CNN media pundit felt differently about Hunter Biden in 2020

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CNN’s media correspondent Brian Stelter had an apparent epiphany about the severity of the Hunter Biden scandal, which turned out not to be a dismissable “right-wing media story” like the liberal pundit insisted in 2020. 

On Sunday’s installment of “Reliable Sources,” Stelter suggested President Biden’s 2024 ambitions could be derailed by the ongoing federal investigations into his son during an interview with Michael LaRosa, the former press secretary for first lady Jill Biden.

“What about his son? What about Hunter?” Stelter asked. “Hunter under federal investigation, charges can be coming at any time, this is not just a right-wing media story. This is a real problem for the Bidens.” 

“Could he decide not to run for re-election given his son?” Stelter followed, marking a dramatic tonal shift from what he expressed in 2020 under different CNN ownership. 

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Brian Stelter has changed his stance on Hunter Biden’s laptop as CNN’s new management wants to focus on “news.” (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)

In October 2020, just days after the New York Post published its reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, which included emails shedding light on his questionable business dealings overseas, Stelter accused conservatives of “whataboutism,” even peddling the unsubstantiated claims that the laptop’s contents were “tied to a Russian disinformation effort” attacking his father.

He then attempted to cast doubt on the Post’s reporting by stressing the involvement of Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani, as well as questioning the legitimacy of John Paul Mac Isaac, the Delaware computer repair store owner who first obtained Hunter Biden’s laptop.

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“There’s a lot about this story that does not add up,” Stelter told his viewers at the time. “And, I mean, for all we know, these emails were made up, or maybe some are real and some are fakes, we don’t know. But we do know that this is a classic example of the right-wing media machine.”

After complaining about the coverage of the emerging scandal that was virtually ignored by the liberal media, Stelter went on to call the Post’s reporting of Hunter Biden’s laptop a “manufactured scandal,” a “so-called scandal” and suggested the newspaper is not a “fully reliable source.”

Hunter Biden, son of President Biden, is under federal investigation for his tax affairs and overseas business dealings. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Stelter pushed out a CNN story that echoed the common media narrative at the time: the story was a possible Russian disinformation effort.

“That might be because the details of the story have been denied by a credible former Joe Biden staffer and the Biden campaign, and US authorities are investigating whether the emails are part of an ongoing Russian disinformation effort,” CNN’s Alexis Benveniste wrote at the time.

In April, Stelter defended the media’s collective decision to not cover the Hunter Biden scandal when it first emerged in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election. 

“I think there’s a tension between big American newsrooms that want to check something out themselves that don’t want to rely on other outlets, that don’t want to just repeat and regurgitate, but then there’s an audience expectation of being able to instantly cover every story and have every answer,” Stelter said during a panel discussion at the “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy”  conference in Chicago. “And so in September or October of 2020, when the New York Post has something, other outlets can’t match it, there’s this pressure – ‘Why aren’t you confirming this? Why aren’t you focusing on this? Why aren’t you leading on this?’ Because we haven’t matched it, we haven’t confirmed it.”

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“Now lately, the [New York] Times and the [Washington] Post have and that’s notable, and CNN had a story last week about the federal investigation into Hunter, but I think there’s this tension between fast and slow journalism, perhaps, between people who know how newsrooms work and the vast majority of those who don’t.”

What’s also “notable” is that Stelter has yet to acknowledge how Politico, The New York Times, The Washington Post and NBC News have verified the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop on “Reliable Sources,” according to Grabien transcripts. 

CNN’s Brian Stelter heaped doubt on the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020.   (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for WarnerMedia)

However, Stelter suddenly feels the scandal is legitimate. 

“He’s pretending like he’s actually never said these things and thinks that it could be a big problem for the president in 2024. Yeah, welcome to the party, pal. We’ve been talking about this for some time and don’t pretend like you tried to dismiss this story as a manufactured scandal and now, because you have a new boss, I guess he’s trying to keep his job by actually doing his job by talking about this story the way it should be talked about,” Fox News contributor Joe Concha said Monday on “FOX & Friends First.” 

Stelter did not respond to a request for comment.

Stelter’s about-face comes as recently appointed CNN CEO Chris Licht is evaluating all CNN talent and executives to determine who should stick around as he attempts to focus on “news,” as opposed to liberal opinion programming that the network became known for under previous management. 

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Jeff Zucker, who was largely responsible for the network’s shift from a just-the-facts news operation to liberal opinion programming, was forced to step down earlier in 2022 ahead of the long-planned merger that put CNN under the control of Warner Bros. Discovery. 

Zucker and Stelter were known to be close, and the network even enlisted its in-house media pundit to deliver the news that his former boss was stepping down to viewers. Earlier this year, Axios named Stelter, along with Jim Acosta, as CNN hosts seen as the “face of the network’s liberal shift” in the eyes of conservatives. 

Licht, who took over the network last spring, hasn’t made significant changes to the network’s programming aside from toning down the network’s use of the “Breaking News” on-screen graphic. 

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Former President Trump told Fox News Digital over the weekend at CPAC Texas that CNN has actually “gotten worse” since Warner Bros. Discovery took control. 

Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to joseph.wulfsohn@fox.com and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn.