On Monday’s episode of CNN’s Inside Politics with Dana Bash, the host and her panel discussed the surprisingly searing New York Times column that ripped into President Biden for denying the existence of Hunter Biden’s child. Despite CNN’s personality cult following of Biden, the panel found it extremely difficult to excuse his behavior.
Bash quoted from columnist Maureen Dowd: “According to the Times the President does not acknowledge the girl and he expects his staff to follow his lead. Quote, “In strategy meetings in recent years, aides have been told that the Bidens have six, not seven grandchildren, that’s according to two people familiar with the discussions.”
She continued, lamenting that “Republicans are using it and are going to take advantage of it in a way that is unfortunate inappropriate, but the reason they are doing it is because -and able to do that- is because of the brand and the kind of person that we all know and believe Joe Biden to be because it's who he says he is, and it's somebody who is a family man.”
Joe Biden was- not a family man? What a shock! It seemed the fact Biden denies the existence of his own grandchild was what it took to break through the liberal CNN bubble and get them to realize that he’s not some kind, gentle, family man. Republicans, of course, knew that from the beginning, and took the opportunity to support Lunden Roberts in her legal battles with Hunter. But the Democrats’ cult of personality support for the Bidens prevented them from seeing any possible flaw in them, until now.
However, even with the partial breakthrough of reality, Bash still tried to sympathize – “It’s complicated, families are really, really hard” – and find some way to fault Republicans in the situation.
She said: “On the one hand, well wait a minute, this is, you know MAGA and Republican lawyers have gone to this woman who is the mother of this child and helped support her and helped support lawsuits. Maybe that's true, but does that matter when you're talking about a 4-year-old girl? And then on the flip side I've talked to Democrats who very much love Joe Biden, who say, that this is kind of devastating to the image of who he is.”
All Republicans did was help the woman who Hunter wronged, yet they were the bad guys here. Perhaps one day she will realize that the reason Biden’s conduct was so devastating to the “image of who he is” was because that image was never real, and was just the liberal media’s projection of what they wanted Biden to be rather than who he was.
CNN’s Biden defense was sponsored by Google and Subway. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’s Inside Politics with Dana Bash
07/10/23
12:40 PM ET
DANA BASH: “Family is the beginning, middle and end,” those are President Biden's words, but how much they are worth depends on how you count. That's Maureen Dowd's argument in this weekend's New York Times. Her column Saturday headline is stinging: “It's Seven Grandkids, Mr. President.” The headline is a rebuttal to piece of reporting from the paper’s Katie Rogers about Hunter Biden's daughter, the 4-year-old lives in rural Arkansas.
Her mother sued for child support and reached a settlement with the President's son. According to the Times the President does not acknowledge the girl and he expects his staff to follow his lead. Quote, “In strategy meetings in recent years, aides have been told that the Bidens have six, not seven grandchildren, that’s according to two people familiar with the discussions.” Again according to the Times.
Dowd finds that anathema to decency and the Biden brand. Quote, “The president's cold shoulder -and heart- is counter to every message he has sent for decades and it’s out of sync with the America he wants to continue to lead.”
And our panel is with us now. You know, this is a story that is sad and disturbing on so many levels. Yes, it is political for a couple of reasons. Number one, yes, Republicans are using it and are going to take advantage of it in a way that is unfortunate inappropriate, but the reason they are doing it is because -and able to do that- is because of the brand and the kind of person that we all know and believe Joe Biden to be because it's who he says he is, and it's somebody who is a family man. That's what we see all of the time. This is what Joe Biden said just in April at the end of April.
(…)
KRISTEN HOLMES: Also just who he has presented himself as. I was at Beau Biden's funeral, I was covering it for the White House at the time for CNN, and I just remember, you know, watching him walk down to that casket with all of his grandkids hanging off of him with his children around him. And he was the clear patriarch of the family, and it was clear how much he cared about them and they cared about him.
And so it's not just what we've been told about him, it's also how he’s presented himself. And when you listen to that after reading the story, it does break your heart out of the political realm because you know that there's a seventh grandchild out there who is listening to that or might listen to it at some point and know that she's not getting a call every day.
BASH: And let me read more of Maureen Dowd’s column. She said, “But the president can't defend Hunter on all his other messes and draw the line at accepting one little girl. You can't punish her for something she had no choice about. The Bidens should embrace the life Hunter brought into the world even if he didn't consider her mother the dating type.”
MANU RAJU: Yeah and the president’s gonna have to answer questions about this. It's going to come up on the campaign trail. The White House has not wanted to engage about these questions given how sensitive it is, given that it's a family issue, given that there is a little girl whose life is, you know, being discussed around all of this, but he is the president of the United States. This is his image. And this is a question that he's going to have to continue to come up on the campaign trail. The question for me is how does he address this? And does he embrace her as his seventh grandchild?
BASH: And you know I've heard from Democrats who have said two things that seem contradictory but both can be true. On the one hand, well wait a minute, this is, you know MAGA and Republican lawyers have gone to this woman who is the mother of this child and helped support her and helped support lawsuits. Maybe that's true, but does that matter when you're talking about a 4-year-old girl? And then on the flip side I've talked to Democrats who very much love Joe Biden, who say, that this is kind of devastating to the image of who he is.
(…)
