On Sunday’s Reliable Sources, CNN host Brian Stelter declared that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “a real problem for the Bidens,” and “not just a right-wing media story.” That’s a complete inversion of his stance from just two years ago, when he insisted the laptop was a “manufactured scandal” and “a classic example of the right-wing media machine.”
When the New York Post broke the story of Hunter’s laptop in October of 2020, the media quickly rushed into damage control. Stelter placed himself on the front lines of the fight, spending a full segment of his show on October 18 contesting, mocking, and smearing the story as just the latest fake scandal from “Trump world.”
“There’s a lot about this story that does not add up,” he opined, adding: “For all we know, these emails are made up, or maybe some are real and others are fakes, we don’t know. But we do know that this is a classic example of the right-wing media machine.”
Naturally, Stelter also brought up the now-disproven Russian disinformation canard, before leading into a panel discussion “about these manufactured scandals.”
Fast forward to August 7 of this year, and there was Stelter declaring in no uncertain terms that the laptop was “not just a right-wing media story.” He added, “this is a real problem for the Bidens,” and even argued that the issue was scandalous enough to preclude Joe Biden from seeking re-election in 2024.
So how did we get from a “manufactured scandal” produced by “the right wing media machine,” to “a real problem” and “not just a right-wing media story?”
Stelter ought to explain how his opinion on Hunter Biden’s laptop has flipped a full 180 degrees since 2020. It’s all well and good that he’s finally acknowledging reality, but he doesn’t get a pat on the back for doing so two years after the fact, now that the candidate he was protecting sits safely in the Oval Office.