Now it can be told! POLITICO buried Hunter scandal (01-27-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] We have another example. It seems weird that we're getting so many of these, but another example of how now the truth can be told. Yeah, for some reason we were unable to learn these things until a week into the new administration. Here is yet another one.

[00:00:53] Two former POLITICO reporters spoke candidly about efforts made by their bosses to either slow walk or completely quash their reporting on the Biden family during their time at that news outlet, POLITICO. Indeed.

[00:01:14] You have two reporters, former POLITICO reporters, I should say. Mark Capito, who now works for Axios, and Tara Palmieri, who now works for Puck. And she does a podcast on the YouTube.

[00:01:33] And so Tara Palmieri had Mark Capito in, and I think you have to say it like that. That's how it's pronounced, Capito. Or maybe it's Caputo. Actually, I don't know. Sorry, I feel like a fraud.

[00:01:48] But she had Mark Capito. So she had Mark on her podcast, on her YouTube show. And they were talking about their time over at POLITICO. And, well, the name of the podcast is called Somebody's Gotta Win.

[00:02:11] And I don't know if this is, you know, them finally, shall we say, unburdened by what has been, right? And so now they are able to discuss these things because they no longer work for POLITICO. They're not worried about getting fired by POLITICO. So maybe that's it. Or maybe, just maybe, they're trying to send the signal to the audience and to the market and to the administration

[00:02:36] that if it was up to them, they would have done things differently. Another great example, when POLITICO did that terrible, ill-fated headline. 51 intelligence agents or former intelligence agents say that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation. Right. Or bore the hallmarks of disinformation. Turns out that story was closer to disinformation because the Hunter Biden laptop appeared to be true. But then Facebook also pulled all stories down about the Hunter Biden laptop, and I think Twitter did it at the same time, too. Correct. They punished the New York Post. It didn't help.

[00:03:06] I mean, POLITICO, my former employer, and I knew at the time, didn't do itself any favors. I was covering Biden at the time, and I remember coming to my editor and saying, hey, we need to write about the Hunter Biden laptop. And I was told, this came from on high at POLITICO, don't write about the laptop, don't talk about the laptop, don't tweet about the laptop. And the only thing POLITICO wound up writing was that piece that called it disinformation, which charitably could be called misinformation at the least. Yeah, I mean, I had a hard time.

[00:03:31] You know, I wrote some pretty serious reporting on Hunter Biden, which actually ended up getting him prosecuted, the story on the gun. Yeah, and I remember you consulted with me because you did the original report on the gun. And you came to me like, how do I write about this? I'm like, honestly, I don't know. Yeah, because it was hard to get it done. You figured it out. I spent three months on it. I went to the laptop shop, and I did all of the reporting in Delaware, and I did all of that. But yeah, it had to be like much, it had to be 100% nailed down.

[00:03:57] I had everything, you know, the police reports, like I, you know, I'm a solid reporter, but I do wonder if it could have, if it would have been published a little quicker, if it was a different type of story. Well, since we're spilling tea about our former employer, I still have a copy of the story on my external hard drive. In 2019, a rival presidential Democratic campaign of Joe Biden's gave to me the tax lien, the oppo research,

[00:04:24] the tax lien on Hunter Biden for the period of time that he worked at Burisma. And I wrote what would have been a classic story saying, you know, the former vice president's son was slapped with a big tax lien for the period of time that he worked for this controversial Ukrainian oil concern or natural gas concern, which is haunting his father on the campaign trail. That story was killed by the editors, and they gave no explanation for that either. Interesting. So that general experience, you know, obviously the public doesn't know about those things,

[00:04:53] but as a reporter having witnessed the way in which the two candidates... We just get called like the terrible mainstream media. It's like you don't understand the process there. We also don't understand the dumb decision of cowardly editors. The man above us when we're trying to do our jobs. You know what I mean? We're just looking for scoops, man. The big bias is toward a good story. The big bias is towards a good story. I've heard this before, by the way. That is not always the case.

[00:05:22] But not for all reporters. Hashtag not all reporters. So a couple things of note. Number one, I mean, there were three, essentially three different stories here that they were talking about. All of them related to Hunter Biden. All of them quashed or slow walked in the story of the gun charge that Tara Palmieri broke. Right?

