1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:04,833 And although Prime Minister Modi was the official guest of honor this Thursday night, 2 00:00:04,833 --> 00:00:09,833 it was President Biden's son, Hunter, who also turned heads. He mingled in the crowd 3 00:00:11,833 --> 00:00:15,066 just days after news of his plea agreement with the DOJ set off a political firestorm. 4 00:00:17,100 --> 00:00:20,133 He is expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and will admit 5 00:00:20,133 --> 00:00:25,133 to illegally owning a gun. If a judge accepts the terms, Biden will likely avoid prison time. 6 00:00:26,933 --> 00:00:30,966 But outraged House Republicans blasted that agreement and vowed to continue 7 00:00:32,300 --> 00:00:33,933 investigating the president and his family. 8 00:00:33,933 --> 00:00:38,766 REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): It continues to show the two-tier 9 00:00:38,766 --> 00:00:43,733 system in America. If you are the president's son, you get a sweetheart deal. 10 00:00:45,766 --> 00:00:48,766 Now, this does nothing to our investigation. It actually should enhance our investigation. 11 00:00:49,966 --> 00:00:51,766 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But Attorney General Merrick 12 00:00:51,766 --> 00:00:55,533 Garland has rejected accusations that Biden received any special treatment. 13 00:00:55,533 --> 00:00:57,733 MERRICK GARLAND, Attorney General: 14 00:00:57,733 --> 00:01:02,700 Some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department by claiming 15 00:01:04,766 --> 00:01:08,433 that we do not treat like cases alike. Nothing could be further from the truth. 16 00:01:08,433 --> 00:01:13,066 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This also comes as two IRâ S whistleblowers have alleged 17 00:01:13,066 --> 00:01:17,333 that the investigation into Hunter Biden was repeatedly interfered with 18 00:01:17,333 --> 00:01:22,333 to favor the president's son. So, a lot of political intrigue going on here right now. 19 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:27,900 Weijia, were you surprised that Hunter Biden was brought to this state dinner the same week that 20 00:01:30,466 --> 00:01:35,466 he had this plea deal announced that they didn't hide him away, he was welcomed with full fanfare? 21 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,033 WEIJIA JIANG: No, I wasn't surprised. And, you know, the White House's response to this was that, 22 00:01:43,066 --> 00:01:45,800 you know, this is still the son of a president. And I don't think that the 23 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:50,766 strategy right now is to run away from it. I think they want to show that he is 24 00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:57,066 a real person, that he is, unlike some of his Republican counterparts, 25 00:01:59,066 --> 00:02:04,033 who the Republicans have been trying to compare him to, he fesses up. He admits wrongdoing. 26 00:02:07,366 --> 00:02:12,233 And there is a clear separation between the White House and the DOJ. At least that is what 27 00:02:14,166 --> 00:02:17,833 the Biden team is trying to portray. And so I think it made sense to me that they didn't 28 00:02:19,866 --> 00:02:24,033 want to hide him because they didn't want to have an appearance that he had done something 29 00:02:24,033 --> 00:02:28,300 even further wrong because they wanted to move on from this. They wanted to show that he is, 30 00:02:28,300 --> 00:02:32,866 in fact, trying to rebuild his life after years of addiction, 31 00:02:32,866 --> 00:02:36,333 which is also something that they are very willing to talk about. 32 00:02:36,333 --> 00:02:41,333 MARY BRUCE: And I think also Joe Biden is in this position of having to respond to this personally 33 00:02:43,266 --> 00:02:46,933 and politically. And I think Joe Biden, the father, is always going to take first bidding 34 00:02:49,400 --> 00:02:52,266 over Joe Biden, the politician. And when he looks back at this, this is incredibly painful for the 35 00:02:54,833 --> 00:02:58,100 president. And I think him showing to his son, to the world, come to dinner at the White House -- 36 00:02:59,333 --> 00:03:01,033 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You still have my embrace. 37 00:03:01,033 --> 00:03:03,000 MARY BRUCE: Exactly. It's not just sending a message to the world, 38 00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:06,833 to his political opponents who are clearly going to do their best to try and keep this 39 00:03:06,833 --> 00:03:10,666 in the conversation. They think there's a lot here left to be investigated politically, 40 00:03:10,666 --> 00:03:15,666 even if criminally. The Republicans charges have not been substantiated at all by this agreement, 41 00:03:18,100 --> 00:03:21,633 right? They're not bringing any criminal charges linked to Hunter Biden's business dealings. 