Atlantic Writer Dismisses Question About Hunter Biden Laptop Story: ‘I Don’t Find It to Be Interesting’
Journalist and author Anne Applebaum dismissed a question Wednesday about the influence Hunter Biden’s laptop could have had on the outcome of the 2020 election, stating that it is “totally irrelevant” and that she personally is not interested in it.
At the University of Chicago’s Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy conference on Wednesday, Applebaum was asked about suppression of the story by most of the media prior to the 2020 election.
David Axelrod sat across from Applebaum, and he called on University of Chicago Student Daniel Schmidt during a Q&A. Schmidt is also the editor of the school’s student newspaper.
Schmidt reminded Applebaum that in an Oct. 23, 2020 piece for the Atlantic, she wrote off the potentially damning scandal.
“Those who live outside the Fox News bubble and intend to remain there do not, of course, need to learn any of this stuff,” Applebaum wrote.
Schmidt recited her quote, and asked Applebaum if the she and others acted prematurely in dismissing the laptop scandal.
“A poll, later after that, found that if voters knew about the content of the laptop, 16% of Joe Biden voters would have acted differently,” he noted. “Do you think the media acted inappropriately when they instantly dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation, and what can we learn from that in ensuring that what we label as disinformation is truly disinformation, and not reality?”
Schmidt appeared to have cited a poll from the right-wing Media Research Center.
Applebaum dug in. She responded to the question by stating she did not find it “interesting” that a laptop containing alleged illegal activities by the president’s son was abandoned.
WATCH The Atlantic’s @anneapplebaum refuse to answer @RealDSchmidt‘s🔥🔥 question about Hunter Biden’s laptop during @UChicago’s “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference! pic.twitter.com/1OgXBBiiI0
— The Chicago Thinker (@ThinkerChicago) April 6, 2022
“My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop is I think it’s totally irrelevant,” she said. “I mean, it’s not whether it’s disinformation… I didn’t think Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be President of the United States.
“I don’t find it to be interesting, I mean, that would be my problem with that as a major news story.”
The New York Post first reported in October of 2020 Hunter Biden had abandoned a laptop at a Delaware computer repair shop a year earlier.
The Post reported the hard drive contained a record of Hunter Biden’s international business deals. Some of those deals, the reported alleged, could have connected now-President Joe Biden to deals in which his son was essentially paid for his last name.
The Post’s reporting of the story was suppressed on Twitter and Facebook until after the election. Individuals who shared the reporting on Twitter were suspended.
A majority of the national media either ignored the story, or wrote it off as disinformation. Numerous outlets have begun to verify some of the laptop’s contents in recent weeks, including the New York Times and the Washington Post.