[00:05:48] But what Caputo says, or Caputo, what he says is that these orders came down from, quote, on high at Politico. I don't know how high up that went. I don't know if it was just his editor, if it came from people above his editor. But what he claims the message was from, quote, on high was don't write about the laptop.

[00:06:16] Don't talk about the laptop. Don't tweet about the laptop. And I can tell you, I have never been told not to do something like this. In all my years as a reporter and then as a host, I've never been told don't talk about a particular topic. Except by my wife. No, I'm kidding. But no, she does not have to tell me.

[00:06:42] But seriously, there's never been an instance that I recall of me saying, hey, I've got this crazy breaking story. And some manager says, no, don't talk about it. Don't tweet about it. And don't report on it. That's scandalous.

[00:07:04] The other piece of information there that he gave was that a rival Democrat campaign against Joe Biden. So think about the timeline here. This would have been 2019. Right. Maybe even earlier. But it was when there were still Democrats that were trying to be the nominee for the Democrat Party to run against Trump in 2020.

[00:07:34] And there was another Democrat campaign that had gotten a hold of the tax lien, which they then handed off to Politico. And Politico. Mark Capito wanted to do the story. So a couple of things of note there. Right. Number one, this wasn't a lead that he generated himself. Right. This is oppo research came from another Democrat. Number one.

[00:08:03] And I'm not knocking him for that. I mean, that happens all the time. They never tell you. Usually, I should say, they usually don't tell you in the reporting that they were tipped off to this by. A Democrat oppo research effort. They don't they don't ever really tell you that. They just they get the the sort the original source documents. If they get the copy of the tax lien, then they can say, oh, well, this is the tax lien. And they cite that as the source. And I understand why they do that.

[00:08:32] But it is also of note. Lo these many years later, when the truth can be told that it came from a Democrat campaign. And what does this tell me? They all knew. They knew they knew this stuff about Joe Biden and Hunter Biden because the tax lien. What made it newsworthy isn't that Hunter Biden isn't paying taxes. I mean, that is part of it.

[00:09:02] But it's specifically during the time period when he is working for Burisma. The Ukrainian energy company. And because he's making what was it? Fifty thousand dollars a month working for them. Quote, working for them with all of his expertise, because as Joe Biden would say, which means that he's the smartest person Joe Biden knows.

[00:09:28] Which at this point, like that should have been the clear indication that Joe Biden is in cognitive decline. He doesn't remember anybody other than Hunter Biden, because how could he be the smartest person? You know, but anyway, the rival Democrat camp knew that this was a problem. That this indicated corruption of some kind. It's not just, oh, Hunter Biden not paying taxes.

[00:09:49] No, Hunter Biden not paying taxes while being paid fifty thousand dollars a month for sitting on a Ukrainian energy company's board. Despite having no expertise in that field. And once again, that story not covered. Politico not covering that story like that's that really is.

[00:10:15] And then, of course, after the news is out about all of this stuff, which is rooted in the Hunter Biden laptop, then we find out, you know, about the Burisma deal and all of the money flowing through and all of this all of this corruption. And even then, Democrats not coming forward and saying, oh, no, no. Yeah, that's yeah, that's probably true. Like the Burisma stuff. Yeah. They never came forward. They never they never stood forward.

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[00:11:54] Call or text 828-367-7068. Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. All right, let's head over and take a phone call from Dean. Hello, Dean. Hi, Pete. Hey. What? So many stories and so little time, huh? Yes. I had a question about reporters.

[00:12:19] And this is sort of a generic question, but with your experience, I understand about, you know, not killing a story. But how much impact, like say if you work for, I don't know, that company, Political or whatever, does your job or your future or your family impact what you do bring to the table? Is that an issue? Sure. Oh, absolutely.

[00:12:44] Yeah, I mean, so every day, like when I was working at a TV station, every day we were responsible for bringing three to five story ideas to the meeting. And then, you know, everybody would sit around, the whole staff would sit around and decide whether that was something that was worth pursuing.

[00:13:05] And so if you've got, you know, three reporters on staff and, you know, a couple of assignment editors or whatever, and they're or people working on the assignment desk and they're bringing ideas. And so, yeah, you get all of these different story ideas that get kicked around in that meeting. And every, like, I don't know how all of the shops do it. But, yeah, management has the editors have the final call as to whether or not to pursue something or whether something you've written actually gets published.

