Shortly after news agencies projected that Republicans were set to take a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, key GOP House members signaled their intent to aggressively launch investigations into Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden's son, who has been accused of attempting to sell White House access, according to emails recovered from his laptop — though there remains no evidence the president himself endorsed or took part in that.
On MSNBC Thursday evening, The Atlantic writer Mark Leibovich argued this issue is simply not salient to the American people as the massive scandal Republicans want it to be — but that it is a convenient distraction to hold together Republicans and take the pressure off them to do anything important.
"When you look at the opening message and priorities, what does it tell you about who's in charge, and will it work for this Republican Party right now?" asked anchor Ari Melber.
"I mean, it did — what was an interesting touch at that press conference you just showed the clip from, is could we do that please? Like the plaintive, would we focus on Hunter Biden?" said Leibovich. "It's like they're reaching for a security blanket. They find themselves just in this weird wilderness of, we're in charge now, we got to figure out what to say, and this is the familiar tic we grab onto. This is the security blanket. If you look at kitchen table issues, if you look at inflation, crime, so forth, you don't get a lot of Hunter Biden feedback when you sort of look at what voters are mostly concerned about."
"No, that's not on that top five list," said Melber.
"Didn't see it," agreed Leibovich. "Look, they got to be disciplined. They haven't gotten their message out yet. Let's give them time to let the Hunter Biden narrative take hold. It's a weird look in some ways. Democrats ... still have the Senate, still have the White House, and Republicans are going to be in this circus-like mini-majority in the House, which is going to be a very bad look for them potentially, because there are a bunch of clowns in the clown car to begin with, and now they've been energized. They have been empowered by the votes, by, you know, the fact that Kevin McCarthy needs pretty much all of them. And I think it's a really good contrast for Democrats if they're committed to focusing on the bread and butter issues, as they say they are."
Watch below:
Mark Leibovich says Hunter Biden is GOP's "security blanket"www.youtube.com
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