challenges. he acted like we don't have an economic crisis. we are dealing with record levels of inflation, skyrocketing energy costs, porous southern border and he just acted like everything was hunky dorey in america. >> bill: a lot of challenges ahead of you. thank you for your time and review on that. kiss your wife on the lips and no one else. >> i promise to do just that. >> bill: see you in person soon. thanks for your time today. >> dana: fox news alert from capitol hill house oversight committee kicking off a hearing on twitter's suppression of the hunter biden laptop story and we expect fireworks and we'll be there for them and bring them to you. welcome to a new hour of "america's newsroom," i'm dana perino. >> bill: good morning. late night. nice job last night with bret and martha. >> dana: everyone had a late night but we're here up and at them. >> bill: house republicans getting a chance to grill the former twitter executives in a few moments on their decision to

censor and suppress a "new york post" story that happened right before the election. it has been authenticated by every outlet on planet earth. >> dana: james comer says this is just the beginning of holding the white house accountable. >> go back to the two years of the biden administration. 0 cabinet secretaries or undersecretaries in front of the house oversight committee. not a single one. that's unacceptable. what business is hunter biden in? influence peddling and i have a problem with that. >> dana: david spunt is at the justice department as things kick off this morning. >> safe to say some folks at d.o.j. and the f.b.i. across the street will be paying attention to what happens in these hearings. the reason that these three former twitter executives are appearing in the first place is because of the old-fashioned subpoena. who will appear today will be gaty, the former chief legal

officer and deputy general counsel james baker and yoel roll f. it will look into suppression of a "new york post" story regarding hunter biden's laptop before the 2020 election. a delaware computer shop owner says it was dropped off at his shop and never picked it up. the f.b.i. took possession in late 2019. journal lift michael shellenberger has released information in december of 2022 to the republican. the shop owner gave a copy of the laptop to rudy giuliani who gave the information to the "new york post." shellenberger reports the f.b.i. asked twitter to provide information without search warrants. in october 2013 and f.b.i. agent sent ten documents to twitter's

head of site integrity through a one-way channel directly from twitter to the f.b.i. dana and bill. we don't know what was in the documents we know about the "new york post" coverage right behind chairman comer there. it came about in october 2020. it exposed information about hunter biden's business dealings overseas. as of 2020 there were so many former f.b.i. employees working at twitter they created their private slack channel and contribute sheet to onboard new f.b.i. arrivals coming from michael shellenberger who was put forward by musk. this is expected to last several hours and one of many hearings involving the president's son, hunter biden. >> dana: let's get to it. james comer, let's listen in. >> we now know they did. even placing such accounts on

search and trend back lists. twitter employees made censorship decisions on the fly not following the company's own policy publicly stated policies. it worked hand in hand with the f.b.i. to monitor the protected speech of americans, receiving millions of tax dollars to do so. twitter under the leadership of our witnesses today was a private company. the federal government used to accomplish what it constitutionally cannot. limit the free exercise of speech. we now know all this thanks to elon musk and the independent journalists contributed to the twitter files. that brings us to the specific topic of today's hearing. twitter's censorship of a news article that shed light in joe biden involvement in his family's suspicious business deals. the f.b.i. advised twitter executives to question the validity of any hunter biden story. we also know that one of the

witnesses before us today participated in an aspen institute exercise in september 2020 on the potential hack and dump operation related to hunter biden. other big tech companies and reporters attended as well. this exercise prepared them for their future collusion to suppress and delegitimize information contained in hunter biden's laptop about the biden's family business schemes. on october 14, 2020, the "new york post" published its first story based on information contained in hunter biden's laptop story. the post provided proof of the laptop's legitimacy by releasing a computer repair store signed release for the laptop and federal subpoena used by the f.b.i. to retrieve it in 2019. the article revealed that a top executive at burisma paying hunter biden $50,000 a month had spent time with then vice

president biden in washington, d.c. throughout his presidential campaign joe biden assured the american people that he had never spoken to his son about his overseas business dealings. however, the details exposed in the post's article indicate that joe biden lied to the american people. immediately following the story's publication america witnessed a coordinated campaign by social media companies and mainstream news to suppress and delegitimize the existence of hunter biden's laptop and its contents. that morning twitter and other social media companies took extraordinary steps to suppress that story. twitter immediately removed the story and banned the "new york post"'s account. twitter also banned accounts who shared the story including white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany. this episode marks the first

