Biden: I’m not letting attacks on my family stop me

Former Vice President Joe Biden said that his “anger” at seeing his son become a 2020 campaign target cannot overshadow his platform.

“I can't let my anger overcome the desire and the need to have to unite, heal this country,” Biden said in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “I’ve got to move beyond me and beyond my family. Because it's about your family, it’s about everybody else's family, not mine.”

Biden called President Donald Trump’s attacks on his son Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian gas company he served on the board of, Burisma, a “pure sham.” Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens over unsubstantiated corruption claims in a July phone call. That phone call became the center of the impeachment proceedings against Trump, which wrapped up in an acquittal of the president last week.

“I’ll be damned — I've been hit a lot. But It's not going to work on me, and I'll be damned if I’m going to walk away and not take this country back,” Biden said on Sunday.

Still, even after Trump’s acquittal, Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin announced a review of Hunter Biden’s business activities. Joe Biden said this narrative is probably not “going to go anywhere” and that he’s worried Trump has gotten “a free pass now on anybody.”

But he doesn’t see any evidence of Trump’s claims working against him on the campaign trail.

“Look, when you’re in a situation where you still have a majority of the people think that you should have been convicted, that's a hell of a way to start to run,” Biden said of Trump’s reelection bid.

“Politics has gotten too dirty, too mean, too ugly and it's only being inflamed by this president,” the former vice president said. “We not only have to beat him, but we also have to bring along the Democratic Party — not just at the Senate level but in the local races. We can do that.”