The Five Most Unhinged Moments at Republicans’ Hunter Biden Hearing

The House tried to hold a hearing Wednesday on whether to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress, but things went off the rails so quickly that not much actually got done.

Instead, the members of the House Oversight Committee ended up taking wild swings at Biden—and at each other.

Here are five of the craziest things that happened during the hearing.

1. Nancy Mace said Hunter Biden has “no balls.”

Things got off to a strong start when Huner Biden himself appeared unannounced at the hearing. For some reason, this set off South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace.

“My first question is, who bribed Hunter Biden to be here today?” she demanded.

“Second question: You’re the epitome of white privilege. Coming into the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a congressional subpoena to be deposed. What are you afraid of? You have no balls to come up here today.”

2. Robert Garcia entered “dick pics” into the House record.

Biden left the hearing soon after Mace’s rant. His exit coincided with Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s opening remarks, much to her frustration. But her Democratic colleague Robert Garcia had a pretty good explanation for why Biden might not want to be in the room.

“I think it’s really interesting to hear the gentlelady from Georgia speak about Hunter Biden leaving, when she is the person that showed nude photos of Hunter Biden in this very committee room,” Garcia said. “Showing dick picks in this committee room of Hunter Biden!”

During a House Oversight Committee hearing in July, Greene tried to claim that Biden had engaged in sex trafficking and had listed payments to sex workers as a tax write-off. To support her argument, she held up poster-size prints of Biden’s nude photos, which she later also posted on X (then called Twitter) and shared in her email newsletter to unsuspecting subscribers.

3. Jamie Raskin called Marjorie Taylor Greene an “expert” in pornography.

Representative Jamie Raskin also couldn’t resist a jab at Greene for sharing Biden’s nude photos. Greene asked to enter evidence into the record, and Raskin objected due to the fact that Democrats had not received advance copies of Greene’s information.

“In the past, she’s displayed pornography. Are pornographic photos allowed to be displayed in this committee room?” Raskin asked.

When Greene said it wasn’t pornography, Raskin clapped back, “OK, well, you’re the expert.”

Raskin has previously criticized Greene for displaying Biden’s nudes during a hearing. In July, he accused Oversight Chair James Comer of undermining the committee’s credibility by allowing Greene to show the photos, saying the committee had been “reduced to the level of a 1970s-era dime store peep show.”

4. Jared Moskowitz held up a photo of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

At one point, the committee had to take a break from the hearing. Representative Maxwell Frost said on X (formerly Twitter) the recess was because Greene was “being unhinged.” He did not provide further details on what that meant.

Frost then shared a photo of Representative Jared Moskowitz holding up a poster-size picture of Donald Trump hugging convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump was named on a recently released list of the disgraced financier’s known associates. Republicans have tied themselves into knots trying to shift attention off of Trump and onto other names on the list. (Being named on the list is not proof of legal wrongdoing.)

5. Republicans accidentally gave away their own game.

Toward the end of the hearing, Moskowitz pointed out that if the issue is that Biden won’t testify, it could be easily resolved then and there. After all, Biden was at the hearing.

But when Moskowitz asked for a show of hands from people who wanted to hear Biden’s testimony, almost no Republicans raised their hand.

“I’m a visual learner,” Moskowitz quipped. “And the visual is clear. Nobody over there wants to hear from the witness.”

“The majority of my colleagues over there, including the chairman, don’t want to hear from the witness with the American people watching.”

Biden has offered to testify in a public hearing, but Comer rejected the offer almost immediately. He insisted Biden must first sit for a closed-door deposition, infuriating Democrats. Raskin slammed Comer’s response in November as an “epic humiliation for our colleagues and … a frank confession that they are simply not interested in the facts and have no confidence in their own case or the ability of their own members to pursue it.”

A Democratic representative skewered Republicans on Wednesday for seeking to penalize Hunter Biden for not responding to a congressional subpoena, when many members of the GOP have done much worse.

