(CNSNews.com) - In an interview with President-elect Joe Biden and his wife Dr. Jill Biden that aired Thursday night, "Late Show" host Stephen Colbert gently raised the Hunter Biden issue.
"What are you going to do, and how will you sustain each other, for the attacks that you know are coming your way?" Colbert asked the Bidens. "You know that the people who want to make hay in Washington are going to try to use your adult son as a cudgel against you. How do you feel about that, and what do you have to say to those people?"
"Well, look," Biden said, pausing briefly. "We have great confidence in our son. I am not concerned about any accusation made against him. It's used to get to me. I think it's kind of foul play, but look, it is what it is. And he's a grown man -- he is the smartest man I know, I mean, in a pure intellectual capacity. And as long as he's good, we're good."
Colbert expressed admiration for Joe's response, but asked Biden: "Can you reach across the aisle to people who will be using this as an attack on you, when it is such a personal attack, because it's about family."
"If it benefits the country, yes," Biden replied. "I really mean it. Because we know who we are. Don't get me wrong. It doesn't mean I'm not angry. It doesn't mean I wasn't angry, and it doesn't mean if I were back in the days of high school I wouldn’t say, 'Come here,' you know, and go a round.
"We have to take the high road," Dr. Jill Biden interjected after her husband mentioned a fist fight.
"And because, look, there's so much at stake," Biden continued. "And the American people, I think they can smell the phoniness -- smell what's true and what's not true."
Biden said he's been disappointed in people he thought were his friends. (A number of Republicans are calling for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden's alleged influence peddling and the extent of Joe's involvement in the money-making schemes.)
"I feel badly for them," Biden told Colbert. "I'm not being facetious. I feel badly about what -- what -- what's happened, what went wrong, what's -- what-what-what's going on here? And because, I -- anyway."
Biden pointed to the Republicans who "stepped up" for him during the campaign. In other words, he changed the subject.
"And so there's a lot more good," he trailed off.
Biden said history will judge him on whether he can make things better for the American people. "And I will do -- I'll deal with anyone if what we're working on is improving the well-being of the American people. That's not phony, it's real. I'll swallow hard, and I'll do it."