Trump knocks Hunter Biden over ‘really bad’ interview

President Trump on Tuesday knocked Hunter Biden’s performance during an interview on “Good Morning America” in which the son of former Vice President Joe Biden denied doing anything improper in his business dealings, but expressed remorse about giving an opening to Trump and others to attack his father.

“Hunter Biden was really bad on @GMA. Now Sleepy Joe has real problems!” Trump tweeted.

“Reminds me of Crooked Hillary and her 33,000 deleted Emails, not recoverable!” he added, referring to the email scandal that dogged 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the campaign.

Hunter Biden was really bad on @GMA. Now Sleepy Joe has real problems! Reminds me of Crooked Hillary and her 33,000 deleted Emails, not recoverable!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2019

{mosads}Hunter Biden told ABC News in an interview broadcast Tuesday morning that he did not regret his business ventures in China and Ukraine, which have come under scrutiny from Republicans in recent weeks. He also insisted that, other than a “brief exchange,” he did not discuss his work with his father. 

“I gave a hook to some very unethical people to act in illegal ways to try to do some harm to my father. That’s where I made the mistake,” Biden said. “So I take full responsibility for that. Did I do anything improper? No, not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever.”

The interview came hours before the next Democratic presidential primary debate and after weeks of unrelenting attacks from Trump and his allies, who have seized on Biden’s work with foreign businesses to paint the Biden family as corrupt.

Biden also took some shots at the president and his family in Tuesday’s interview, calling them “irrelevant” and “unethical.”

He defended his qualifications to work on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, citing his experience as a vice chairman for Amtrak and work in the legal field. He also dismissed Trump’s allegations about his work in China as having “no basis in fact.”

He did concede, however, that he likely benefited from sharing a last name with a former vice president, who is among the front-runners for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and he has consistently led Trump in hypothetical head-to-head matchups.

Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a natural gas giant in Ukraine, in 2014. The company’s founder was under investigation by then-prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, who the U.S., United Kingdom and other Western governments argued had failed to rein in corruption in the country.

The U.S. threatened to withhold roughly $1 billion in loan guarantees if Shokin was not replaced as prosecutor general, a message Joe Biden delivered to officials in Kiev while serving as vice president and recounted during a 2018 Council on Foreign Relations conference.

Ethics experts and Republicans have alleged that the incident reflected a conflict of interest at minimum, but there is no evidence of wrongdoing by either of the Bidens.

House Democrats opened an impeachment inquiry last month amid revelations that Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. 

Trump has also claimed that Hunter Biden got $1.5 billion from China, similarly alleging it is evidence of corruption involving the former vice president and his family and asking Beijing for an investigation. 

Hunter Biden has business connections to China, but there is no evidence of how much he’s made or that it had any relation to his father’s work while in office.

Biden announced last weekend that he would step down from the board of a Chinese firm and would refuse any foreign work if his father is elected president.

The president has targeted the younger Biden on Twitter and during recent campaign rallies and off-the-cuff remarks at the White House. After Trump wondered aloud “Where’s Hunter?” at a Minnesota rally last week, his campaign began selling T-shirts with the question printed on them.