The House Oversight Committee held a hearing on whether to hold Biden in contempt of Congress, after he refused to comply with a subpoena to sit for a closed-door deposition. Biden has offered to testify publicly, but Republicans rejected his offer.

Florida Democrat Jared Moskowitz tore into Republicans for wanting to hold Biden in contempt. “I’ll make this bipartisan. I’ll vote for the Hunter contempt today,” Moskowitz said. “You can get my vote, but I want you to show the American people that you’re serious.”

Moskowitz then proceeded to enter into the record subpoenas for multiple Republican representatives to testify before the House January 6 investigative committee. As Moskowitz pointed out, Scott Perry, Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs, and Kevin McCarthy all refused to appear before the committee.

“There’s an amendment coming to add some of those names into the contempt order. You vote to add those names, and show the American people that we apply the law equally, not just when it’s Democrats,” Moskowitz said. “Show that you’re serious and that everyone is not above the law.”

Republicans, led by Oversight Chair James Comer, have insisted for months that Biden and his father, President Joe Biden, are guilty of corruption. The probe has yet to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by the president.

Comer issued subpoenas in early November to multiple members of the Biden family, including Hunter and his uncle Jim. He has repeatedly demanded that they testify. Hunter responded later that month, offering to testify in a public hearing.

Comer rejected the offer almost immediately and insisted the younger Biden must first sit for a closed-door deposition. His response frustrated Democrats, who felt Comer was moving the goalposts.

Republican Representative Nancy Mace had a bit of a freak-out on Wednesday when she realized Hunter Biden had shown up to a congressional hearing about him.

The House Oversight Committee held a hearing to hold the younger Biden in contempt of Congress for refusing a subpoena to sit for a closed-door deposition. Biden, when defying the subpoena, offered to publicly testify before the American people instead—likely so that his words wouldn’t be twisted by Republicans.

Whatever concerns the president’s son may have harbored about his Republican inquisitors not treating him fairly were confirmed after Mace reacted to his presence by launching into a truly unhinged rant.

“My first question is who bribed Hunter Biden to be here today?” the South Carolina representative began, implying that Biden may have been paid to attend a hearing about him.

“Second question: You’re the epitome of white privilege. Coming into the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a congressional subpoena to be deposed. What are you afraid of? You have no balls to come up here today.”

A fight soon broke out in the committee as Democratic Representative Moskowitz pointed out that if Mace wanted to hear from Biden, he could testify publicly.

An outraged Mace began yelling back, “Are women allowed to speak in here or no?”

“I think that Hunter Biden should be arrested right here and right now and go straight to jail,” she demanded.

As a reminder: Mace often pretends to be a moderate, but she has a long record of being a dedicated Republican culture warrior. For example, while she publicly criticizes her party on abortion, she dutifully votes for every abortion ban that comes to the floor.

She has also distinguished herself as someone desperate for media attention, which may explain her wild rantings. Her internal staff handbook was leaked last year, revealing that Mace’s North Star is whatever gets her a media hit. In fact, one aide surmised that she probably voted to oust Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy for no real reason other than to go on television.

Perhaps this newest meltdown is intended to get the attention of Donald Trump. After all, she’s pitching herself as his V.P.

Donald Trump and his lawyers are presenting increasingly unhinged defenses of the former president’s claim that he should be immune from criminal proceedings, as his legal team appears to scramble to keep up the argument.

Trump’s lawyers presented his case for immunity to a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, and to say it went badly for Trump’s team was an understatement. At one point, lawyer John Sauer bizarrely argued that a president could face criminal prosecution—say, for ordering Seal Team 6 to assassinate someone—only if he had been impeached and convicted first.

Trump attorney Alina Habba, who seems to have a habit of saying things that actually hurt Trump’s various legal cases, tried to defend Sauer’s defense that evening. She argued that Judge Florence Pan, who asked about the Seal Team 6 assassination, was using “hypotheticals that do not currently exist.”