42 00:03:21,633 --> 00:03:25,533 But the President, I think, is responding first and foremost as a devoted father who has stood 43 00:03:25,533 --> 00:03:30,533 by his son through struggles with addiction and has always said that he supports him. So, 44 00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:34,366 he's not distancing himself from Hunter Biden but he is distancing 45 00:03:34,366 --> 00:03:37,066 himself from this investigation so as not to fuel the political fire. 46 00:03:37,066 --> 00:03:39,900 CARL HULSE: I thought if you had written a movie script that had that 47 00:03:39,900 --> 00:03:44,900 state dinner with the president, the president's son, who just admitted to wrongdoing the two House 48 00:03:47,333 --> 00:03:51,300 Republican leaders who are pursuing him, and the president, and the attorney general who is trying 49 00:03:53,300 --> 00:03:56,066 to avoid the whole mess all at the same dinner, somebody would say that could never happen. 50 00:03:56,066 --> 00:04:01,033 But the Republicans, no matter what Hunter Biden agreed to and admitted to, 51 00:04:03,066 --> 00:04:07,433 the Republicans were always going to say that this is a two-tiered justice system, 52 00:04:07,433 --> 00:04:12,433 that Trump is being treated differently than Hunter Biden. And with these whistleblowers now, 53 00:04:14,266 --> 00:04:17,033 they've finally made a little headway. This is really sort of the first time 54 00:04:17,033 --> 00:04:20,366 that they've had seemed to have some credible -- we'll see how credible -- 55 00:04:20,366 --> 00:04:23,266 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: these are two whistleblowers who have come forward who 56 00:04:23,266 --> 00:04:27,766 have said that the investigation was hampered, that there were delays, 57 00:04:27,766 --> 00:04:32,500 they slow walked it, they gave Biden's lawyers heads-up when they shouldn't have. 58 00:04:32,500 --> 00:04:37,500 CARL HULSE: And that they finally have a little something to grab onto, 59 00:04:39,400 --> 00:04:41,866 that there was some unequal treatment and that Hunter Biden wasn't treated 60 00:04:41,866 --> 00:04:46,233 the way a normal person being investigated for tax fraud was. 61 00:04:46,233 --> 00:04:51,233 However, it's still about Hunter Biden. It's not Joe Biden. They're trying to 62 00:04:52,700 --> 00:04:56,633 drag Joe Biden in that, as you saw Lauren Boebert there say. 63 00:04:58,466 --> 00:05:03,300 So, there's this new transcript of -- I think it's a text message that he is 64 00:05:05,233 --> 00:05:07,233 supposedly have been talking about his father. Hunter Biden's lawyer came out 65 00:05:07,233 --> 00:05:11,733 today and said that Hunter Biden is speaking only for himself, no one else in the family. 66 00:05:11,733 --> 00:05:16,733 So, we'll see where they can go with this but it's obviously not going away. They're 67 00:05:18,700 --> 00:05:22,200 going to continue this all the way through the election but they still haven't really 68 00:05:24,266 --> 00:05:27,433 made the direct link to the president, but they're going to try very hard to do that. 69 00:05:27,433 --> 00:05:31,900 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Mary, this text message that Carl is talking about is a text message where 70 00:05:31,900 --> 00:05:36,700 Hunter Biden is speaking to, we believe, a Chinese official. And he's basically saying, 71 00:05:36,700 --> 00:05:40,366 I'm sitting next to my father. This was when Biden was no longer vice president 72 00:05:40,366 --> 00:05:44,866 and was not president yet. But he's saying, I'm sitting next to my dad. 73 00:05:44,866 --> 00:05:48,833 And if you don't do this deal with me, in essence, there's going to be hell to pay. 74 00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:54,600 Do you think that that adds to the Republicans' case that there really is more here? 75 00:05:56,600 --> 00:05:59,433 MARY BRUCE: They certainly are trying to make that point right. This is this alleged WhatsApp 76 00:05:59,433 --> 00:06:03,933 message between Hunter Biden and someone that he was doing business dealings with in China, 77 00:06:03,933 --> 00:06:07,533 frustrated obviously that they weren't moving ahead with some energy deal that 78 00:06:07,533 --> 00:06:12,533 he was hoping that he would be able to close. And to Carl's point, Hunter Biden's lawyers, 79 00:06:14,466 --> 00:06:16,566 the White House have all said the president knows nothing about this. There was no 80 00:06:16,566 --> 00:06:21,133 connection to the president, then former vice president who wasn't in office at the time. 81 00:06:23,033 --> 00:06:25,233 This also was a time when Hunter Biden was heavily addicted to drugs, 82 00:06:25,233 --> 00:06:29,266 through his own admission. But I do think Republicans are certainly going 83 00:06:29,266 --> 00:06:33,400 to try very hard to do whatever they can to keep this in the conversation. 