An “Outnumbered” segment with former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer got very heated on Thursday as the panel debated evidence against Hunter Biden and whether his laptop controversy is more about President Biden than his son.
The panel was discussing the House Oversight Committee’s hearing concerning Twitter’s censorship of conservatives and its squelching of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Fleischer was the show’s #OneLuckyGuy and he urged Republicans to focus on Joe Biden instead of his son as they dig into the Biden family over their business dealings.
“Listen to the biased way the question was phrased. House Republicans, Senate Republicans are going to investigate your family was the question. No, they’re going to investigate Joe Biden. Joe Biden’s family is meaningless in this,” Fleischer asserted. “I, as a Republican, will never use the name of his son. His son equals evidence. The laptop equals texts equals photos equals facts, evidence. That’s what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about anybody’s name.”
“The issue is Joe Biden’s behavior. Why did Joe Biden deny knowing about any business activities when it’s been contradicted by proof that we have in the laptop that contains texts, emails, and photos? That’s all this is. It’s about Joe Biden and not his family,” he contended.
Democratic Fox News commentator Marie Harf jumped in and defensively argued that “the House GOP cannot help themselves because there is no evidence, that anyone has seen, that this involves national security or that Joe Biden somehow compromised national security.”
She posited that “these culture war issues” don’t really garner concern among voters and that is partially why Republicans underperformed in the 2022 midterms.
“There is evidence,” Fleischer informed her. “If Joe Biden received 10 percent…”
Harf desperately seized on the word “if,” clapping back, “That’s not evidence! That’s not evidence!”
Harf pretty much got into it with everyone as she defended Biden while the panel clobbered her with references to Tony Bobulinski’s “10 percent for the big guy” email.
Panelist Lisa Boothe eventually turned the conversation toward allegations that the FBI pressured Twitter into suppressing the New York Post’s laptop story.
Emily Compagno reignited the confrontation with Harf by saying, “It boggles my mind that you can say in such a seemingly either oversimplistic or whitewashing way that there has been no evidence against Hunter Biden.”
“That’s not Joe Biden,” Harf responded getting her hackles up again. “The DOJ is investigating Hunter Biden. We know that. We know the Department of Justice has open investigations on Hunter Biden. Let those go forward! I’m not saying they should stop. I’m saying we should investigate if there is wrongdoing [but] the leap from that to Joe Biden is somehow ‘compromised’ and has done things that put our national security at risk is not there in the facts.”
The panel vigorously contested that assertion.
Harf wound up asking Kayleigh McEnany, “Do you have evidence that even happened?”
Boothe remarked that President Biden is under investigation for his mishandling of classified material and the panel went off on that tangent. But Fleischer circled back to the Biden business deals.
“This is such a perfect conversation. Such an illustration of the gaps between the parties and a lesson about communication. For Republicans, we take it as religion. We’ve seen it, we know it, we believe it. Democrats reject it all. But the problem I have with the Democrats is that means you’re rejecting the written testimony, the written word showing 10% for Joe Biden of business deals,” Fleischer charged.
“Which does mean that Joe Biden made money off of all these deals that his family was doing around the world. And secondly, you’re rejecting the oral testimony of Tony Bobulinski, who was an insider that knew what was going on and said that yes, Joe Biden was the ‘Big Guy,’ he got 10%. But the Republicans’ challenge is to make those facts of what’s in print and what was testified orally to Independent voters and some Democrats who are open-minded. Because we believe it but the Democrats don’t hear it because Republicans just go around saying, ‘Hunter! Hunter! Hunter!’ as opposed to using evidence and facts,” he concluded.
