Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, is a 49 year adult man and is a public figure in his own right, but if you were to listen to MSNBC Live guest host Chris Jansing on Friday you think the younger Biden decided to live a private life away from the spotlight and was not currently in the midst of his own scandal.
Jansing led into her strange attempt to exonerate Hunter Biden by asking University of Texas Professor Victoria DeFrancesco Soto about impeachment and whether David Brooks is correct when he says that even though Trump is guilty, Democrats should still not impeach him. After DeFrancesco Soto gave a long non-answer about how the "beautiful" impeachment system, but that impeachment also is not a high concern for people who just want to be able to pay their bills, Jansing decided to continue on the 2020 theme and went to Rick Tyler for his thoughts.
Showing the media's inability to walk and chew gum at the same time. Ignoring the controversies surrounding the Bidens, Jansing asked Tyler if the current controversy surrounding Trump will benefit Biden, "Could this help Joe Biden? I thought the picture, for example, they put out there of him watching his only remaining child, living child being trashed, frankly by the President of the United States, can be effective, in addition to being true."
Tyler explained that it could be a "double-edged sword" for Biden. On one hand, he argued that it allows Biden to reinforce his message that he alone is the candidate who can beat Trump, but also that Biden needs to carefully explain what exactly it is he did in Ukraine with regards to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General.
Hunter Biden, despite Jansing's attempt to use the Biden family's tragic history as a shield from any criticism, has questions that need to be answered. Why was a guy, whose father happened to be the Vice President of the United States, being paid $50,000 a month to sit on the board of an energy company, despite having no experience in the energy business? Even some people who advocate Trump's impeachment recognize that is something that Biden cannot easily brush aside.
Here is a transcript for the September 27 show. Click "expand" to read more.
MSNBC
MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle
9:33 AM ET
CHRIS JANSING: Or don't, because Victoria, David Brooks writes ,his argument is that yes, Trump is guilt but impeachment is a mistake. I want to read from him, “This is completely elitist. We’re in the middle of an election campaign. If Democrats proceed with the impeachment process, it will happen amid candidate debates, primaries and caucuses. Elections give millions and millions of Americans a voice in selecting the president. This process gives 100 mostly millionaire senators a voice in selecting the president.” Does he make a point?
VICTORIA DEFRANCESCO SOTO: This is a tough one for me, Chris, because on the one hand the political nerd-wonk in me says this impeachment process, if you take a step back, is a beautiful thing. This is exactly what our founding fathers envisioned. When they thought that something was going to happen that put our institutions in peril, this is the road map they put forward. Maybe President Trump is impeached, maybe he’s not, maybe the Senate acquits him, maybe not ,but we're bringing the facts out into the light. So this is how our the process is supposed to work. So, I disagree with David Brooks on that, because I think this is a beautiful process that we need to respect. However, voters care about whether or not they can get health care, whether they can have enough money for the kids to go to college, to make rent, to do the car note. So voters are not jumping out of bed saying “is impeachment going on today? Yes or no?” They’re jumping out of bed saying “Can I pay my bills today? Are my kids in good schools that I like?” So on the day to day, impeachment is not that big of a deal, but in terms of our structural integrity, it’s a huge deal.JANSING: But this inquiry is happening Rick, so let’s look at the impact on 2020. For example, its clear from pretty extensive reporting that the President has been focused on Joe Biden for a while now, all you have to do is look at his Twitter feed, the number of times he has tweeted about him his most likely opponent—
RICK TYLER: Obsessed with
JANSING: And I would say, Stephen Colbert was funny last night, he asked Bernie Sanders, “are you insulted that Donald Trump didn't try to get dirt on you from Ukraine?” There’s another part of this, could this help Joe Biden? I thought the picture, for example, they put out there of him watching his only remaining child, living child being trashed, frankly by the President of the United States, can be effective, in addition to being true.
TYLER: You know, for my only Biblical reference today, it’s a double-edged sword, right? It will help him and hurt him. It helps him the sense that he is reinforcing Biden’s strongest message, which is I alone can beat Donald Trump. We’ve seen other polls that others can beat him too, but Donald Trump believes that Joe Biden can beat him otherwise he wouldn’t be going through all these extraordinary efforts to hurt him now. On the other hand, Biden has to be very clear about what happened and I think it’s very simple to explain, Biden on his own doesn’t have any executive authority. He can't give the Ukrainians a billion dollars or whatever it is, right? He can’t give them that money. He only acts as an emissary for President Barack Obama, that’s his purview, that’s the president. The vices president has no executive authority. So he was simply there to deliver a message for Barack Obama, so how is he extorting personally.