84 00:06:35,400 --> 00:06:39,500 What will be interesting to see is whether we learn any more from the Trump-appointed 85 00:06:41,500 --> 00:06:44,633 prosecutor, David Weiss, who I think there are many questions about. Obviously, he looked into 86 00:06:46,533 --> 00:06:49,166 all of these things. Did he know about this WhatsApp message? Was this something that he 87 00:06:49,166 --> 00:06:53,500 was looked at? Why didn't he bring any criminal charges linked to Hunter Biden's overseas business 88 00:06:53,500 --> 00:06:57,000 dealings? And the attorney general, Merrick Garland, was asked about this today and he said he 89 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:02,000 would support David Weiss testifying at some point or commenting about this when it was appropriate. 90 00:07:03,933 --> 00:07:06,533 So, I do wonder if at some point we may get more transparency that may 91 00:07:06,533 --> 00:07:10,600 answer some Republicans' questions, just clear things up in an attempt just to hear it out loud. 92 00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:15,000 CARL HULSE: And he had written a letter to Jim Jordan in Congress saying, 93 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:20,000 I had full discretion to make the decisions here. Now, there's some question whether that is true, 94 00:07:21,866 --> 00:07:26,466 but he put it in writing. So, there's a lot to disentangle here but I think the 95 00:07:29,433 --> 00:07:34,433 Republicans are going to keep at it and they move slightly towards impeaching the president. 96 00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:39,233 WEIJIA JIANG: Well, trying to connect the dots between Hunter and his father is one thing, 97 00:07:39,233 --> 00:07:43,200 but I think the other thing you're seeing here from Republicans is just really trying to chip 98 00:07:43,200 --> 00:07:48,200 away at President Biden's credibility, because he has already said so adamantly that he knew 99 00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:54,433 nothing about his son's business dealings and this particular text message would show otherwise after 100 00:07:56,733 --> 00:08:00,666 the president said he didn't know and then the White House officially said that the President 101 00:08:00,666 --> 00:08:05,533 didn't know. And so they're trying to paint this picture of he actually did know and lied about it. 102 00:08:05,533 --> 00:08:09,333 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right. And there's still no evidence that Joe Biden was 103 00:08:09,333 --> 00:08:12,333 sitting next to Hunter when that text was happening. We just don't know that. 104 00:08:12,333 --> 00:08:14,366 And maybe that's another line of investigation. 105 00:08:14,366 --> 00:08:19,000 The other argument that the Republicans keep making, which is that this is the 106 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:24,000 weaponization of the DOJ, and that this is President Biden directing Merrick Garland 107 00:08:26,066 --> 00:08:29,933 and his DOJ to target his rivals, Donald Trump principally. Although we saw in your own paper, 108 00:08:32,333 --> 00:08:37,333 Carl, that remarkable report showing how the DOJ under Merrick Garland was very reluctant 109 00:08:40,366 --> 00:08:45,366 to open an investigation about January 6th and then-President Trump and any of his colleagues 110 00:08:48,100 --> 00:08:52,766 were involved in all of that. So, do you think that that level, that argument will continue? 111 00:08:52,766 --> 00:08:57,766 CARL HULSE: Yes, they will continue. But Merrick Garland is a very conservative person and a lot of 112 00:09:00,666 --> 00:09:05,633 people think he was way too reluctant to do several investigations and move too slowly. 113 00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:11,300 But both sides are speaking to their base. The Republicans are just trying -- they need to 114 00:09:13,233 --> 00:09:17,533 keep their folks focused on Merrick Garland, that Donald Trump is being treated unfairly 115 00:09:19,533 --> 00:09:22,300 no matter what's going on in the courts. And so they're going to stick with that. 116 00:09:22,300 --> 00:09:24,533 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Mary, do you have a sense of what 117 00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:29,933 the next step in the investigation for the Republicans is? Is it more of this 118 00:09:29,933 --> 00:09:33,033 pulling at these threads or are there other things you think they're going to pursue? 