The PBS weekly political roundtable Washington Week on Friday used Hunter Biden’s surprise appearance at a White House state dinner held for India’s prime minister to actually linger over the Hunter Biden controversy, who attended the dinner just days after news of his plea agreement with the Department of Justice.
But the panelists didn’t express shock at the appearance of such a controversial figure at a state dinner, but instead offered a soft shoulder for his father, President Joe Biden, having to deal with a family crisis even as nasty Republicans try to make political hay out of his personal suffering.
Questioned by host William Brangham, White House correspondent for CBS News Weijia Jiang, and Mary Bruce, White House correspondent for ABC News, both expressed personal sympathy for the Democratic president, with only reluctant admission of the political and legal import of both Biden's plea deal and new revelations from a whistleblower.
Jiang: No, I wasn't surprised. And, you know, the White House's response to this was that, you know, this is still the son of a president. And I don't think that the strategy right now is to run away from it. I think they want to show that he, you know, is a real person, that he is, unlike some of his Republican counterparts, who the Republicans have been trying to compare him to, he fesses up, you know. He admits wrongdoing. And there is a clear separation between the White House and the DOJ. At least that is what the Biden team is trying to portray. And so I think you know it made sense to me that they didn't want to hide him, because they didn't want to have an appearance that he you know had done something even further wrong because they wanted to move on from this, they wanted to show that he is, in fact, trying to rebuild his life after years of addiction, which is also something that they are very willing to talk about.
Mary Bruce, White House correspondent for ABC News: And I think also Joe Biden is in this position of having to respond to this personally and politically. And I think Joe Biden, the father, is always going to take first bidding over Joe Biden, the politician. And when he looks back at this, I mean this is incredibly painful for the president. And I think him showing to his son, to the world, come to dinner at the White House --
Brangham: You still have my embrace.
Bruce: Exactly. It's not just sending a message to the world, to his political opponents who are clearly going to do their best to try and keep this in the conversation. They think there's a lot here left to be investigated politically, even if criminally. The Republicans’ charges have not been substantiated at all by this agreement, right? They're not bringing any criminal charges linked to Hunter Biden's business dealings. But the president, I think, is responding first and foremost as a devoted father who has stood by his son through struggles with addiction and has always said that he supports him. So, he's not distancing himself from Hunter Biden but he is distancing himself from this investigation so as not to fuel the political fire.
New York Times congressional reporter Carl Hulse did mention the release by a whistleblower of a text message from Hunter Biden talking to a Chinese businessman claiming he’s sitting next to his father, then the former VP, while threatening the businessman.
When Brangham asked Bruce “Do you think that that adds to the Republicans' case that there really is more here?” she dodged:
Bruce: ….This also was a time when Hunter Biden was heavily addicted to drugs, through his own admission. But I do think Republicans are certainly going to try very hard to do whatever they can to keep this in the conversation….
This soft-soap treatment of a Democratic president was sponsored in part by Consumer Cellular.
A transcript is below, click “Expand” to read:
PBS NewsHour
June 24, 2023
8:14 p.m. (ET)William Brangham: And although Prime Minister Modi was the official guest of honor this Thursday night, it was President Biden's son, Hunter, who also turned heads. He mingled in the crowd just days after news of his plea agreement with the DOJ set off a political firestorm. He is expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and will admit to illegally owning a gun. If a judge accepts the terms, Biden will likely avoid prison time.
But outraged House Republicans blasted that agreement and vowed to continue investigating the president and his family.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA): It continues to show the two-tier system in America. If you are the president's son, you get a sweetheart deal. Now, this does nothing to our investigation. It actually should enhance our investigation.
William Brangham: But Attorney General Merrick Garland has rejected accusations that Biden received any special treatment.
Merrick Garland, Attorney General: Some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department by claiming that we do not treat like cases alike. Nothing could be further from the truth.
William Brangham: This also comes as two IRS whistleblowers have alleged that the investigation into Hunter Biden was repeatedly interfered with to favor the president's son. So, a lot of political intrigue going on here right now. Weijia, were you surprised that Hunter Biden was brought to this state dinner the same week that he had this plea deal announced that they didn't hide him away, he was welcomed with full fanfare?