“The real facts are so easy to win that we have to now argue the slippery slope argument of, ‘If he kills someone, will he be held accountable?’” Habba said on Fox News. “He didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t cause an insurrection. He didn’t get charged for it. But they’re using hypotheticals to frighten America.”

Saying that Trump hasn’t killed anyone—but he has the right to get away with it as long as Congress doesn’t impeach him—is a terrible argument. Pan’s question, moreover, was intended to demonstrate that there are certain cases when a president does not have immunity from criminal prosecution.

It’s also unclear what Habba meant when she said Trump “didn’t get charged for” causing an insurrection, because he has been—twice. Once when the House voted in January 2021 to impeach him for incitement of insurrection and again in August when special counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump for his role in the January 6 riot.

Trump has repeatedly argued that former presidents can’t be criminally charged for actions related to their official responsibilities. He did not explain how overturning an election was related to official presidential duties.

Despite insisting all day Tuesday that the immunity hearing had gone well, Trump launched into a social media rant that evening, during which he presented some wild defenses of his own. First, he said that losing immunity would prevent a president from enjoying “HIS OR HER ‘GOLDEN YEARS’ OF RETIREMENT” because they would be bombarded with lawsuits.

Then Trump said that if he lost immunity, then Joe Biden would too, hampering the latter’s ability to function as president. Finally, Trump said that losing immunity would mean “‘OPENING THE FLOODGATES’ TO PROSECUTING FORMER PRESIDENTS.”

“AN OPPOSING HOSTILE PARTY WILL BE DOING IT FOR ANY REASON, ALL OF THE TIME!” he wrote on Truth Social.

Trump, however, is the first president in history to face this many lawsuits post-office, and the first to face charges of this nature.

A Florida Republican lawmaker has introduced a bill that would essentially ban abortions altogether, going even further than the already draconian restrictions on the procedure in the Sunshine State.

State Representative David Borrero filed a bill Monday that would ban anyone from performing an abortion except to save the patient’s life. There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or if the patient is a minor. The bill would establish that personhood exists from the moment of fertilization.

The measure (H.B. 1519) states that a qualifying medical emergency would be “an emergent physical condition in which an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of a pregnant woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.” The bill makes no mention of what a patient should do if they miscarry and need to have the fetus removed, or if the fetus develops a fatal anomaly.

Under the bill, “performing or attempting to perform an abortion” is classified as a third-degree felony. Doctors who conduct abortions for reasons other than those allowed by the measure could face up to 10 years in jail, up to $100,000 in fines, or both.

The Florida Senate minority leader, Democrat Lauren Book, slammed the bill as a “desperate attempt at relevancy by the bill sponsor.”

“We are in arm’s reach of getting abortion on the ballot and restoring the rights they stole,” she told the Sun Sentinel. “Republican leadership knows this is no longer a winning issue for their party. Voters of all political leanings have shown and will continue to show their overwhelming support for women’s right to healthcare privacy and reproductive freedom.”

Florida currently bans abortion after 15 weeks. That law went before the state Supreme Court in September. If the court upholds the law, then an even more restrictive measure banning abortion at six weeks—before most people know they are pregnant—will go into effect. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the hugely unpopular bill in April.

If Borrero’s bill becomes law—a possibility, with Republicans controlling both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s office—then it would supersede the six-week ban.

But there’s a chance that all of these laws will be defeated. Florida abortion advocates have collected enough signatures to put access to the procedure on the state’s 2024 ballot. The amendment would allow abortion access up until viability, or when the fetus can survive outside the uterus. This is generally estimated to happen at around 24 weeks.

The ballot initiative faces a major Republican challenge, though. State Attorney General Ashley Moody, a DeSantis ally, has asked the Florida Supreme Court to disqualify the amendment. She argues the language is misleading, claiming that the use of the word “viability” could have multiple meanings. The state’s high court will hear arguments on February 7.