Media

‘The View’s’ Behar says Biden should admit to hypocrisy over classified docs

by Julia Shapero - 01/17/23 4:07 PM ET

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik,
President Joe Biden responds to a reporter’s question after speaking about the economy in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus on Jan. 12, 2023. Virtually everything was going right for Biden to open the year. His approval ratings were ticking up. Inflation was slowing. And Republicans were at war with themselves after a disappointing midterm season. But Biden’s rosy political outlook veered into uncertainty after the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents.

“The View” co-host Joy Behar on Tuesday urged President Biden to admit to hypocrisy over the recent discoveries of classified documents from his time as vice president at a former Washington office and his Wilmington home.

Behar specifically pointed to Biden’s response to the classified documents found at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

In one interview with “60 Minutes” in September, Biden described Trump’s handling of classified information as “totally irresponsible.”

“How that could possibly happen, how one — anyone could be that irresponsible,” he said to CBS News’s Scott Pelley in the interview.

About 300 classified documents have been recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence since he left office, of which about 100 were discovered when the FBI executed a search warrant of the property in August.

However, the White House confirmed last week that several classified documents had been found at Biden’s former office in November and turned over to the Justice Department.

Several more documents were discovered at Biden’s Wilmington home after his attorneys conducted a search, leading Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel.

“I mean, I love Joe Biden, and I want him to clear this because I know there’s a difference because what he did and what Trump did,” Behar said on Tuesday’s show.

“But it would have been helpful for Joe Biden, when it first came out, to say, … ‘Look, I know I look hypocritical in that tape. I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know about this. And now that I know it, I will do what I can to uncover this,’” she added.

“I mean, he should be speaking to the American people, or else just act like a Republican and say it’s a witch hunt, and let’s fire Merrick Garland,” Behar joked.

Sunny Hostin, a fellow co-host of “The View,” agreed with Behar.

“He did call Trump careless with these documents, and I think it would go a long way for him to also say, ‘And I was careless,’” Hostin said. “And so we need to not only review these documents, we need to review the processes.”