Weijia Jiang: No, I wasn't surprised. And, you know, the White House's response to this was that, you know, this is still the son of a president. And I don't think that the strategy right now is to run away from it. I think they want to show that he is a real person, that he is, unlike some of his Republican counterparts, who the Republicans have been trying to compare him to, he fesses up. He admits wrongdoing.
And there is a clear separation between the White House and the DOJ. At least that is what the Biden team is trying to portray. And so I think it made sense to me that they didn't want to hide him because they didn't want to have an appearance that he had done something even further wrong because they wanted to move on from this. They wanted to show that he is, in fact, trying to rebuild his life after years of addiction, which is also something that they are very willing to talk about.
Mary Bruce: And I think also Joe Biden is in this position of having to respond to this personally and politically. And I think Joe Biden, the father, is always going to take first bidding over Joe Biden, the politician. And when he looks back at this, this is incredibly painful for the president. And I think him showing to his son, to the world, come to dinner at the White House --
William Brangham: You still have my embrace
Mary Bruce: Exactly. It's not just sending a message to the world, to his political opponents who are clearly going to do their best to try and keep this in the conversation. They think there's a lot here left to be investigated politically, even if criminally. The Republicans charges have not been substantiated at all by this agreement, right? They're not bringing any criminal charges linked to Hunter Biden's business dealings.
But the President, I think, is responding first and foremost as a devoted father who has stood by his son through struggles with addiction and has always said that he supports him. So, he's not distancing himself from Hunter Biden but he is distancing himself from this investigation so as not to fuel the political fire.
Carl Hulse: I thought if you had written a movie script that had that state dinner with the president, the president's son, who just admitted to wrongdoing the two House Republican leaders who are pursuing him, and the president, and the attorney general who is trying to avoid the whole mess all at the same dinner, somebody would say that could never happen.
But the Republicans, no matter what Hunter Biden agreed to and admitted to, the Republicans were always going to say that this is a two-tiered justice system, that Trump is being treated differently than Hunter Biden. And with these whistleblowers now, they've finally made a little headway. This is really sort of the first time that they've had seemed to have some credible -- we'll see how credible --
William Brangham: these are two whistleblowers who have come forward who have said that the investigation was hampered, that there were delays, they slow walked it, they gave Biden's lawyers heads-up when they shouldn't have.
Carl Hulse: And that they finally have a little something to grab onto, that there was some unequal treatment and that Hunter Biden wasn't treated the way a normal person being investigated for tax fraud was. However, it's still about Hunter Biden. It's not Joe Biden. They're trying to drag Joe Biden in that, as you saw Lauren Boebert there say. So, there's this new transcript of -- I think it's a text message that he is supposedly have been talking about his father. Hunter Biden's lawyer came out today and said that Hunter Biden is speaking only for himself, no one else in the family.
So, we'll see where they can go with this but it's obviously not going away. They're going to continue this all the way through the election but they still haven't really made the direct link to the president, but they're going to try very hard to do that.
William Brangham: Mary, this text message that Carl is talking about is a text message where Hunter Biden is speaking to, we believe, a Chinese official. And he's basically saying, I'm sitting next to my father. This was when Biden was no longer vice president and was not president yet. But he's saying, I'm sitting next to my dad. And if you don't do this deal with me, in essence, there's going to be hell to pay. Do you think that that adds to the Republicans' case that there really is more here?
Mary Bruce: They certainly are trying to make that point right. This is this alleged WhatsApp message between Hunter Biden and someone that he was doing business dealings with in China, frustrated obviously that they weren't moving ahead with some energy deal that he was hoping that he would be able to close. And to Carl's point, Hunter Biden's lawyers, the White House have all said the president knows nothing about this. There was no connection to the president, then former vice president who wasn't in office at the time.
This also was a time when Hunter Biden was heavily addicted to drugs, through his own admission. But I do think Republicans are certainly going to try very hard to do whatever they can to keep this in the conversation.
What will be interesting to see is whether we learn any more from the Trump-appointed prosecutor, David Weiss, who I think there are many questions about. Obviously, he looked into all of these things. Did he know about this WhatsApp message? Was this something that he was looked at? Why didn't he bring any criminal charges linked to Hunter Biden's overseas business dealings? And the attorney general, Merrick Garland, was asked about this today and he said he would support David Weiss testifying at some point or commenting about this when it was appropriate.
