Biden Surrogate Accuses Fox of Helping Russia to Interfere in the Election by Reporting on ‘Bogus’ Hunter Biden Story
SMITH: “OK. So one can assume that the president is sharpening his attacks particularly when it comes to Hunter and Joe Biden’s business dealings in China, Ukraine and other places. How is Joe Biden preparing to respond and defend himself against those attacks particularly now that Hunter Biden’s former business partner is coming forward? These are not anonymous sources and that we are getting a look at some of these emails that were exchanged.”
RAWLINGS-BLAKE: “The way the president is going to prepare is the same way Fox prepared when this bogus story first showed up, which is to turn it down. Because they knew that —“ [crosstalk]
SMITH: “No, no. That’s —“ [crosstalk]
RAWLINGS-BLAKE: “The FBI says potentially a Russian conspiracy to interfere with our election. And my hope is that our country will not be led down this road again by Putin and allow Russia to interfere with our election, and my hope is that Fox won’t participate in the interference in our election by continuing to perpetuate a bogus story.” [crosstalk]
SMITH: “When you reference a bogus story that Fox turned down we have no information of that. When this story surfaced it was —“ [crosstalk]
RAWLINGS-BLAKE: “There is no information —“ [crosstalk]
SMITH: “With that being said this is the debate that’s going to take place on that stage tonight. How does Joe Biden respond considering we have not seen him answer any questions about it?”
RAWLINGS-BLAKE: “He responds by acknowledging just like the FBI did that this is a bogus story perpetuated and put out in the fake news networks to interfere with the election. These are desperate times. President Trump sees his numbers, Fox News sees the numbers. I will assure Fox News and all of your watchers you will have advertisers after this election is over, you’ll have air time after this election is over. It will be OK to report on real news without desperately needing excuses.” [crosstalk]
SMITH: “Final thoughts — OK. What if the question comes up, Stephanie? And final thoughts on this. What if the question comes up. Joe Biden, do you refuse the fact that these were real emails that were exchanged? Was this Hunter Biden’s laptop? I hear you calling it a false story. There is no evidence that it’s false or made up. But how does Joe Biden respond to that? Will he answer those crucial questions on the debate stage considering he has said that he never discussed his business dealings with his son, Hunter.”
RAWLINGS-BLAKE: “I’m sure President Biden is prepared to answer those questions, I’m also sure that your repeated bringing the emails up is as the FBI said a possibility or an interest of the Russians to interfere with our elections. And I understand while it seems like an interesting story, I have no interest in helping Russia interfere with our elections. They did it in 2016 and we will not have it done again.”
SMITH: “Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, we appreciate you coming on. Thank you.”
