The “Morning Joe” panel claimed Wednesday families will be offended by House Republicans investigating Hunter Biden since many of them know someone who has “suffered” in the same way he has.
Biden’s lawyer said he is ready to testify before the House Oversight Committee in December, though House Republicans have requested he testify behind closed doors. The panel claimed the committee has no evidence of Biden’s father, President Joe Biden, committing any wrongdoing and the president’s son wants to clear up all of the so-called lies.
Many of the panelists agreed many families can relate to the “damage” the president’s son has done to himself.
“The thing this committee should be most afraid of is that Hunter has done damage to himself, okay? The self-inflicted damage that Hunter has done to himself is awful and he will cop to it. He will talk about it. The damage he has done to himself, I’m sure, is quite familiar to a whole host of families in this country,” MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle said.
“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough argued Republicans are overlooking how families in the public eye do not want their children to be publicly attacked. He said the targeting of the president’s son could backfire in the same way former President Donald Trump received backlash after taking a swipe at Hunter. (RELATED: Here’s How ‘Morning Joe’ Covered The Hunter Biden News)
“They still don’t understand that in that first debate when Donald Trump attacked Hunter Biden, attacked Joe Biden’s son, they don’t understand how much that backfired. There were conservative, hardcore right-wing, pro-Trump conservatives, whose articles I read and whose columns I read after that who were outraged that Donald Trump went after another man’s child,” Scarborough said.
“You know, voters know Joe Biden and that’s the problem here,” co-host Mika Brzezinski said. “To your point, every family knows or struggles with mental health challenges or knows someone who has struggled and suffered as Hunter has and has done things that are against their core values. Every family is struggling in some way. Another thing voters are, many of them, parents. And when you go after Joe Biden’s son as you pointed out, the reason why it was such a turn off, is because not only was it his son, it was his remaining son. Like how sick can you be?”
MSNBC’s Jonathan Lemire said this testimony could “blow up in their faces,” but Republicans have to deliver the testimony to satisfy their base. Co-host Willie Geist asserted Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer testified Biden and his father never discussed business, though Archer said they spoke on the phone in front of business associates on over twenty occasions.
Aside from Archer’s testimony, a memo released by the House Oversight Committee found the Biden family received more than $24 million from Ukraine, Russia, China, Romania and Kazakhstan. The Oversight Committee subpoenaed the president’s son and his brother, James Biden, on Nov. 8 to have them answer questions about the Biden family’s foreign business enterprise.
The now-president said during the 2020 race his son made no money from China and never discussed business with his son. Archer testified Biden had dinner with Russian oligarch Elena Baturina in 2014 and Burisma executive Vadim Pozharskyi in 2015.