MSNBC host Lemire says Hunter Biden laptop story was ‘fact-checked’ and deemed mostly ‘nonsense’
Host Jonathan Lemire reacted to Trump’s interview where he brought up the laptop and said Putin should release information about alleged Biden business dealings in Moscow.
MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire claimed Wednesday that the "Hunter Biden story" was "fact checked" and deemed mostly "nonsense" back when the story first broke in 2020, not acknowledging the laptop or its contents have since been verified.
During an appearance on "Morning Joe," Lemire was asked by anchor Mika Brzezinski about a Tuesday interview in which former President Donald Trump claimed there was information on the laptop indicating that the mayor of Moscow gave the Bidens $3.5 million. Trump subsequently said that Russian President Vladimir Putin should release information related to that claim.
Hunter Biden ((Randy Holmes via Getty Images))
"So now I would think Putin would know the answer to that. I think he should release it. I think we should know that answer," Trump said on "Just the News."
Brzezinski immediately called Trump’s claim about the Bidens "false" and asserted they were fact-checked earlier in the show.
"Is there a word that to describe this?," Brzezinski asked Lemire.
Lemire called Trump’s actions "galling" before adding his statements were "reminiscent" of the times in which Trump called on Russia to release information on Hillary Clinton’s emails and Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine.
The MSNBC host then argued it was a bad move by Trump to call on Putin for anything if he is "eyeing a return to the political stage," before turning his attention to the Hunter Biden laptop story.
"[Trump] feels that not enough attention was paid to the Hunter Biden story even though it was fact-checked and most of it seemed deemed nonsense back then," Lemire claimed.
On March 16, The New York Times released a report that authenticated the laptop's contents after years of media claims that the laptop was "unverifiable" or the result of a Russian "disinformation" operation.
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On Saturday, Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle blasted the legacy media for its collective dismissal of the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 presidential election.
"…the mainstream have been so busy denouncing ‘fake news’ that we failed to notice we’re developing a wee disinformation problem of our own — much of which has stemmed, ironically, from our efforts to fight disinformation on the right," McArdle told readers at one point in the piece.
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.