A pair of CNN commentators debated President Joe Biden's motives for commuting the sentences of nearly every federal inmate on death row.
The outgoing president commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 death row prisoners to life in prison without the chance for parole, and Republican strategist Brad Todd argued that his decision was a cynical political ploy to distract from the pardon of his son Hunter Biden.
"Well, I think all Biden is doing here is he's trying to bury his pardon of Hunter in a sea of other pardons," Todd said. "He's nearing 2,000 pardons and commutations here, which is more than anyone since Jimmy Carter. He's just trying to cover up Hunter's pardon.
"Now, a lot of us who have pro-life convictions and don't like the death penalty could have respected it if Joe Biden had started his term and said, 'Look, I'm a devout Catholic and I'm not for the death penalty, I'm going to end the federal death penalty. I'm going to commute them all on the first day, every one of them.'
"But to come here at the end and say, 'I'm going to commute this death sentence and not that one,' and do so after he shielded from the voters when it can't hurt him politically."
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"It's just a cynical play, I just don't buy it," Todd added. "I don't buy that this has anything to do with his Catholic social teachings, because he didn't do it upfront. He didn't try to make some consistency and make it a key part of his presidency and let the voters judge him. I think this is all about Hunter."
Former Congressman Max Rose pushed back, saying he didn't think the president's decision had anything to do with the fallout over the pardon of his son.
"Yeah, it's pretty far stretch to say that this is about Hunter Biden," said Rose, a New York Democrat. "I mean, what this is about ultimately is a moral statement that the death penalty is largely wrong and immoral. To say that any action by a president of the United States towards the end of his term is political theater is obviously ridiculous. It remains to be seen whether or not this is good politics, but suffice it to say, the politics of 2026 and 2028 will have very, very little to do with the politics of the holiday season of 2024."
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