119 00:09:33,033 --> 00:09:36,133 MARY BRUCE: I think they're going to pull at all the threads they can pull at, right? So, whether 120 00:09:36,133 --> 00:09:41,100 there is more to what was released in these transcripts, from these whistleblowers, I think 121 00:09:41,100 --> 00:09:44,800 they're going to look through everything that they can just simply to keep it in the conversation. 122 00:09:44,800 --> 00:09:48,900 Because to Weijia's point, just because something may be, you know, 123 00:09:51,033 --> 00:09:54,666 inappropriate or amoral even, doesn't mean that it's criminal, certainly any kind of behavior. It 124 00:09:57,133 --> 00:09:59,200 also doesn't necessarily link it to the president. And, of course, Hunter Biden was not in the 125 00:09:59,200 --> 00:10:02,566 administration. He's not running for president, he's not on any ballot. But it doesn't matter, 126 00:10:02,566 --> 00:10:06,600 I think, in a lot of ways when it comes to just the optics of it and trying to keep this alive in 127 00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:11,266 the conversation. Because as long as Donald Trump is having the legal challenges that he's having, 128 00:10:11,266 --> 00:10:14,933 if they can continue to talk about Hunter Biden and keep that conversation up, 129 00:10:14,933 --> 00:10:19,300 I think, politically, they feel that there is still a lot of opportunity here for them to 130 00:10:19,300 --> 00:10:22,200 keep up these political investigations certainly as we go towards November. 131 00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:26,200 CARL HULSE: But remember that Kevin McCarthy got in trouble for talking about how Benghazi, 132 00:10:26,200 --> 00:10:30,900 the Benghazi investigation was a benefit because it served its goal of lowering 133 00:10:30,900 --> 00:10:35,600 Hillary Clinton's poll numbers. So, Kevin McCarthy has some experience in this area. 134 00:10:35,600 --> 00:10:37,400 MARY BRUCE: And on the flip side of that I think you're going to continue 135 00:10:37,400 --> 00:10:39,666 to see the White House just try to distance themselves as much 136 00:10:39,666 --> 00:10:42,733 as possible while also reiterating that the president has never discussed this 137 00:10:42,733 --> 00:10:45,800 investigation with Merrick Garland. They are doing everything they can to try and 138 00:10:45,800 --> 00:10:48,966 underscore the fact that they believe in the independence of the Justice Department. 139 00:10:48,966 --> 00:10:52,533 But you have these two very different conversations going on where the 140 00:10:52,533 --> 00:10:57,066 president is doing everything he can to look presidential and just keep going on with the 141 00:10:57,066 --> 00:11:00,100 day job while all of this is playing out, to try and just make it look like 142 00:11:00,100 --> 00:11:03,333 the Republicans are being chaotic while he is governing and being presidential. 143 00:11:03,333 --> 00:11:07,533 That's their strategy in tackling this and their campaign strategy writ large. 144 00:11:07,533 --> 00:11:12,533 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Weijia do you have a sense of inside the White House with the Bidens themselves, 145 00:11:14,533 --> 00:11:18,000 how this plea deal that Hunter took sits with them? Is it an exhalation? Is it a 146 00:11:20,066 --> 00:11:24,833 moment of relief? How are they seeing it, just in a few seconds we have left? 147 00:11:26,833 --> 00:11:29,800 WEIJIA JIANG: I think that there are certainly reports that the president was relieved. And I 148 00:11:29,800 --> 00:11:34,800 think that, overall, the bottom line these are federal charges. And it is remarkable that a 149 00:11:36,800 --> 00:11:41,000 president's son is pleading guilty to them. But they, to Mary's earlier point, are not 150 00:11:43,466 --> 00:11:47,366 what the Republicans had wanted or expected to come out of this investigation. 151 00:11:47,366 --> 00:11:52,333 And so I do think that there is relief because it shows in their mind that there is no there, there. 152 00:11:55,400 --> 00:11:59,833 Of course, Republicans would say something very different and say that the DOJ is just covering 153 00:11:59,833 --> 00:12:04,800 there. But I think, to your question, yes, the White House can say there are no charges that -- 154 00:12:06,700 --> 00:12:09,033 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Excuse me. I'm sorry, we've got to suddenly wrap. Thank you so much. I 155 00:12:09,033 --> 00:12:12,333 want to thank everybody here for joining us tonight. Thank you so much for being here.