time it limited the spread by a mainstream new york organization and the post did not get its account back for two weeks. twitter would finally admit its mistake but the damage had already been done. on october 19th, '51 former intelligence officials published a letter that said it was russian disinformation which joe biden used as a talking point at a presidential debate on october 22nd. but we all know now this was not russian disinformation. it wasn't disinformation. i want to make sure the american people truly understand the timeline here. it is very important. the hunter biden laptop story was published on wednesday. twitter did not acknowledge their mistake for at least 24 hours. on monday morning 51 former intelligence officials published their letter. that letter was wholeheartedly accepted by mainstream news as proof the laptop was fake. joe biden used that letter to brush aside the few questions he

received about the story. during that time the mainstream media was more concerned about what flavor of ice cream joe biden had ordered on a particular day. all this happened two weeks before the 2020 election, two weeks. one survey found that 17% of voters would not have voted for their ticket. many americans did not know about it because of a coordinated cover-up by big tech, the swamp and mainstream news. now mainstream media outoutlets have verified the laptop but the damage has been done. today we're joined by three former high-ranking employees at twitter. gadde, the former top lawyer. james baker and yoel roth, the former head of trust and safety. we are joined by annika collier

navaroli. the former head of twitter's trust and safety. a former twitter member of u.s. safety poll cismd i would like to thank you for your participation in today's hearing. we owe it in the american people to provide answers about this collusion to censor information about joe biden's involvement in his family's business schemes. with that, i yield to the ranking member for his opening statement. >> thank you mr. chairman. last night in the state of the union address over all the heckling president biden reviewed significant achievements his administration and democrats are delivering for the american people. the lowest unemployment rate in over 50 years. manufacturing boom in clean energy, >> dana: you are listening to the hearing here. we listened to james comer, the chairman. this is mr. raskin under going cancer treatment and with the bandana. this is just getting underway.

they haven't sworn in the witnesses yet but setting the stage for what will be hopefully an enlightening hearing. the former f.b.i. deputy who went to twitter jim baker. he said i'm constrained. i was the lawyer. i will try to do my best. that might not be good enough for some people. everybody else is on the record. >> bill: the last time we heard from the former head jack dorsey used to be the ceo at a hearing in 2021 said it was a total mistake to censor the post and its story but didn't go into detail who is responsible. elon musk owns twitter and a relationship with jack dorsey and appear to be friendly. we'll see how deep we go during the hearing. it will go on for a long time and see whether or not we get answers. >> dana: one of the things you heard a raskin wanted the talk about the state of the union. we'll get back to the state of the union and bring back former speaker of the house newt gingrich.

we'll monitor that hearing for news. the headline from the "wall street journal," the state of the union contraction went on to say this. president biden devoted most of the state of the union address tuesday to celebrating what he says is a long list of legislative and economic achievements. spending on social programs and public works, subsidies for computer chips and more subsidies for green energy and strong labor market. if he has done so much for america why does most of america not seem to appreciate it. mr. speaker, the polls show that people are in a sour mood. they don't feel like this is working for them. did he convince anyone last night that it should? >> no, look. this was a fantasy state of the union. you got to hear from a guy who resides in a white house, flies on marine one to the airport to pick up air force one to go to delaware so he can bicycle every weekend. his world is fine.

it is just the rest of us who are in pain. i think what you saw last night was a speech that was totally disconnected from reality. his comments about china were on the verge of laughable. we met this challenge and we did what was necessary. that's baloney. totally dishonest. his comments about the border, totally dishonest. his attempt to attack the republicans on medicare and social security. totally dishonest. it was a breathtaking speech. frankly i thought the big news of the evening was governor sarah huckabee sanders who became a republican star nationally with what i think may have been the best value speech by a republican since ronald reagan in 1964. i've been checking with friends all morning and they are blown away by how she captured the real choice between normal and crazy, the degree to which biden now because he believes it or is intimidated is part of the

