On Wednesday's New Day, we learned that CNN analysts think some squad of Rudy Giuliani bagmen wanted to "Benghazi" the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. On the flip side of that, CNN analyst Michael Smerconish suggested Republicans may be unhappily surprised if they called Hunter Biden as a witness in the Senate impeachment trial, because there's "this caricature that has been created of Hunter Biden being a very troubled and ill-equipped individual," but he graduated from Yale Law and "comported himself well" in a softball interview with ABC News, so "It's possible he comes off as credible."
Talk about putting on the most positive paint job!
JOHN BERMAN: Ted Cruz likes the idea of a one-for-one. Okay, you get John Bolton, but we get Hunter Biden. How do you assess that?
SMERCONISH: Right. I think I said that to Alisyn earlier in the week, that there would be this tit for tat. I would say this. Maybe the lesson for Republicans should be 'be careful what you wish for.' Because there's this caricature that has been created of Hunter Biden being a very troubled and ill equipped individual. He graduated from Georgetown. He went to Yale Law. The only interview I've seen him do was on ABC on their morning show a couple of months ago, and I thought he comported himself well. So the idea that, oh, you know, we'll put Hunter Biden into the well of the Senate and, boy, that will really throw a monkey wrench in -- That might not be the case. It's possible he comes off as credible. People may question the amount of money that he was paid, but they might take a look at him and say, you know, where exactly is the beef?
It's a little odd to suggest that because Hunter Biden "comported himself well" in a softball interview with ABC's Amy Robach last October -- where she worried out loud that those mean Republicans might knock him back into his addictions -- is not really comparable to being questioned by Senate Republicans.
Hunter's answers to Robach about his business dealings were quite snide about how he wasn't going to "open his kimono" about the big money he was making. When she asked if the Ukrainian oil company Burisma would have hired him if he wasn't Joe Biden's son, he admitted "probably not." Robach tenderly elided "troubled" Hunter's seven or eight trips to rehab and dating the widow of his brother Beau after his death.
At least co-host Alisyn Camerota noted Republicans say the same thing -- careful what you wish for -- about John Bolton, the great Democratic hope for breaking the Trump impeachment wide open if he testifies.
