Fox Business anchor Maria Bartoromo \u2014 who was one of the most fervent participants in Fox\u2019s effort to turn Hunter Biden\u2019s business interests into a corruption scandal for his father, President Joe Biden \u2014 congratulated President Donald Trump\u2019s son Eric on air on Thursday after his company landed a robotics contract from the Pentagon.<\/p>\n
Bartiromo devoted more than 10 minutes of her program to a fawning joint interview with Foundation Future Industries CEO Sankaet Pathak and Eric Trump, the company\u2019s \u201cchief strategy adviser.\u201d <\/p>\n
After Bartiromo congratulated the pair on winning a $24 million Defense Department contract to test its \u201cPhantom\u201d robot for military applications, she gave them a platform to talk up their product, as well as what Bartiromo described as \u201cthese incredible goals that you’ve got,\u201d including to \u201cbuild life-sustaining technology on Earth and beyond.\u201d <\/p>\n
Bartiromo did not quiz Eric Trump on the obvious ethical problems involved in the Pentagon directing a contract to the president\u2019s son\u2019s company. Instead, she asked him the following questions:<\/p>\n
\u201cEric, I know this is a lot about national security, but [Pathak\u2019s] talking to us about other use cases. Tell us about that and how did you get involved \u2014 what attracted you to this company?\u201d\u201cEric, you’re a master at hospitality. Tell us how you could see these uses play out with robots. I know that there are robots used right now, for example, in hospitals, but this is something that you \u2014 the robot goes to the dock, picks up medical equipment, puts it in a basket, and delivers it where it needs to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eric Trump and other members of the president\u2019s family have apparently adopted Fox\u2019s \u201cBiden Crime Family\u201d conspiracy theory as their business plan, as I detailed for MSNOW earlier this month<\/a>: <\/p>\n Many of the network\u2019s highest-rated hosts carried out a yearslong obsession with what Fox host Sean Hannity described as the \u201cBiden Crime Family,\u201d mentioning Biden\u2019s son at least 13,440 times over a period of less than 16 months of Biden\u2019s presidency. Their feverish conspiracy theory postulated that Hunter Biden had served as a \u201cbag man\u201d for his father, soaking up money funneled from foreign entities and kicking a share back to Joe Biden, who would then use his elected office to help his son\u2019s business partners. Bartiromo was a key player<\/a> in Fox\u2019s fixation on Hunter Biden, regularly hosting Republican members of Congress like House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) to promote<\/a> their overwrought<\/a> investigations<\/a>. The sum total<\/a> of the money Comer tracked from international business sources to \u201cthe Bidens and their associates\u201d \u2014 itself an inflated figure that includes money going to non-family members \u2014 was $20 million, less than the single Pentagon contract Eric\u2019s company received. <\/p>\n Fox hosts who tore their garments over the Bidens typically just ignore the historic effort<\/a> by President Trump and his family members to cash in on his second term in office. But Bartiromo is taking it one step further by openly celebrating Eric Trump\u2019s business.<\/p>\n
No substantive evidence ever emerged that Joe Biden profited from Hunter Biden\u2019s foreign business dealings. The dealings in question largely occurred when Joe Biden was a private citizen, and the primary instance the conspiracy theorists have cited as evidence of him taking state action on behalf of one of his son\u2019s clients \u2014 that he, as vice president, pushed for the removal of Ukraine\u2019s top prosecutor in order to benefit one of his son\u2019s clients \u2014 was manifestly bogus.
But Trump and his family members appear to have adopted influence-dealing on a dramatically larger scale than the Biden family was ever accused of. And the Trumps\u2019 sprawling set of business deals with Gulf state royals and the sovereign wealth funds they control cannot be disentangled from the president\u2019s decision-making in launching and continuing a war of choice against Iran.<\/p>\n