crazy. that's what you saw last night. he just literally stood there and lied to the american people again and again. the problem is, guys, people -- 72% of the american people say they are living paycheck to paycheck. they hear this guy telling them how great it is and what planet is he on? the american people watch the chinese balloon go all the way across the country as babylon bee put it. it got to finish its job before he shot it down. they look at that stuff and think does this guy really believe any of the stuff he is saying? >> bill: for days, in fact. i don't know if the catcalls helped or hurt the republican cause. the new tone for the state of the union addresses coming from the right or left. i want to go back to the twitter hearing right now. these are three high-ranking executives that work for the company. i don't know how much they'll reveal. what do you think we've learned from the hunter biden story from 2020 when it comes to censorship

between big tech, democrats, how far it went? >> look, i think anybody who backs up and looks at the entire forest realizes the f.b.i. was corrupted. the justice department was corrupted. they took that corruption into the hi-tech companies. they were eager to collude with them and so was "the new york times" and the "washington post", so were abc, nbc and cbs. you look at the concerted effort by the entire establishment to discredit the hunter biden story, the 51 intelligence officers who signed a totally false letter discrediting the hunter biden laptop. the effort in october to defeat donald trump was totally corrupt and historic and involved a total abuse of government power and an absolute violation of the constitution. all of that -- you can argue about election day results.

the campaign was corrupted in october. imagine if everybody said the "new york post" story is true. we ought to know about the $61 million at the university of pennsylvania or the $20 million at the university of delaware or the amount of money being given to hunter biden or the diamond he was given. you would have had a totally different election had the country been told the truth. >> dana: i was saying to bill i think the republicans made a good decision you are thinking put their hat on to hold this hearing this morning right after the state of the union. >> i think that's right. i have to say, by the way, the one time last night that i was glad the republicans were so rauch -- when biden tried to lie about medicare and social security. he was going to make a major speech in tampa this week attacking republicans on medicare and social security.

i don't think he can do that now. that's the one time. the rest of the time i watched speaker mccarthy keep going shhh, trying to keep his people quiet and be respectful. you notice mccarthy did not tear up the speech. i want to point that out. >> bill: he told me earlier today that his big takeaway from last night is that joe biden is running for a second term and he concluded that because of the references to finish the job, that phrase from the president. do you concur? >> yeah, i told my wife when it was over i thought we now heard his theme for two years now. if you look at this morning, cbs came out with a poll this morning that is devastating on every question about biden's effectiveness. he is between 25 and 29% approval. finish the job may mean get rid of him. i'm not sure yet. look at the border thing. what he said about the border

was hypocritical. it was astonishing to watch him stand there with millions of people flooding into the u.s. and pretend the border was okay. i think the average american knows this. and i think the result will be he will have a very hard time running for re-election. i think only 38% of democrats want him to run and i don't see how they keep kamala harris on the ticket. the prospect of her becoming president will make her a major issue if she is on the ticket in 2024. frankly, i would love to see -- i would love to see sarah huckabee sanders versus kamala harris debate. that would be an interesting debate. >> dana: that would be a good one for sure. >> bill: thank you, mr. speaker. newt gingrich here in washington. thank you. >> dana: that was pretty interesting with newt there. we have this hearing ongoing and

we'll look at that indeed. we'll see what comes out of it. i'm interested but we have a lot more to get to. >> bill: it advances the ball and puts the focus back on the issues of the day that republicans want to uncover. we'll see how far they get. >> dana: by 5:00 tonight we'll be talking about it. >> bill: right on. navy search crews still recovering debris from the floor of the atlantic hoping to learn more about the chinese spy craft. are they making progress today? >> president biden: make no mistake about it, as we made clear last week if china threatens our sovereignty we will act to protect our country, and we did. in ensure max protein with 30 grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks. uhhhh... here, i'll take that. [woo hoo!] ensure max protein, with 30 grams of protein, one gram of sugar and nutrients for immune health. veteran homeowners: what if you could save

