Communications between Hunter Biden and a business associate in China have raised a lot of questions about how he cashed in on his family name – and the messages suggest that President Biden may have been by his side the entire time, literally. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Communications between Hunter Biden and a business associate in China has raised a lot of questions about how he might have cashed in on his family name. And the message suggests that President Biden may have been by his side the entire time. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins joins me now to talk about it. Farron, you know, I look at this story, I’ve been ignoring this story. I literally have been ignoring the story until this last deal came up. And the last thing that came up was they have, they’ve got the email, they’re seeing what was transpiring. They see what Hunter Biden wrote to this fellow who, oh, by the way, is directly connected to the Chinese military intelligence complex. This company they’re talking about, Chinese Energy Conglomerate, CEFC, also linked to the Chinese military intelligence complex. I don’t know how, but that’s what the story is. And so you pick it up from there. I mean, you know, you and I have both fought desperately to say, well, let’s wait till something develops. But I got, the guy’s a dirt bag. I mean, he’s a total dirt bag. Now, does he have his father brought into dirt bag world? That’s what, that came to mind as I looked at this story.
Farron Cousins: It’s very obvious. And as far as we know, obviously, this has been authenticated. There’s no dispute over whether or not this message that they got from WhatsApp is real. And so you have Hunter Biden messaging with his business associate, Henry Zhao over in China. Hunter clearly angry about not getting paid. So based on what we know from the message, he essentially calls his dad into the room. So he sends off this fiery message, you know, I’m here next to my dad. We want this money.
Mike Papantonio: Let me, can I, you think I oughta read it? I mean.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, I think so.
Mike Papantonio: It says, I’m sitting here with my father. This is from Hunter Biden to this fella who’s indirectly related to the Chinese military complex. I’m sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets outta hand and now means tonight. And Z, this is, he goes on, he says, and Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my directions. I’m sitting here and waiting for a call with my father. Now, it sounds like a, this sounds like a mobster directive.
Farron Cousins: It really does.
Mike Papantonio: Sounds like a frigging mobster. And you know what? I’ve already heard, his lawyer is taking the position, oh, poor pitiful guy. He was on drugs. He was addicted to drugs. He was having this fight about the child that he was having through a relationship. His life was upside down. All they gotta do is put Biden there. If they put the president next to him when this is happening, they got a problem. They can do that with phone. There’s all kinds of ways to do that.
Farron Cousins: Well, and that is actually one of the things that they’re attempting to work on right now is using the location data of President Biden’s cell phone to see if he was in fact, in the room with Hunter. As far as we know right now, that’s not something that they have finalized yet. So, like you said, Hunter Biden may have been sitting there thinking, I got my father, I got Abraham Lincoln next to me. George Washington’s here. We’re all super. Um, but.
Mike Papantonio: Well, he could be delusional. I mean, that’s what his lawyer says. His lawyer says, no, he’s delusional. Although 10 days after this directive went out, they got $10 million. Okay. $10 million was sent to this organization that they’re tying the Biden family into. Now, did I get that right?
Farron Cousins: Yes. So far that is what has happened. It may have been, because the first two payments in the first two days totaled 5.1 million.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, that’s right.
Farron Cousins: But the thing is, one, this information was included in a senate report from 2020. So before the 2020 election, I think it happened in May. So even the Republicans in the Senate, they’ve known this, they’ve had this message for three years now, and we’re only just now hearing it. So that to me is weird. But the other thing too, and this is where more kind of weirdness comes in. This happened in 2017. So at the time, Biden is private citizen Joe Biden. He’s not running for office. He’s not holding an office. So 100% we’ve got, this is unethical. This to me sounds kind of like extortion at this point. I got my dad next to me, we’re gonna hold grudges. But can it rise to the level of illegality? It’s certainly bad for the campaign, a hundred percent.
Mike Papantonio: Well, it looks really bad. I mean, look, didn’t they prosecute Flynn for being a foreign agent that wasn’t registered?
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: So the story is that he wasn’t registered as a foreign agent. And if his dad wasn’t registered, if you’re, you can’t have it both ways. He was either in office as a VP or if he’s doing this, he still needs to be registered as a foreign agent. So the foreign agent issue is still a problem. It’s kind of, it’s almost checkmate. It’s almost checkmate. You can’t make the argument, well, it was in between him being in office and it was just really ugly, ugly influence pedaling. No, there’s something that is required. And when you’re dealing with a Chinese company, CEFC energy that even the Pentagon knows is directly related to the Chinese military complex, you gotta have a license to do that.
Farron Cousins: You do. And see, that’s where you can, and that’s, I bring that up because that’s not something that any of these, you know, people out there attacking this story have talked about. If you look at what we’ve got here, it is difficult to say that, no, this, you know, or yes, it rises to the level of illegality. But you bring up the issue you did about the unregistered foreign agent, suddenly there you’ve got your legal problem. Because can you convict him for saying, my father’s here, give me the money you owe me? You really probably can’t. But when you throw in the foreign agent thing that nobody seems to understand at this point that this is a big deal, then you’re looking at something that, yeah, Hunter Biden could, and he may have taken his father down with him by bringing him in into this.
Mike Papantonio:There are dozens and dozens of people that have been prosecuted under this law. Flynn comes to mind for one.
Farron Cousins: Rudy Giuliani almost was.
Mike Papantonio: Well, I mean, but other than these names we hear about, people are prosecuted for this all the time. And so it’s a real problem. So, here’s one thing I’m wondering. You know, somebody in one of these articles just threw this out. It sounds conspiracy theory to me, but I don’t know. I don’t know anymore. It says the timing is weird. This has been around since what, 2017 did you say?
Farron Cousins: 2020 is when the Senate did their.
Mike Papantonio: Okay, 2020. It’s been around since 2020. Now all of a sudden in 2023, Biden is crashing, the polls are crashing, his prospects are crashing. The only person he can beat is Trump. I mean, if you really look at it. He’s, the other contenders, if they could make it into the primaries, and if they didn’t hold them back, maybe. And then from the Republican side, you know, the numbers are saying most of them can beat Biden. So is this an effort by the Democrats to say, let’s get rid of this guy? I mean, you know, you have to ask the question.
Farron Cousins: Well, see my whole take on this thing too, again, obviously as we’re learning this information, we do have to decipher what’s real and what’s not. Because we’ve seen Republicans come out with, I think six different whistleblowers this year that all turned out to not be whistleblowers.
Mike Papantonio: They didn’t have a document, though. Like, not like this.
Farron Cousins: Well, actually, one of them actually did claim to have a document and 17 tapes that turned out to not exist. But if Hunter Biden goes to jail, I’m not gonna lose any sleep. If President Biden gets impeached, I’m not gonna lose any sleep.
Mike Papantonio: I’m not either, I’m not either.
Farron Cousins: Neither of us have any love for this family either, so.
Mike Papantonio: Well, the only people that will are these, these folks that just can’t, they can’t look outside their tiny little world and understand.
Farron Cousins: It would almost be doing Democrats a favor.
Mike Papantonio: It would. It would. And you gotta wonder is, what’s the timing on this? I mean, look, there’s no way I would ever defend this guy. I am concerned though. I’m concerned that this argument, well, was he just delusional? Daddy’s not really there. He’s talking, you know, my dad. I mean, is he talking to Kermit the Frog? You have no idea. But that’s the defense. We’re already hearing it. Right.
