Putin pours cold water on Trump's Hunter Biden hopes

Vladimir Putin
(Image credit: Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)

If President Trump were looking for a little last-minute boost from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Putin had nothing for him on Sunday. In televised remarks on state TV, Putin "took the time to knock down what he made clear he regarded as false allegations from Trump about the Bidens," Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter, Reuters reports. Putin said Trump's story about Hunter Biden getting money from the widow of a former Moscow mayor was news to him, even though Trump tried to tie Putin to the alleged payment.

In Ukraine, Putin said, Hunter Biden "had or maybe still has a business, I don't know. It doesn't concern us. It concerns the Americans and the Ukrainians." And regarding the money Hunter Biden made working for a Ukrainian company, he added, "I don't see anything criminal about this, at least we don't know anything about this (being criminal)."

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Trump's Hunter Biden allegations are probably too little, too late, and too tame anyway, even if they were true, anti-Trump GOP strategist Mike Madrid tells Politico. "Whatever October surprise or whatever money he's got, he needed to spend yesterday," he said. "He's got a bigger time problem than a money problem and he's got a huge money problem. It's time. He's running out of time."

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.