Fox News anchor Chris Wallace confronted Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Sunday morning over the Hunter Biden laptop story that Trumpworld has incessantly pushed recently, asking her if she could provide any proof that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden took money from foreign companies and countries.
Team Trump and its allies in conservative media have used materials purported to be from the younger Biden’s laptop to accuse the former vice president of corruption, claiming emails show Hunter Bidden involving his father in shady foreign dealings. The Biden campaign has denied any wrongdoing, and the Wall Street Journal reported last week that a review of documents shows “no role for Joe Biden” in any alleged pay-for-play scheme.
With the right-wing media ecosystem continuing to run wild with the story, which involves Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and other assorted sketchy personalities, Wallace grilled McDaniel on Fox News Sunday on whether or not there was any fire behind all the smoke.
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“Do you have any proof, because he’s denied it, do you have any proof that Joe Biden ever took one penny from either a foreign country or a foreign company?” Wallace pressed the GOP leader.
“I think that’s incumbent upon the press to start investigating,” McDaniel deflected. “I think what’s frightening is we should have a free and fair press that should be looking at a laptop that has not been disputed by the Biden campaign to be authentic.”
“These emails are deeply troubling as it looks like Hunter Biden is negotiating with a Chinese energy company to profit not just for himself, but for his father, but it warrants an investigation,” she continued. “That’s not my job. That’s the press’ job. That’s the FBI, those who have this laptop, to look into it.”
As McDaniel began complaining about social media platforms restricting the dissemination of some of the initial Hunter Biden stories, Wallace interjected to once again ask her about the actual veracity of Republicans’ allegations.
“I’m going to say, the FBI had a hard drive—if I may,” he declared. “Don’t mean to interrupt, but let me ask you, the FBI has had the hard drive since December, why haven’t they come up with any evidence?”
McDaniel shrugged off Wallace’s question, noting that she was not involved in the “internal aspects of that investigation” before pivoting again to Twitter “censoring these stories” and claiming the media is in the tank for Biden.
“The press is saying this has been debunked without even investigating it,” she groused. “Why are they doing that? Why are they covering for the story? If this were the Trump family and this laptop and emerged it would be all over the news 24/7. It is frightening as we are looking at a candidate who is going to take us closer to socialism that we have a press that is showing itself not to be free and fair.”
Notably, McDaniel was unable to point to any actual evidence of corruption or malfeasance on the part of the ex-veep.
