the audience at the fifth Democratic presidential debate in Atlanta. 

“Vladimir Putin doesn’t want me to be president,” he added. 

The former vice president continued to push his electability argument, saying that he is the candidate with the best chance of beating Trump one-on-one. 

A number of polls have shown Biden defeating Trump in a head-to-head match-up in key battleground states. 

Biden’s comments follow the second day of public testimony this week in the ongoing impeachment inquiry into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

Wednesday saw bombshell testimony from U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who confirmed that Trump pressured Ukrainian leaders to investigate Biden and his son Hunter Biden, by dangling a meeting and a phone call with the country’s new president. 

Sondland also said that Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, told U.S. officials in Ukraine that he wanted a public statement from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “committing to investigations of Burisma and the 2016 election.”