Daytime talk show Outnumbered became extremely tense, heated, and personal on Monday when Fox News host Steve Hilton accused Fox contributor and former State Department spokesperson Marie Harf of engaging in a cover-up of former Vice President Joe Biden’s “corruption” in Ukraine.
Moments after House committees released transcripts of the closed-door testimony of two impeachment witnesses, Hilton—who served as the lone male co-host of the Fox News female-centric panel show—went full “Deep State” conspiracy theorist, insisting that the intelligence bureaucracy is “protecting Joe Biden.”
Embracing Trumpworld’s narrative that Biden pushed for a Ukrainian prosecutor to be ousted in order to disappear charges against the company his son worked for, Hilton baselessly alleged that Biden and former Secretary of State John Kerry were both involved in corruption.
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“The only real corruption allegation is against Joe Biden,” Hilton declared. “He supervised Ukraine policy, supervised billions of dollars of aid that went from the U.S. Taxpayer to Ukraine. Much of that went to a gas company paying his son. How much money did Joe Biden channel to his son’s business?”
He went on to accuse Kerry of “channeling money to Ukraine,” calling on Ukraine to look into the former senator. And then Hilton finished his rant by claiming that Kerry’s former aide used a position at Burisma to funnel more money to U.S. lawmakers in an effort to shape foreign policy—an accusation that prompted Harf to jump in.
“There’s no evidence that anything you said [is true], I worked at the State Department then,” Harf exclaimed.
“Well you’re covering up the corruption, too. You defend it,” Hilton fired back, causing Harf, now a Democratic strategist, to shout: “Are you kidding me?!”
“I am on this couch with you covering the news,” she added. “Please don’t accuse me of covering something up.”
“You are,” insisted Hilton, who hosts Fox’s The Next Revolution. “Because you are saying there’s no evidence I’ve just given you.”
As Harf once again pushed back, saying she was there at the time and there was “no evidence,” Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner interjected to toss the broadcast to live coverage of remarks by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA).
Later on in the show, the two would continue their debate, with Hilton wondering how much Ukrainian aid during the Obama years “ended up in the bank account of Burisma” while Harf reiterated that there was no evidence of wrongdoing and he was just “making insinuations.”
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment on a Fox host accusing a colleague of corruption.
