Democrat presidential front-runner Joe Biden granted an interview to PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff for Friday night's program. The Trump campaign sent around an e-mail decrying "Two Big Lies" in the interview.
Let's not be optimistic that the "independent fact-checkers" like PolitiFact will evaluate these. PolitiFact just gave Biden a "Mostly True" for stating he was one of the poorest senators and poorest vice presidents (that's a comparison of high-income people). PolitiFact acknowledged the Bidens reported making $15 million in 2017-2018.
The first whopper came on the economy. Woodruff said the jobs numbers "look pretty good," and Biden tried to shoot that down.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The economy. New jobs numbers out today look pretty good. The unemployment rate is staying very low, 3.6 percent. It's as low as it's been in 50 years. President Trump has a strong hand going into the election --
JOE BIDEN: You're absolutely wrong about that. Look — go back to your own neighborhood. Find me middle-class folks who think they're better off. Find me anybody out there who thinks their children are going to be as well-off as they are.
Do you think they are, in fact, actually able to benefit from what's happening here? We're now in a position where wages are stagnant. They're going up slightly, but not enough. Part-time workers are being counted....I think the middle class is being left behind, and working people are being left behind by these policies.
Stagnant wages? The Department of Labor just reported "Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.0 percent."
Late in the interview, Woodruff raised criticism of Biden by the president's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and then moved from there to asking about Hunter Biden's lucrative work abroad while Biden was vice president. He tried to claim he didn't know about his son's business joining the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, for at least $50,000 a month.
WOODRUFF: Your son Hunter, you have been asked a lot of questions about this. [Not on TV news!] My question is, both of you have said you would not, as president, have your children, have him or your children involved with foreign countries. My question is, if it's not appropriate if Joe Biden is president, why was it appropriate when you were vice president?
BIDEN: Well, number one, no one established that he did anything wrong or that I've done anything wrong, period. I carried out the policy of the United States of America, our allies in the International Monetary Fund, the E.U., in dealing with a corrupt prosecutor, period, number one.
I didn't know he was on the board of that company. And, in fact, no one has asserted on the board that it was illegal for him to be on the board or he did anything wrong.
Biden confirmed on CBS's 60 Minutes that he told his son Hunter "I sure hope to hell you know what you’re doing" after learning he'd joined Burisma, and said "What I meant by that is, I hope you've thought this through." Biden claiming that he never discussed business with family members is very hard to believe, especially because foreign companies would hire Biden's relatives as a way of gaining influence with Biden.
