September 21, 2019

Biden Scolds Fox News Reporter: “Ask the Right Question”

The former vice president told reporters to focus on Trump’s abuse of power.

Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the AFL-CIO Workers Presidential Summit 2020 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia on Tuesday. Tommy Galante/ZUMA

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Joe Biden scolded the media on Saturday for focusing on President Donald Trump’s unfounded allegations about connections to his son’s work in Ukraine rather than the major scandal of the day: that Trump appears to have abused his powers in order to coerce a foreign government to dig up dirt on his political opponent.

“You should be asking him the question: why is he on the phone with a foreign leader, trying to intimidate a foreign leader?” Biden told reporters in Iowa. “This appears to be an overwhelming abuse of power. To get on the phone with a foreign leader who is looking for help from the United States and ask about me and imply things … this is outrageous. You have never seen anything like this from any president.”

Biden’s comments came after Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked the former vice president how many times he had spoken to his son about his overseas business dealings. Biden responded that he never had. Doocy’s question is about the faux-scandal that President Donald Trump is trying to drum up and is reportedly part of a whistleblower complaint in the Intelligence Community. According to news accounts, Trump has been pressuring the president of Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter. 

“You should be looking at Trump,” Biden continued. “Everybody looked at this and everybody who’s looked at it said there’s nothing there. Ask the right question.”

Biden said he would wait for the House’s investigation to make a judgement on whether Trump should be impeached. But other candidates have gone further, renewing calls for impeachment in light of his apparent abuse of power to go after Biden.

“I know what I’m up against,” Biden told reporters. “A serial abuser. That’s what this guy is. He abuses power any way he can. This crosses the line.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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