Media ridiculed after Colbert broaches Hunter Biden topic before mainstream reporters

Liberal comedian Stephen Colbert's interview with Joe and Jill Biden Thursday drew mockery for not only its obsequiousness, but for the fact that an entertainer asked the president-elect about the investigation into his son before many mainstream media reporters did.

"I know you want to be as bipartisan and reach across the aisle, but as much as you don't want it to happen, you know that the people who want to make hay in Washington are going to try to use your adult son as a cudgel against you," Colbert asked on CBS's "The Late Show". "How do you feel about that and what do you have to say to those people?"

"We have great confidence in our son," Biden said. "I am not concerned about any accusations that have been made against him. It's used to get to me. I think it's kind of foul play, but, look, it is what it is, and he's a grown man. He is the smartest man I know."

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Biden had not held a formal interview since the investigation into his son's tax affairs came to light last week, responding only briefly to shouted questions about the subject from Fox News reporter Peter Doocy. Many media outlets dismissed a New York Post story published in October about the younger Biden during the 2020 campaign as part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

"Real hard-hitting interview, right? By a comedian," Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee said Friday on "Fox & Friends." "He doesn't sit down with any hard-hitting journalists because there aren't any that are going to ask him the tough questions."

CBS This Morning tweeted out Colbert's clip Friday and described Biden as discussing "the Republican attacks on his son, Hunter Biden, who faces a federal tax investigation." CBS Evening News also played a brief clip of the segment on Thursday night's broadcast, conservative commentator Stephen Miller noted with amusement.

"CBS is filled with hugely talented reporters who were left as pedestrians watching this fawning interview," Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley tweeted. "It was like the pitchers Jacob DeGrom or Shane Bieber watching from the dugout as Dr. Anthony Fauci takes the mound as the starter in a season opener." He also penned an opinion piece calling the interview an "utter embarrassment."

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"There was not a single question from Colbert on Thursday about how emails and witnesses, if true, would reveal that Biden has knowingly and repeatedly lied. To date, he has denied any knowledge of the son's business dealings," Turley wrote. "Hunter Biden himself contradicted his father on that point but that was not enough to ask Joe Biden about his past denials."

"Between Barack Obama's hard-hitting interview with Trevor Noah and Joe Biden's hard-hitting interview with Stephen Colbert, I'm just happy our age of entertainment-first politics is drawing to a close," conservative radio host Ben Shapiro tweeted.

Colbert's kid-gloves treatment of the Hunter Biden issue contrasted with how he reacted to President Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. In 2017, he enthusiastically relayed the report of Trump Jr.'s willingness to accept dirt from Russia on Hillary Clinton, calling it iron-clad proof of collusion and described Trump's eldest son as either an "idiot" or an "inmate."

Colbert also asked Jill Biden Thursday to respond to the recent controversy over her doctorate in education after a conservative critic urged her to drop the honorific in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Colbert wondered if the criticism was a "compliment" since it was all they could think of to go after. The "Late Show" host also sympathetically asked her husband if he wanted to "get out a length of pool chain and go full Corn Pop on these people?"

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Colbert's demeanor was not surprising, given his well-known political affiliation. Several 2020 Democratic presidential candidates used his show to announce their bids because of his left-wing audience.

Colbert became famous as a correspondent on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and for his satirical portrayal of a blowhard, right-wing pundit on "The Colbert Report."

Since joining CBS in 2015, he has rebranded as a reliable Democratic sycophant. In 2017, he played a clip of former President Barack Obama speaking and then cooed to the camera, "I miss you." 

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In August, after Michelle Obama addressed the Democratic National Convention, Colbert gushed he could not come up with a humorous comment on her speech.

"My job is to have a joke for every time somebody says anything in public," he said. "After watching Michelle Obama’s speech, I have never been more happy to fail at my job."