Kamala Harris says to 'leave Joe Biden alone' on Ukraine — Nikki Haley blasts 'embarrassing' defense

Democratic presidential candidates are having a difficult time speaking definitively about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son's business in Ukraine.

Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said she didn't know whether her own proposed ethics policy would preclude a vice president's child from serving on the board of a foreign company.

Over the weekend, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) was asked a similar question — and responded by telling everyone to "leave Joe Biden alone."

Reporter: If you were elected president, would you allow the son or daughter of your vice president to serve on a board of an oil company outside this country?"

Harris: Probably not. The problem that we've got, again, with this issue is that it's a distraction from the fact that, look, as far as I'm concerned, leave Joe Biden alone. Just leave him alone. On the issue of what this president has done that has been about corrupting America's democracy, being in cahoots with a foreign leader, to yet again, try and manipulate the election of the President of the United States.

Harris admits that she would not allow her vice president to do what Biden did during the Obama administration — indicating that she believes something was improper about the arrangement — yet she demands that everyone stop asking questions about it, even though Biden's strong chance at becoming the Democratic presidential nominee could possibly be diminishing.

Democrats have struggled to push for President Donald Trump's impeachment while avoiding in-depth discussion about Biden's own potential abuse of power. The problem for them is that the two are inextricably linked, and you can't really dig into Trump without digging into Biden.

Hunter Biden was named to the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma in 2014, earning $50,000 per month. In 2016, Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid from Ukraine unless Ukrainian officials fired prosecutor Viktor Shokin — who reportedly happened to have conducted an investigation of Burisma and Hunter Biden before he was fired.

Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the situation during a July phone call, which is being used by Democrats as potential grounds for impeachment.

Former U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Nikki Haley called Harris out for this deflecting response on Twitter.

"Leave Joe Biden alone? So are you telling us @KamalaHarris that what Biden did was ethical and moral?" Haley wrote. "Where are the questions about the conflict of interest that occurred from Biden's actions and the issues with his son? This response is embarrassing."

(H/T: The Daily Caller)