‘You’re not going to destroy me’: Biden warns Donald Trump

Biden called Trump “desperate and defensive” for “warning direly of civil war” after a whistle-blower filed a complaint over his conversation asking Ukraine’s president to “look into” the Bidens.

Joe Biden is giving a preview of a potential general election face-off with Donald Trump by taking a more aggressive tone and assailing the president for his “abuse of power” and for “smearing” him and his family.

Former Vice President Joe Biden. (Reuters)

”Let me make something clear to Trump and his hatchet men and the special interests funding his attacks against me -- I’m not going anywhere,” Biden will say Wednesday, according to prepared remarks for a speech in Reno, Nevada. “You’re not going to destroy me. And you’re not going to destroy my family.”

Biden will say that “like every bully in history,” Trump is “afraid. He’s afraid of just how badly I would beat him next November.”

The remarks come as the president, angry over being the subject of a House impeachment inquiry, has sought to tarnish Biden as “corrupt” because of his son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine. Trump has made discredited claims that the former vice president used his office to intervene with the eastern European country’s law enforcement to protect Hunter Biden.