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>> bill: so the hearings roll on in the house. oversight committee holding the

first meeting on social media censorship with the "new york post" reporting about hunter biden's laptop. it was october of 2020, a couple weeks away from a national election. twitter took the story, suppressed it. blocked the "new york post" on twitter. they could not communicate for two weeks' time. today lawmakers want to understand from three twitter executives why. we're watching that. headlines when we get them from the hill behind us here in washington. >> dana: u.s. navy releasing photos of the chinese spy craft shot down over the atlantic ocean. search crews working to recover all the be brie in hopes of getting a better understanding of china's surveillance capabilities. the challenges they face are immense. >> smaller pieces will get caught in the current and spread across the debris, 1500 by 1500 debris field they seem to have identified. you will have larger intact pieces as well. from there you will begin to map

the rest of it with the currents. >> dana: joining us now is former c.i.a. officer and f.b.i. special agent tracer walder. >> i think the biggest thing they will hopefully be able to glean is what it was collecting. what are the chinese capabilities in terms of measurement and signals intelligence and what was the purpose of this balloon's sworn journey across the united states >> dana: you don't believe it was just for collecting information about the with like the chinese said. >> i absolutely don't believe what the chinese version was. i worked chinese counter intelligence at the f.b.i. this deniability on their part is very much to be expected in terms of their reaction. what i didn't expect of their reaction is this initial feeling of regret and then they have now takened the hardened response which tells me perhaps there is

a bit of confusion in beijing. >> dana: what do you mean by that? do you mean that perhaps president xi didn't know what was going on or somebody made a mistake? or was this done on purpose? take us inside what they might be thinking over there. >> you know, i have vacillated whether or not it was done on purpose. we have to remember on february 2nd the u.s. signed a military agreement with the philippines that expanded our military base capabilities. that much closer to taiwan. i'm certain that china was not pleased with that agreement. however, the fact that it was so close on the heels of that trip by secretary blinken to visit that it was probably an accident they didn't necessarily intend to get caught. typically what china does is responses is make themselves out to be the victim. that's why that initial response that they regretted what happened was somewhat surprising to me.

what this tells me kind of this back and forth is with their minister of defense is perhaps he is not communicating with president xi and perhaps that's where the communication is falling apart. >> dana: that's so interesting, tracy. great to have your perspective on that. what is the fallout? >> you know, i think the fallout -- what will eventually happen is this needs to cool off a little bit. i think the chinese are trying to put some distance between us and this event. we are probably trying to do the same. i do think at some point a trip again by the secretary of state will be back on the table but what this really is interesting to me we typically don't see this confusing messaging from china. that really is a harbinger of the fact that perhaps china has become a little bit lax in terms of their organization and that perhaps there are some discrepancies and infighting at the top.

>> dana: the balloon was a visible thing that every american could watch go across the country. as the last question for a quick answer, how much chinese spying is being done all across america every day that we don't see? >> the quick answer to that is a lot. they do $600 billion of i.p. damage a year of stealing intellectual property. there is spying going on every minute of every day by china and other nefarious actors as well. >> dana: tracy, i hope you come back. fascinating to talk to you. thank you for your time this morning. >> thank you. >> bill: 28 past now. there is a moment of hope amid the ongoing horror in turkey and in syria. getting a couple of these every day now. rescuers pull a young boy from the rubble of that quake seemingly unscathed. we're live on the ground and

bring you the update on the massive search effort there. house republicans kicking off the first of many hearings on hunter biden. this one focused on twitter's suppression of the laptop in october of 2020. what will lawmakers learn? we'll drop in on that coming up.

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right before our eyes. it is happening at various places across this region. what we're looking at is in the city a place 20 miles away from the epicenter of the earthquakes that hit monday and right behind us was a multi-story apartment building with a lot of people in it when the earthquake hit. it was totally flattened. i will step back and let my cameraman show you what we've been seeing for the last several hours. first big construction vehicles, excavators came in and pulled away a lot of the rubble and then rescue people and construction workers themselves and security digging away, carrying away rubble. carrying off personal items. using picks, shovels, using their hands to get rid of this because they believe that there could be 1, 2, 3, possibly more people alive underneath that rubble right now. why do they think that?

