“I’m just curious what my Republican friends will do when they get up,” Biden told CNN in his initial remarks about the impeachment process since the House impeachment managers reassured their case on Thursday.
Biden said he has no intention of talking to senators about the process or how they will vote.
Biden answered two questions from CNN outside the West Wing after he spontaneously visited the North Lawn to see hearts in the likeness of candy hearts put on by First Lady Jill Biden to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
The president’s comments come as the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump in the Senate is underway.
House impeachment managers this week broadcast disturbing and poignant images of rioters violently attacking agents and dangerously close to reaching lawmakers and then Vice President Mike Pence as they fled the House and Senate. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, died in the riot in the Capitol.
Despite the national spotlight on Trump’s impeachment process, the White House has emphasized that it is focused on executing Biden’s agenda, including passing the sweeping coronavirus bill.
Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg met a bipartisan group of senators in the White House on Thursday to discuss infrastructure.
“We all know we have to move on. Today is about jobs and infrastructure,” Biden said at the meeting in the Oval Office when asked about the impeachment trial.
The president, who has not explicitly considered whether he thinks Trump should be convicted, said on Thursday, “I think the Senate needs to complete a very important task and I think I think some have changed my mind, but I don’t. . I do not know. “
This story has been updated with additional information.