So, I do wonder if at some point we may get more transparency that may answer some Republicans' questions, just clear things up in an attempt just to hear it out loud.
Carl Hulse: And he had written a letter to Jim Jordan in Congress saying, I had full discretion to make the decisions here. Now, there's some question whether that is true, but he put it in writing. So, there's a lot to disentangle here but I think the Republicans are going to keep at it and they move slightly towards impeaching the president.
Weijia Jiang: Well, trying to connect the dots between Hunter and his father is one thing, but I think the other thing you're seeing here from Republicans is just really trying to chip away at President Biden's credibility, because he has already said so adamantly that he knew nothing about his son's business dealings and this particular text message would show otherwise after the president said he didn't know and then the White House officially said that the President didn't know. And so they're trying to paint this picture of he actually did know and lied about it.
William Brangham: Right. And there's still no evidence that Joe Biden was sitting next to Hunter when that text was happening. We just don't know that. And maybe that's another line of investigation.
The other argument that the Republicans keep making, which is that this is the weaponization of the DOJ, and that this is President Biden directing Merrick Garland and his DOJ to target his rivals, Donald Trump principally. Although we saw in your own paper, Carl, that remarkable report showing how the DOJ under Merrick Garland was very reluctant to open an investigation about January 6th and then-President Trump and any of his colleagues were involved in all of that. So, do you think that that level, that argument will continue?
Carl Hulse: Yes, they will continue. But Merrick Garland is a very conservative person and a lot of people think he was way too reluctant to do several investigations and move too slowly. But both sides are speaking to their base. The Republicans are just trying -- they need to keep their folks focused on Merrick Garland, that Donald Trump is being treated unfairly no matter what's going on in the courts. And so they're going to stick with that.
William Brangham: Mary, do you have a sense of what the next step in the investigation for the Republicans is? Is it more of this pulling at these threads or are there other things you think they're going to pursue?
Mary Bruce: I think they're going to pull at all the threads they can pull at, right? So, whether there is more to what was released in these transcripts, from these whistleblowers, I think they're going to look through everything that they can just simply to keep it in the conversation.
Because to Weijia's point, just because something may be, you know, inappropriate or amoral even, doesn't mean that it's criminal, certainly any kind of behavior. It also doesn't necessarily link it to the president. And, of course, Hunter Biden was not in the administration. He's not running for president, he's not on any ballot. But it doesn't matter, I think, in a lot of ways when it comes to just the optics of it and trying to keep this alive in the conversation. Because as long as Donald Trump is having the legal challenges that he's having, if they can continue to talk about Hunter Biden and keep that conversation up, I think, politically, they feel that there is still a lot of opportunity here for them to keep up these political investigations certainly as we go towards November.
Carl Hulse: But remember that Kevin McCarthy got in trouble for talking about how Benghazi, the Benghazi investigation was a benefit because it served its goal of lowering Hillary Clinton's poll numbers. So, Kevin McCarthy has some experience in this area.
Mary Bruce: And on the flip side of that I think you're going to continue to see the White House just try to distance themselves as much as possible while also reiterating that the president has never discussed this investigation with Merrick Garland. They are doing everything they can to try and underscore the fact that they believe in the independence of the Justice Department. But you have these two very different conversations going on where the president is doing everything he can to look presidential and just keep going on with the day job while all of this is playing out, to try and just make it look like the Republicans are being chaotic while he is governing and being presidential. That's their strategy in tackling this and their campaign strategy writ large.
William Brangham: Weijia do you have a sense of inside the White House with the Bidens themselves, how this plea deal that Hunter took sits with them? Is it an exhalation? Is it a moment of relief? How are they seeing it, just in a few seconds we have left?
Weijia Jiang: I think that there are certainly reports that the president was relieved. And I think that, overall, the bottom line these are federal charges. And it is remarkable that a president's son is pleading guilty to them. But they, to Mary's earlier point, are not what the Republicans had wanted or expected to come out of this investigation. And so I do think that there is relief because it shows in their mind that there is no there, there. Of course, Republicans would say something very different and say that the DOJ is just covering there.