[00:13:33] So a true reporter would be unbiased and bring the story, but the editor would then reflect the bias of the radio station or whatever. Everybody, well, so everybody has bias. Everyone has bias. It's a human condition.

[00:13:53] So the thing, and when it starts with story selection, because when I, like, when I would show up and I would have these story ideas, I was bringing different story ideas that I thought were newsworthy. Right. And that's a subjective call. I thought a story would be newsworthy and somebody sitting right next to me with the same level of experience. They may think it does not. And then we would have a debate about whether or not this was, you know, newsworthy.

[00:14:21] And if so, when do you devote resources to covering it? How much resources get devoted to it? That kind of thing. So, yeah, everybody's got bias. And that's why you want newsrooms that have ideological diversity. You want people coming in with different perspectives on how they answer that question of what is news.

[00:14:44] But it sounds like the reporters have very little to do with the problem that we see when we see bias in the media. No. It's when it gets above that. No. No. No. No. Because, again, all different levels have different layers of operations. So at local levels, you rarely have editors at all.

[00:15:09] Like a lot of news organizations at the local levels have been cutting editor positions and that sort of thing. So a lot of times what a reporter reports just goes right out. And so, no. And, again, if I show up and if you have a staff, for example, if I show up to the news meeting and I've got three ideas and I'm the only reporter on staff, well, then I'm the only one presenting ideas. And I'm directing that coverage now. The editors aren't. Right?

[00:15:38] I'm the one giving them the story leads and they've got nobody else to go send to do this. So my story gets picked. So, you know, it would seem like if you didn't have an editor, then that would probably, that wouldn't be necessarily a good thing either. It falls on the editor a lot because without an editor, then, you know, you're sort of not somehow bridled in what you say or bring to the table. Yeah.

[00:16:05] I mean, look, there are pros and cons to all these different models. Right? There are pros and cons. The pro, as you just kind of laid out or indicated there, is that with editors, you've got more of an opportunity to fact check and to clarify and to try to remove some bias that may be evident in the words that the reporter chooses. That kind of thing.

[00:16:29] Because that's, you know, the biggest areas of bias in journalism is, number one, what stories get covered. And then, number two, how they are covered. And you can look and get a pretty good idea by the words that are chosen in the piece. And it's most evident if you find adjectives.

[00:16:49] When you find adjectives, words that describe other things, that's usually where you can detect the bias of the reporter because they are characterizing something based on or using an adjective to convey a certain thing. And so, yeah, so in a model where you've got editors, they can go in there, strip that stuff out, and they can make the product better. But on the other hand, they could actually, as we heard in this story with Politico, they can quash a story that is newsworthy.

[00:17:17] But Politico, for whatever reason, did not want that story about the Hunter Biden laptop to be reported. They did not want that story to gain traction in the public eye before the election. So, you know, there's bias. And here's the other thing, too. There's bias also on the reporter's behalf here, Mark Capito, because it's only now, five years later, that he finally comes out and says this. He could have said this at the time, but he went along with it. Right?

[00:17:46] So what was his bias? What were his incentives? It was to keep his job. Right? So people make these types of decisions all the time. All right? Dean, I appreciate the call. I got to run. Good to hear from you. Happy Monday. All right. I hope you had a happy holiday season, but tell me if something like this happened at your house. Your family and friends are gathered around. Maybe y'all are in the living room. You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing, and then somebody says, Hey, Dad, remember those old VHS tapes?

[00:18:16] Did you ever get them transferred? And then the room gets all quiet. All eyes are on Dad who says, Oh, you know, well, I've been meaning to, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Look, don't let those priceless memories sit in a box for another year. All right? Create a Video has been helping families in the Charlotte area preserve their history since 1997. Simply bring in your old camcorder tapes and Create a Video will transfer them to a USB flash drive for just $14.95 per tape. You have a big collection?

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[00:19:15] And they've now decided to tell us. I mean, it's been five years. Mark Capito appearing on Somebody's Gotta Win podcast by Tara Palmieri, both of whom are former Politico reporters. And they talked about three different incidents, all related to Hunter Biden. Two of Capito's stories were quashed by editors.