they've dropped microphones down through holes and have heard voices. they've heard tapping. this is the struggle going on right now. they've dug a couple of holes. we've been watching it and haven't given it a second of break. we're waiting for something like this to happen. they are rushing. it is a matter of time. the experts say after three days, even if you are in good shape and even if you haven't been injured under these conditions sub freezing temperatures, you cannot survive. we're just about up to that three-day limit and why you see 40, 50, 60 people in seven construction vehicles working hard. we're keeping an eye on that and give you a round-up of the rest of the situation here in syria and in turkey. you are right. the death toll over 11,000. injured 50,000, homeless

approaching half a million, 6,000 to 7,000 buildings are destroyed. serious stuff. we look at a homeless situation of people needing oil, gas, electricity, heating, what have you. we saw it today. president erdogan of turkey come to the region trying to sooth the emotions a little bit now. people are getting a little angry, a little tired. they need help and they are in the street. they are getting it from the world, too, though, dana. 70 different countries pitching in with rescue workers including the united states. firefighting teams, search and rescue teams from fairfax, virginia and los angeles have come here. they have arrived today and be at the scenes tomorrow. a couple of these situations. but again, wrapping up here it is a race against time. i will pull away one more time and show you what's going on. it is getting dark here and they are putting lights on it.

you can see 2 or 3 groups of people. they have drilled through this concrete in three different places hoping perhaps that they can find some people alive there. it could end up the other way. it could end up being a sad, tragic recovery. my sense is looking at this, there is energy, there is interest and we could see seeing very dramatic perhaps in the coming hours. back to you, dana. >> dana: thank you for bringing us the story. >> bill: from overseas to the hill in washington. house republicans holding their first hearing on hunter biden. this one focusing on twitter's suppression of the laptop story in the weeks before the 2020 election. the chair, james comer, out of kentucky vows to uncover the truth. want to bring in john levine a political reporter for the "new york post" on the story from the beginning and byron york. hello to you.

there are three former twitter executives that will take questions. one of them is yoel roth in the headlines a lot. minutes ago, he repeated something that jack dorsey said about a year and a half ago that this was a mistake to block the story. here is roth on the hill. >> i've been clear that in my judgment at the time twitter should not have taken action to block the "new york post"'s reporting. just 24 hours after doing so, the company acknowledged its error. but the decisions here aren't straight forward and hindsight is 2020. it isn't obvious what the right response is to a suspected but not confirmed cyberattack by another government on a presidential election. i believe twitter erred in this case because we wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2016. >> bill: i don't know how the questions are going to go. but the damage was done. >> this is very easy monday morning quarterbacking from

roth. the damage was done. a lot of polling showing if the american people had full knowledge about the post hunter biden story we might have had a totally different election. after biden is safely installed as president maybe we made a mistake. no. we learned from the twitter files so much about the role of the intelligence community in influencinging twitter's decision and in pushing twitter to make this decision. so there are so many unanswered questions about the nature of that relationship that i hope we can get to the bottom of today. >> bill: byron, sometimes the hearings they have a payoff and sometimes they don't. right now we aren't quite sure. are you? >> the thing to remember about this hearing is as much as we've talked about it as a twitter hearing or even a hunter biden hearing, it is not a twitter or hunter biden hearing, it is an f.b.i. hearing. a hearing about the national security authorities of the u.s. government. james comer, chairman of the committee said something really interesting this morning. he said twitter was a private

company the government used to accomplish what it constitutionally cannot, which is limit the exercise of free speech. that's what happened here. the government wanted to censor information about hunter biden. they couldn't do it themselves. the second amendment forbids it. they got twitter to do it. twitter was happy, eager to be used but the fact is the real mover in this story as we know it so far is the u.s. government. >> bill: eager to be used. here is comer's statement. we owe it to the american people to provide the censor information on joe biden's involvement in his family's business schemes and prevent this type of censorship from happening again. i don't know where jack dorsey fits in here. he is no longer connected with the company. he was in a senate hearing a year and a half ago and senator cornyn on the question.

