‘Let’s Move It Along’: Jessica Tarlov Shut Down For Accurately Fact-Checking Claim About Joe Biden and Ukraine
Fox News host Jessica Tarlov accurately fact-checked her co-host Judge Jeanine Pirro on a key fact regarding allegations against President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
Pirro claimed that then Vice President Biden said, “I’m not giving it to you, Ukraine, unless you get rid of the prosecutor Shokin, who is investigating the company that my son is on. If that ain’t evidence, whatever his name is.”
Tarlov interjected, “But, it’s the opposite of that. Viktor Shokin was fired for not doing the investigation into Burisma. It’s the exact opposite of what…”
“You’re wrong about that,” shot back Pirro.
“I’m not,” Tarlov insisted.
“He’s investigating Burisma,” Jesse Watters added, arguing Pirro was correct.
“Viktor Shokin was investigating Burisma and Joe Biden admitted by his own voice in January of 2018. He said the bottom line is, I told them, you don’t get the prosecutor off the case. I’m not going to give you the money,” Pirro doubled down, repeating a common right-wing talking point that has been roundly debunked.
Tarlov insisted, “No!”
“Let’s move it along. Let’s move it along,” Watters concluded as he turned to Greg Gutfeld for his take.
“I hate going first,” Tarlov said, laughing off the exchange.
“Well, now you’re going first all the time,” Watters quipped.
Tarlov was indeed correct in her claim that Shokin was fired for refusing to investigate corruption in Ukraine. The claim repeated by Pirro was widely pushed by then-President Donald Trump and his allies ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
USA Today explained in October of 2019, “But sources ranging from former Obama administration officials to an anti-corruption advocate in Ukraine say the official, Viktor Shokin, was ousted for the opposite reason Trump and his allies claim.”
“It wasn’t because Shokin was investigating a natural gas company tied to Biden’s son; it was because Shokin wasn’t pursuing corruption among the country’s politicians, according to a Ukrainian official and four former American officials who specialized in Ukraine and Europe,” added USA Today.
The same set of facts was widely verified in reporting in outlets spanning Axios to the BBC.
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