[00:19:41] And one by Palmieri was allowed to go to print, but it took three months to get approvals. And that was the story about the gun. And this is interesting, how Hunter Biden had lied on his application to get the gun. And she then, after they discussed this on her podcast, Fox News reached out and she talked with him.

[00:20:08] And she said, quote, I certainly had to push very hard to get that reporting published. Like, it was a constant, hey, when are we going to do this? Hey, when are we going to get this out there? Hey, when are we going to do this? Because it was so difficult. Like, it was kind of a known feeling that, like, it's going to be difficult to report stuff that's really tough on the Biden administration and family. It's just like a culture.

[00:20:37] The culture at Politico was don't report on the Biden family. And I think she said when the culture is that a reporter has to push so hard that it just creates a feeling that there's not an interest in that type of reporting. And ultimately, you know, we work to be published and to get our editors to support our work.

[00:21:04] This last line is important, and it's something you should always keep in mind about reporters, talk show hosts, writers of any kind, is that the reason why reporters report is they want people to read them. They want people to read the words they have written. I want people to hear the things I am saying. Otherwise, I would just, you know, talk to myself in the shower.

[00:21:33] I mean, I do already, but, like, that would suffice for me. But it's weird, and Christy has been asking questions. But this way I can, you know, get paid, and then I have a cover story for why I just talked. So there's a reason why people write this stuff, and it is because they want to be published. They would prefer more people read what they are writing than fewer. So that's their incentive. So always keep that in mind.

[00:22:03] Their incentive is to have people read what they write. And if you are working at Politico and you get a really big story about how Hunter Biden lied on his form, his federal form, to purchase a firearm and then threw the gun into the dumpster and, like, that whole thing. That was Palmieri. She got that story, and it took three months for Politico to clear it. She said she first obtained the police report shortly after Biden's inauguration.

[00:22:32] So this is late January 2021, so four years ago. But her story wasn't published until late March, three months later. Quote, I just think if it was a Trump kid, it would have been published much sooner, she said. I just had to work really hard to, like, you're like, hey, what's going on with the story? Hey, what's going on with the story? Like, what's going on with the story?

[00:22:59] So she's describing here in her way, I guess. She's badgering her editors. I wrote the story. It's all checked out. It's solid reporting. Why are you taking so long to publish it? And you heard in that clip that I played, she was bragging that it was her story that got the federal charges rolling against Hunter Biden in the first place. That's the power of the media.

[00:23:29] Right. She said, we gave the White House a lot of time to respond like a week or so. And I don't know if that would have been the case for a Trump story. OK, well, let me just tell you, that would not be the case for Trump. OK, that's you're not getting a week to respond. The former Politico journalist went on to cite the honeymoon phase of the Biden administration as being a factor behind the slowed pace of her story.

[00:23:56] She said, quote, I think a lot of people there, including reporters, wanted to get on the good side of the new administration. This is another important incentive. If you are covering the White House. Or you have a news operation that has somebody if you're not the White House correspondent, but you've got a colleague who is. You both work for Politico. I ran into this all the time. This is a constant thing here at WBT.

[00:24:22] When I was a reporter, I would have potential interview subjects that would refuse to do interviews with me as a reporter because of things the hosts would say. And now in the position I am in, I am sure that some of the things I say probably make it more difficult for reporters to get interviews with people that I criticize.

[00:24:49] OK, drag. OK, all right. OK, fine. I drag them. OK. Still, like, I get that. I get that. So when a new administration comes in and you've got this, quote, honeymoon phase and Politico is trying to what? Play nice. Suck up. That's what they're doing. Right. I'll do these. I'll do these glamour pieces on Corrine Jean-Pierre as the first.

[00:25:19] Lesbian female spokesperson from a Caribbean country or something like that, like I'll do those stories in order to get access to do. Other stories or get comments like I'm a friendly. It's OK. Reporters are always walking this line. Right. They're always walking this line. And some of them get corrupted very easily, very quickly because they don't recognize what the higher principle is.

[00:25:48] Right. You may be ingratiating yourself and pretending to be friends with people and all of that. But as in the documentary Almost Famous, you are the enemy, she says. I could understand the reluctance to put a piece out like that within the first few months. But she also suggested her bosses would not run the story unless she was able to link it to a federal agency. She said it had to be about the fact that the Secret Service was involved.