>> you do realize that by taking down that story, you probably gave it more prominence and more visibility than it ever would have gotten had you left it alone. >> we realize that and we recognize it as a mistake that we made. >> bill: does he enter the picture here? >> i don't know about prominence or visibility. the american people were prevented from reading it. jack dorsey is part of this, too. he created a company that instituted this culture. it began as a company that was for free speech and over time it changed and i would remind you after the 2016 election there was a flood of national security employees, people from the f.b.i., c.i.a., n.s.a. moving from those agencies to twitter. they weren't working security at the door. they were taking senior roles in trust and safety and the censorship architecture. one of the questions i want to get to the bottom of is how did

the flood continue? jim baker, one of the people we're going the hear from today used to be the top attorney at the f.b.i. then a deputy counsel at twitter. he was the f.b.i.'s point man in that company. how did he get there? what was his role in all this? there are many unanswered questions from all of these people. andy biggs, i want to get his sense about the question. >> government official or law enforcement determination there had been a hacked account before that hack policy were to be in place ---imposed. is that accurate? >> no, sir, it's not. >> so the policy did not require there be any kind of official finding by a government source. >> no, there were a number of different types of evidence we considered under the policy. certainly government attribution would be a powerful one. >> that wasn't determinative is what we're saying. >> in that instance we did not

have any specific information from any government source, no. >> i will read something that applies to this and several other things. from the twitter stack that you guys had. this might be an unpopular opinion but one off ad hoc decisions that don't appear rooted in policy are in my humble opinion a slippery slope and have a dictatorial problem. quite frankly, that's what the essence of all four of your testimony -- i realize you are trying to fight against it but you exercised. you exercised an amazing amount of clout and power over the entire american electorate by even holding them hostage for 24 hours, reversing your policy and then we want to go back to the original. that's two weeks that you imposed your will on the american electorate. i yield back, mr. chairman.

>> he went 30 seconds over. i will give the other member another 30 seconds. >> let me start with you. did i hear you say there are thousands or hundreds of thousands of counterfeit twitter accounts set up by russian propaganda and disinformation for vladimir putin to pump his poison into the bloodstream of american social media, is that right? >> that's right, sir. it is not just past tense. those accounts are active on social media today. this is an ongoing campaign. >> we should have a hearing about that. i appreciate your alerting to us what is taking place. you've testified that in the months leading up to the november 2020 election and then in the weeks before january 6th you were growing increasingly anxious about the violent rhetoric and incitement that you saw posted on twitter. can you describe specifically what made you so concerned during that period? did you raise your concerns with people at twitter? >> thank you for that question.

as i said in my opening statement, after former president trump in his debate said the statement stand back, stand by to the proud boys, my team in discussion with other teams at twitter realized we had a gap in our policies and that could not be said on the platform because it would have gone too far. what we did see continue to happen was those statements in addition to other coded incitement to violence or dog whistles began to spring up on the platform. what was once fringe ideology or fringe statements calling for the overthrow of the government became a loud roar and so we heard individuals beginning to say they were locked and loaded. they were ready for civil war part two. they were ready for another revolution. that they were ready for the day of the rope and very clear english on twitter. >> bill: this is very interesting stuff here. before we join this, byron, yoel roth talked about hundreds of

thousands of tweets happening -- hundreds of millions. a lot. but even if you just characterize the number of tweets that they are trying to deal with in realtime, the question is why single out this one? >> well, a lot of these tweets were from russian bots. what the hearing is about is tweets and a story from the "new york post," an established newspaper here. you saw representative raskin moving away from that. before that you saw representative biggs ask roth if you'll say something is hacked and assume that the hunter biden laptop was hacked, do you have to have some sort of proof of it? he said no, really. but in fact -- in fact he had the f.b.i. telling him to be on the lookout for russian disinformation. >> bill: thank you to you both. we'll continue to watch it for

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>> dana: we had some pretty interesting commentary from the hearing on the twitter censorship of the "new york post." let's listen for a moment. >> weeks before the 2020 election. today we hear from twitter executives who buried the new york storm laptop story claiming it violated the hack policy. twitter executives were hostile for conservatives and biased toward anyone who opposed their points of view. mr. roth, did you write this tweet? >> i regret the language i used in some of my former tweets but i did post it. >> i will read the tweet for the record.

