Did Joe Biden discuss his son’s Ukraine business deal with him? Joe said “No” Friday when Fox News Channel’s Peter Doocy caught up with him at an appearance in Iowa.

“Mr. Vice President, how many times have you ever spoken to your son about his overseas business dealings?” Doocy asked.

“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden said, and as Doocy tried to follow up, the former VP cut him off.

“And here’s what I know, I know Trump deserves to be investigated,” Biden said. “He is violating every basic norm of a president. You should be asking him the question, why is he on the phone with a foreign leader trying to intimidate a foreign leader, if that’s what happened, that appears to be what happened, you should be looking at Trump.”

Biden pressing the flesh in Des Moines (YouTube screen grab, cropped)

A flat denial followed by going on the offense and then switching subjects. Why is Biden so testy? The answer is not hard to find. Scottt Morefield of The Daily Caller:

Former Vice President Joe Biden claimed he never discussed Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine. However, a July article from The New Yorker belies that contention. (snip)

The New Yorker article, titled “Will Hunter Biden Jeopardize His Father’s Campaign?” is an in depth look at Hunter Biden’s life and business dealings. It also contains a segment where Hunter apparently recalled discussing Ukrainian natural-gas producer Burisma “just once.”

In December, 2015, as Joe Biden prepared to return to Ukraine, his aides braced for renewed scrutiny of Hunter’s relationship with Burisma. Amos Hochstein, the Obama Administration’s special envoy for energy policy, raised the matter with Biden, but did not go so far as to recommend that Hunter leave the board. As Hunter recalled, his father discussed Burisma with him just once: “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’ ”

There’s nothing quite like a public lie to signal to the public that they are being deceived. As the purported whistleblower scandal plays out in the days ahead, all of the media hysteria over alleged Trump improprieties will blow back onto Biden, now exposed as covering up something.