CNN’s John King Torpedoes Biden Probe Chief Comer for Citing Polls: ‘Saying the Quiet Part Loud’
CNN anchor John King and correspondent Sara Murray torpedoed Kentucky Republican Congressman and Chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer for citing polls in relation to his probes of President Joe Biden and his family.
Comer bragged about the effect he believes his probes are having on Biden’s poll numbers, telling Fox New Monday that “You look at the polling, and right now Donald Trump is seven points ahead of Joe Biden and trending upward, Joe Biden’s trending downward” because of the investigations.
On Tuesday afternoon’s edition of CNN’s Inside Politics, King and Murray painted Comer’s comments as an admission that the probes are intended to “hurt Biden politically,” and King threw in a shot at Fox News as “choir practice for Republicans”:
KING: House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, listen here, saying the quiet part out loud. Chairman Comer says it is clear his investigation into Hunter Biden and Biden family finances is a success. How he makes that judgment? Listen, interesting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMES COMER (R), CHAIR, OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: You look at the polling and right now Donald Trump is seven points ahead of Joe Biden and trending upward. Joe Biden’s trending downward. And I believe that the media is looking around, scratching their head and they’re realizing that the American people are keeping up with our investigation and they realize something’s wrong here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: CNN’s Sara Murray joins us now. I will look around and scratch my head and say, I thought this was about uncovering facts about alleged wrongdoing, not about using an investigation or your power in the Congress to undermine the president’s political standing.
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I don’t know how to break the news to you that these political investigations are political. Yes, I mean, ostensibly what James Comer set out to do here is to investigate the Biden family business dealings. He’s, of course, said that Joe Biden could be implicated in, you know, some kind of shady foreign payments. He hasn’t proven any of that.
And he’s raised some questions about Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Fine. You know, Hunter Biden wasn’t the vice president, isn’t the president, isn’t working in the White House. But he’s pretty transparent there in believing that his investigation is actually going to hurt the sitting president, who’s, of course, running for president again.
And it’s not the first time that we’ve heard this kind of stuff from Republicans. I mean, Kevin McCarthy came out amid the Benghazi investigation and basically said the same thing about Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: And he also got a little bit of blowback for those comments for saying the quiet part out loud. But I think it’s pretty clear that, you know, even if you do turn up something that is credible as part of your investigation, that a driving motivation for Republicans is trying to, you know, cast shade on Joe Biden when he’s running for reelection.
KING: And, you know, both of those comments were, let’s say, on a network that is essentially choir practice, choir practice for Republicans.
Sara, glad you’re here to help us share that.
Watch above via CNN’s Inside Politics.