[00:26:18] I just think the fact that, you know, the president's son is getting in a domestic dispute that involves a gun being thrown into a dumpster next to a school is pretty shocking. And the police had to be involved. I think the editors preferred the Secret Service angle because it increased the gravity of the situation. The fact that the Secret Service may have been improperly used to cover up what could have been a crime if the gun was found and used by somebody else.

[00:26:46] The blanket fact that he lied on the gun form, which I had, she said. I had that. I had the gun form and I pointed out that he lied on it. But in the piece, we downplayed it and said, although many people lie on gun forms and are not prosecuted for it, which is true, she says. But it's not like the headline was, you know, Hunter Biden lies on gun form. That's a felony. That was not the headline, even though she said I had the gun form in which he lied. Right.

[00:27:16] So Politico directs the focus. They write the narrative. To soft pedal the. The the gravity of the actual story. Because there was no evidence at that point of like what the Secret Service had done. We knew they got involved, but to what extent we didn't know. But the thing that you did know was Hunter Biden lied on that form. You did know that you had a police report. You had the form. Right. You had his book.

[00:27:46] Dead to right. You had all you had the whole story buttoned up or buttoned down, whichever way you prefer. But Politico, well, let's make it about this other thing. And I get it. That's a part of the story, too. But is that the excuse they used to slow walk the story in the hopes of maybe killing it or getting past the initial honeymoon phase of the Biden administration? All right. If you're listening to this show, you know, I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do, too.

[00:28:16] And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place. So you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description, too.

[00:28:42] I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground dot news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15 percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

[00:29:08] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. All right, let's head over and talk with John. Hello, John. Welcome to the show. Hey, Pete. Hey, what's up? Thanks, sir. Well, this kind of been a long running battle. You know, I remember back had to be in the late 70s, early 80s. It was pre it was pre Fox, pre all the conservative stuff. But there was a book written called spiked.

[00:29:39] And it was a couple of reporters had written a book about how their editors would spike their stories that were not didn't fit that narrative that they wanted. And there was a group of investors. I think Jesse Helms was involved with that to try to buy CBS to get some of that information out, you know, because then there was only three networks and PBS.

[00:30:06] So there really wasn't a whole lot out there as far as the over the air news. Yeah. But, you know. Well, look. Yeah. Look at how remember Matt Drudge. His his. Yeah. He was launched to stardom because he covered the story about Monica Lewinsky when was it the Washington Post refused. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:32] And the Washington Post refused to run the story and somebody handed it off to Drudge and Drudge put it up on his website, which at that point people were like, what's a website? You know. And so he published that thing onto his website and boom, you know, launched into into stardom. Correct. That's another good example. That's why conservatives and libertarians are kind of very real picky and choosy about who they listen to and, you know, where they go to get their information.

[00:31:03] Yeah. And, of course, the Internet's kind of, you know, flipped everything upside down. And, you know, you can go on an app like, say, Pluto, and there's probably six or seven conservative news sites on there that you could watch, too. I mean, there's there's a lot of information out there now that wasn't there back in the late 70s and early 80s. And that's why they were trying to get money together to buy CBS to kind of get that information out. Yeah.

[00:31:28] But like I said, I think Jesse Helms was involved with that group, but that kind of fell through. Yeah. I'm not aware. It wouldn't surprise me. He came out of he came out of television. So that wouldn't surprise me at all. And he was a columnist, too. Yeah. So. Yeah. He was a media guy. Yeah. That's right. He was a media guy and a great senator, too. I wish he was still with us, but he's not. Yeah, that is true. He is not. But John, I appreciate the call, sir. Thank you. OK. Thank you. Yeah. Take it easy.

[00:31:56] So look, pros and cons to the old model at the time. Right. There were three major networks, handful of major newspapers, and they would all cover the same thing. Limbaugh talked about this all the time. He talked about how, you know, when it came to like the fairness doctrine, Limbaugh would famously say, I am equal time. That's a reference to this very thing. Now, there is a benefit to that in that it limits, you know, fake information, like legitimately false information.

[00:32:26] It will limit some of the stuff that is demonstrably false. Nowadays, you've got websites that will promote really any kind of information you're looking for. And then, you know, you're also faced with this limitless menu of media outlets to read and to try to discern what is and is not true.

