presented by BP.

Good morning, everyone. I'm playbook co-author Eugene Daniels. It is Monday, December 2nd.

We're almost done with 2024. Here's what's driving the day. Now, if you thought that the Thanksgiving

holiday weekend would slow the news down just a little bit out of Washington, D.C., you and I were sorely mistaken.

Last night, President Joe Biden announced that he had pardoned his son Hunter, who was said to be sentenced on December 12th on federal gun charges and on December 16th on federal tax evasion charges.

In a statement, Biden said that he has, quote, watched my son being selectively and unfairly

prosecuted. The president added that, quote, raw politics has infected this process, and it led

to a miscarriage of justice. And once I made this decision this weekend,

there's no sense in delaying it further. This marks a complete, complete 180-degree flip-flop

from President Biden, who repeatedly vowed that he would neither pardon nor commute Hunter's

sentence. That was the line out of the White House as late as last month.

Here to talk with me more about this is national correspondent Betsy Woodrow Swan, who has been all over this Hunter Biden story for the twists and turns several months and months and months. Good morning, Betsy.

Good morning, Eugene. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for coming on. This, you know, threw everyone's Sunday evenings into Tizzy. But, you know, it's one of those kind of, like,

shocking but not surprising kind of deals, right? It was something that a lot of folks were saying Biden should be

doing. The reaction from

Democrats is quite supportive of what Joe Biden did here. But this is a pretty sweeping pardon,

right? It said basically any and all times that his son may have done over an 11-year period,

which was oddly specific. That's right. It's an extraordinary

document. I spoke to two lawyers who both worked at the Justice Department on pardons in the

hours after the pardon came out. And they both told me that this is the broadest, most sweeping,

most vague pardon that they have ever seen and that the only comparison is Richard Nixon's pardon. One of the attorneys I spoke to is Margaret Love, who was the

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