It’s almost as if he weren’t listening to himself.
On Sunday, House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to discuss the obvious issues of the day.
First and foremost, obviously, was former President Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 counts in a kangaroo court in Jeffries’ home turf of New York City.
The minority leader made it clear where he stood while continuing to contend, against all reliable evidence, that President Joe Biden had made real gains for the American people in his three-and-a-half years in office.
“Extreme MAGA Republicans are going to continue to lie for Donald Trump. President Biden and Democrats are going to continue to solve problems for hard-working American taxpayers,” Jeffries claimed.
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“Extreme MAGA Republicans will continue to lie for Donald Trump,” he said again.
What those lies are went unnamed, but one can assume that they had to do with pointing out just how kangaroo the court in New York City was, given the question being asked.
All right, then, Rep. Jeffries: What about Hunter Biden? Do you think it was proper for the president to say, last year, that the first son “has done nothing wrong” before he was indicted on numerous federal violations?
Of course it was, he said.
Does the media have double standards for Democrats and Republicans?
Answering a question regarding a Wall Street Journal editorial that called out the president’s remarks before Hunter Biden’s gun charges go to trial this coming week, Jeffries told host Peter Alexander that “President Biden commented as a loving father, as I would hope any loving father would do.”
“Hunter Biden of course is entitled, as was Donald Trump, to the presumption of innocence and to a trial by a jury of his peers,” the congressman said.
“And this Justice Department is going to proceed in that fashion, present the facts and the law. And then we’ll all have to wait for a determination that is made by a jury as to Hunter Biden’s guilt or innocence,” he said.
Now, firstly, I think we should be clear on the timeline of this, because Jeffries was being a bit disingenuous here and Alexander wasn’t willing to call him out on it.
In May 2023, during an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, Biden insisted that his son was innocent of pretty much anything under the sun.
“First of all, my son has done nothing wrong,” the president said. “I trust him. I have faith in him.”
Biden said the only effect was “making me feel proud of him.”
This is before Hunter was given a sweetheart deal by his father’s Department of Justice that collapsed in court after a judge rejected it as unprecedented and potentially unconstitutional.
It was also before, due to an impasse created by the rejection of the plea deal, the attorney general was forced to announce an independent special counsel who went on to indict Hunter on gun charges in September and tax charges in December.
Thus, Biden wasn’t just acting as a loving father. He was acting as the sitting president and a recently declared candidate for re-election stating that his son was clean at a whistle, legally speaking, at the same time he knew that son was being investigated by the federal government for behavior that, at the very least, was ethically indefensible.
Hunter Biden is “entitled … to the presumption of innocence and to a trial by a jury of his peers,” of course.
However, what the first son isn’t entitled to is the president using his office to dissuade charges from being filed against him. That’s exactly what Joe Biden did — and it wasn’t an act of love, or at least primarily an act of love. It was an act of hide-saving.
Furthermore, what we knew about Hunter Biden didn’t materially change over the course of 2023. We knew that the first son had probably lied on a federal gun form that required him to list if he was an abuser of or an addict to any illegal or controlled substances; Hunter had more or less admitted that he was during the time that the gun was purchased in his autobiography “Beautiful Things.” We knew about his tax problems, too.
Nor was this merely about saving Hunter, as the media has reported; his son’s legal woes apparently have had quite a psychological toll on the president, as well.
“He worries about Hunter every single day, from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to sleep. That will only pick up during a trial,” an adviser told Politico last month.
So, the president essentially putting his rhetorical thumb on the scales of justice isn’t an outrage, but “extreme MAGA Republicans [who] are going to continue to lie for Donald Trump” are, as Jeffries said in this postverdict interview.
Imagine, for a second, if Hakeem Jeffries were a Republican and the president were still Donald Trump. He would be eaten alive by the media.
Here, Alexander didn’t even bother asking a follow-up question. He let this stand as if there were no issue whatsoever.
It’s yet another object lesson in why, if it weren’t for double standards, the establishment media wouldn’t have any standards at all.