[00:32:52] And when you have an entire nation that is getting sort of the same talking points and the same stories, it does create a cohesion. There's no doubt that there are, quote, some benefits to that kind of model. Now, there are a lot of downsides, though, and that's the tradeoff, as Thomas Sowell says, right? No solutions, only tradeoffs in that if the narrative that is being shared by the entire society is itself not true.

[00:33:17] Or is masking some greater scandal or protecting some corrupt people or whatever, then everybody is under that same delusion. Right? So, look, all of these news organizations are the same at their core as social media and the Internet, which is they are all news aggregation.

[00:33:38] In the world, there are limitless stories and you are relying on a particular publication to go out, find a handful of them in this vast universe of stories that could be reported. And you are reading a particular site or newspaper. I'm just kidding. Nobody does that anymore.

[00:33:58] But you're reading a site, you're watching a program or whatever, and you're trusting that they're pulling stories, content that matters. And they're doing it in an objective or as close to an objective way, as fair a way as they can. And now with the tools that we have available, we can be our own aggregators. The problem is deciphering what is and isn't true that's getting into your feeds.

[00:34:27] This is why I have said for 15 years, get your news from multiple sources. You have to be able to see where the stories come from, how they get covered, different angles to the story that aren't covered in one particular publication versus another. Because the bias that we know exists at CBS, NBC, MSN, all of that, those biases exist in every outlet.

[00:34:57] They're just different biases. That's all. So back to this story. This is from Fox News, by the way. And this is an interview with Tara Palmieri. And she said that Politico felt like it would be worthy of being published. The story about Hunter Biden buying the gun lying on the form. It had to rise to that occasion that a federal department was involved and they misused power, basically.

[00:35:24] Like the crime itself was not important, was not worthy of just running that story on that alone. She says, in fairness, they wanted to make sure the story was buttoned up, but they also felt like it needed to be elevated beyond the crime. The obvious crime which we had from the form. We had to nail down that element of the Secret Service part. And that took more time.

[00:35:44] Now, a spokesperson for Politico had released a statement pushing back on Palmieri's comments and Mark Capito's comments by touting how its journalists, quote, led the way on wide ranging reporting on the business dealings of Joe Biden's closest relatives, but not Joe Biden, as well as its verification of the Hunter Biden laptop after it didn't matter.

[00:36:06] And suggesting the former staffers have a case of false memory is what the that so Politico's maligning their two former reporters. They have false memories. The spokesperson called their claims, quote, bull poop. But he didn't say poop or she. I don't know if it's a here or she. Our editors uphold rigorous standards, ensuring every story is thoroughly vetted and buttoned up before publishing.

[00:36:35] This approach reflects our unwavering commitment to accuracy and accountability principles that have guided us and will continue to do so. Right. But then why didn't you do the Hunter Biden story? No. In fact, what Capito report, what he was responding to is he said that they did.

[00:36:52] The first story that Politico did do was on the letter from the 51 intelligence officials that said the material from the Hunter Biden laptop had, quote, all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence operation. That's the first time. That's how they covered the story. That's what Politico did. Remember, NPR famously did that editor's note when they said, you know, we tell our audience things that matter, basically.

[00:37:21] And we're not going to waste your time with this false disinformation from Russia, Russia, Russia. And it wasn't true. And by the way, the intelligence agencies knew it wasn't true or they have the all the 51. People who signed that letter, they they knew that the Hunter Biden laptop was real. They had it. They had already confirmed its authenticity. They knew this. But Politico just, I guess, couldn't confirm it. That's what I'm to believe, I guess. Right.

[00:37:49] They just couldn't get that part buttoned up. Now, Fox News contributor Joe Concha compared reporters speaking out about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal to those who waited to address the former president's mental decline, as well as the legitimacy of the covid lab leak theory. Oh, some news on that, too. It completes what has become a trend in the media, he says. Yeah. Only after the fact can it be told.

[00:38:15] We got the New York Times last week or I guess now two weeks ago, finally confirming that which we all saw with our own eyes about Joe Biden's mental infirmity. But now it can be told. And the lab leak theory. Now it can be told. We'll get to that in the next hour. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here.

[00:38:43] You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the Pete calendar show dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening. And don't break anything while I'm gone.