OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper was brutal in his coverage of the Trump administration, but he make a frank admission about the former president during a show segment on Friday.
During a roundtable discussion about a potential political “blind spot” President Joe Biden may have regarding his son heading into the 2024 campaign cycle, Tapper played two different 2020 debate clips where then-President Donald Trump and then-Democratic nominee Biden got into heated arguments after Trump accused Hunter of “making a fortune” from business interests in countries like China and Ukraine, which Biden vehemently denied.
“Let’s turn to the Biden administration because Jeff [Zeleny], you have some new reporting that President Biden might have a blind spot, according to people around him when it comes to his son Hunter Biden’s legal troubles and concerns about how this might impact his desire to be reelected. What do you got? What are you hearing?” Tapper said to begin the segment.
“Well, look, this is something that the President was hoping to put behind him. They were hoping that the plea agreement would go through, et cetera. Now there is very likely to be a trial unfolding at the same time as a presidential campaign. Even worse, a second special counsel’s investigation on top of the one that’s already investigating the President for classified documents,” Zeleny responded.
He added:
So the point, talking to a bunch of advisors, is that this is something that is not discussed around the President in his orbit because they do not think voters care about it. They think voters care about the economy, other matters. They’re probably right about that. However, we know that this is going to be a central piece of the Republican debate and Republican talking points next week and beyond, the Hunter Biden situation. So what do swing voters think of Hunter Biden? As of now, they’ve never sort of drawn a correlation or blamed the President for his son’s conduct. They feel sympathy for him, et cetera.
But is there a blind spot directly around him and the campaign by not talking about this? It’s verboten. You can’t talk about Hunter Biden. We’ll see. This is definitely going to be a topic on the debate stage this week.
“Yes. And Kristen, Glenn Kessler from The Washington Post had a fact check about Joe Biden from earlier this month noting that Hunter Biden admitted in court in July that he was, in fact, paid substantial sums from Chinese companies,” Tapper responded.
“Kessler wrote, Hunter Biden reported nearly $2.4 million in income in 2017 and 2.2 million in income in 2018, most of which came from Chinese or Ukrainian interests. But this — and this directly goes against what Joe Biden said in the debate in 2020 with Donald Trump. Take a listen,” he said before playing the clips:
BIDEN: My son has not made money in terms of this thing about what are you talking about, what are you talking about, China.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: He made a fortune in Ukraine, in China, in Moscow —
BIDEN: That is simply not true.
TRUMP: — and various other places.
Tapper offered: “So this is from two different debates. But I mean, Trump was right. I mean, he did make a fortune from China, and Joe Biden was wrong. I don’t know that he was lying about it. He might not have been told by Hunter. But this blind spot is a problem.”
Kristen Anderson replied, “It’s a problem, one, because Republicans aren’t going to let it go, that’s for sure. But also these problems are continuing through the legal system. It’s not as though this is something that’s been settled in other jurisdictions, and Republicans are just harping on it. It is an ongoing thing in our courts. It’s not going anywhere.”
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