Sen. John Kennedy and NBC anchor Chuck Todd got heated during a discussion about accusations of a potential conflict of interest Joe Biden had while serving as vice president.
The Louisiana Republican asked Todd who has looked into claims that Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, might have profited from his father’s decision to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if Ukraine did not fire a prosecutor.
“Who’s looked into it, Chuck?” Kennedy asked.
“Apparently the Ukrainian government, apparently every major Ukrainian journalist, plenty of people here, we’ve all looked into it,” Todd shot back.
“Has MSNBC looked into it?” Kennedy probed, with Todd responding in the affirmative.
“You do realize you’re looking for an outcome, not the facts,” Todd told the senator. “That’s what you keep telling me. There have been four or five entities that have found nothing here.”
“Maybe you’re right, maybe there’s magical missing information here,” Todd continued, “but at some point, do you not accept all of these entities looking into it to have found the answer? And again, if what Hunter Biden did was wrong, then boy there are a lot of people with the last name of Trump that have some answering to do about their foreign work and their foreign entanglements.”
“I’m gonna have to disagree with you, Chuck. I don’t think there has been an in-depth investigation of this,” Kennedy said, before being further grilled about “who” would have to conduct an investigation to find out if there is anything to the claims of wrongdoing.
Kennedy responded with an allegory comparing the situation to a bank robber and a policeman.
“Well, if you want to be fair, then it seems to me, in my example, that you need to investigate both the alleged bank robber and the alleged violation by the policeman who beat the bank robber suspect.”
The exchange came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump on Tuesday after a whistleblower alleged that he urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky multiple times to work to investigate Hunter Biden and his ties to the energy company.
