Panelists on CNN pressed a former Biden administration official after she tried to explain away the cancellation of Tuesday’s White House press briefing.
The press briefing was called off hours after a federal jury in Wilmington, Delaware, convicted Hunter Biden on three felony counts in connection with the 2018 purchase of a .38-caliber revolver after deliberating for slightly over three hours. Former Biden White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield, said such a cancellation was “not uncommon” shortly after “CNN News Central” co-host Boris Sanchez announced it.
“It‘s not uncommon to cancel the briefing after the president gives a significant set of remarks,” Bedingfield claimed. “I mean, your aim during the day is to try to get the press to cover the things you want them to cover. So, when the president goes out, gives a speech like that on an issue where that is meaningful to him, where he’s got a lot to talk about, where he’s laid out the accomplishments of his administration, by the way, bipartisan successes, that he’s had in his administration — you want the focus to be there.”
“They’ve known all along he’s making the speech,” co-host Brianna Keilar responded, before the panel got chaotic.
Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton called Bedingfield out over her comments after some cross-talk.
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“I love my dear friend Kate here, but we know why it was canceled,” Singleton said. “Because they don’t want to deal with questions about the verdict, I understand that, and it’s okay to say, ‘Look, this is a difficult time for the president right now. We haven’t had the opportunity to digest all of this thing, we’ll get back to you guys the next day.’ Just be transparent.”
Bedingfield claimed that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had previously handled questions about Hunter Biden’s legal woes and that it was about keeping the focus on Biden’s remarks on gun control.
“This is about keeping the focus on what the president is talking about,” Bedingfield said after CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger pointed out that Hunter Biden had been convicted.
“It can be both,” Borger responded. “You want to keep the focus on what you want to keep the focus on, but you also don’t want to talk about what you don’t want to talk about yet until you have your messaging points clear, until the president perhaps goes to Wilmington and discusses it with the family and maybe the president himself will say something and she doesn‘t want to say something before the president.”
Special counsel David Weiss has secured a nine-count indictment against Hunter Biden for failing to pay over $1 million in taxes from 2016 to 2019 in December on income from foreign business dealings.