the person in the pink hat is clearly a bigger brand to your brand of feminisms that nazis in the white house. do you think all conservatives are nazi? >> certainly not, sir. >> what about the hundreds of people who worked in the trump administration? >> certainly not. >> did any other lawyer in twitter take down the tweet? >> they didn't have a policy of personal viewpoints. >> are you available that hunter biden's lawyers as early as last week wrote the department of justice about hunter biden's laptop? >> i have seen some articles about that. yes. >> they did. it appears that hunter biden's attorney is admitting the laptop and emails on it are authentic. in october 14th, 2020, did hunter biden report to twitter he was the victim of a hack? >> no, i don't believe he did. >> when the "new york post" initially broke the story good the laptop did you call his lawyer to ask if it was

authentic? >> no, i did not. >> is bitty it correct the biden campaign had contact with twitter in the run-up to the 2020 election? >> not to my knowledge. >> and you are telling this committee that you didn't ask any biden representative if the laptop was real or for hunter biden attorneys phone number to confirm its authenticity? >> we did not speak to anybody related to that. >> mr. baker are you aware the f.b.i. had hunter biden's laptop since december of 2019? >> i'm sorry am i aware of that now? >> were you aware then? >> then, no. i don't believe to the best of my recollection. >> you are aware now. >> i've heard that now, yes. >> did you call any of your contacts at the f.b.i. to ask whether or not they knew if the material had been hacked? >> i don't recall contacting them about that on that day. >> mr. ro it appears to me you

failed at your jobs. you were invested with the highest level of power in twitter instead of allowing people to judge the information on the laptop story you rushed to find a reason why the american people shouldn't see it. in a matter of hours you were deciding on the truth of a story that spans years and dozens of complex international transactions. you did this because you were terrified of joe biden not winning the election in 2020 is what it appears. i can assure you this committee will succeed in holding the bidens accountable. so much of the evidence of wron wrongdoing. >> dana: that's congressman james comer, the chairman of the house oversight committee. this hearing is off to a pretty amazing start. we brought in martha maccallum,

wonderful colleague and you did a great job last night. the republicans fairly smart to turn the story back to what they want to talk about, the oversight and holding the bidens accountable. comer said that. what have you taken away so far this morning? >> i heard you say that earlier and you are right. it is a quick pivot to the business of this and for anybody who is questioning -- we've heard a lot of questions from the democrat side of the aisle about whether there is any worthiness in these hearings, i think that notion has been completely dispelled over the last several minutes because i do think that americans, even though we have a fair amount of experience now with social media, there is still a mystery in terms of what information gets through and what doesn't and why. and i think james comer just made a great point. interesting to see him sort of with his gears all greased and ready to go this morning in this role for the first time officially basically saying don't you think the american people could have figured out whether or not this made sense

to them, whether or not they thought this laptop belonged to hunter biden or didn't? another particularly compelling line of questioning he just had is when he asked miss gadde if she had ever contacted hunter biden or his attorneys to say is this laptop authentic? they took the story that was fed to them by these 51 u.s. intelligence officials that they should be on the lookout for russian disinformation and they ran with it. so they are saying they have a responsibility to keep certain things off of social media. they also have a responsibility if they are going take take that role. this is not a town forum. this is an editorial enterprise. if you will be an editorial enterprise it is your duty to make sure you kick the tires on all sides of this story. you better make sure both sides -- >> bill: what strikes me there were 14, 21 days from a national election to the time they

suspended the "new york post" a cast a spell on the story whether or not it was legitimate. donald trump was using twitter at that time and had 75 million followers. that was one of his main channels of communication to the people who voted for him and also to the media members who covered him. >> absolutely. it was an indecember p-- an important tool for him. if you had known more about the hunter biden story might it have affected the way you voted. i think back to -- in this case the candidate but you'll remember it well. dui story for george bush that came out right before an election. back then in the early days of fox news it was covered full throttle. that was a story that fox decided was important for people to know before the election and made sure people had the information that needed to get out there. >> dana: it affected the election. karl rove says for the

evangelical vote it suppressed that vote and you had basically it come down to 536 votes after the recount. so you do see some fascinating trends and threads to pull and i'm sure we'll see more on the story. >> these are riveting hearings. >> great job last night. see you at 3:00. >> dana: harris faulkner is up next. >> breaking now a fiery hearing underway on capitol hill. the republican-led house is holding its first hearing to get to the bottom of the censorship of the hunter biden laptop story and how the feds were pushing twitter to do it. chairman james comer, republican from kentucky, leading the way to press former twitter executives on why they suppressed the bombshell reporting on hunter biden's laptop emails just before the 2020 presidential election. i'm harris faulkner and yo