This is an article published in the Fox News:
In raising the subject of Hunter Biden, the liberal comedian Colbert claimed to Joe Biden that "the people who want to make hay in Washington are going to try to use your son as as a cudgel against you."
I can’t understand the bolded part. I guess ‘make hay’ means ‘take profit’, specifically ‘get a job or a position’ but the following phrase doesn’t make any sense. ‘as as a cudgel against’ seems that ‘threaten a person with his/her flaw’ or ‘use a leverage to someone’. If so the whole meaning is too negative that the president-elect would be a very weak plaything.
What is the clear meaning of the bolded part? ‘as as’ seems to be a typo.
Answer
What is the clear meaning from ‘that’? ‘as as’ seems to be a typo.
Firstly the whole sentence is a very clumsy admixture of metaphors. When reading this we are tempted to think that that someone is going make hay with a cudgel – a nonsensical idea. Then, as we read further we find that the speaker has actually transitioned into a completely different analogy. I hope this person’s comedy is better than their grasp of English.
Joe Biden’s son was implicated in a scandal. This was a big story in the news for a while. It might perhaps have swayed people’s opinions in the presidential election.
"the people who want to make hay in Washington are going to try to use
your son as as a cudgel against you."
The comedian intends the following:
… "the people in Washington who want to profit politically from the story (about Hunter Biden) are going to try to use the scandal about your son in order to discredit you (as a candidate for the presidency)".
There were very different spins given to the story in the newspapers according to the political beliefs of the editors. The New York Post published an exposé and the CNN TV news organisation tried to ignore it according to some sources.
I suggest you search online for "Hunter Biden story" to find out more about the background.
For example
CNN liberal apologists caught burying The Post’s Hunter Biden exposé: Devine
…
On the morning of Oct. 14, the day we [the New York Post] published an
email from Hunter’s abandoned laptop in which a top executive from
corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma thanked Hunter for arranging
a meeting with his then-VP father, CNN political director David
Chalian is heard telling Zucker and his underlings that the news
network would not cover the story.“Obviously, we’re not going with the New York Post story right now on
Hunter Biden,” said Chalian. “We’ll just continue to report out this
is the very stuff that the president was impeached over . . . that
Senate committees looked at and found nothing wrong in Joe Biden’s
interactions with Ukrainians.”
https://nypost.com/2020/12/02/cnn-caught-burying-the-posts-hunter-biden-expose-devine/
Does this help?
P.S. "as as" is indeed a typo.
EDIT
@Astralbee explains in their answer (q.v.), the meaning and derivation of "make hay", quote:
It is a shortening of a proverb "make hay while the sun shines … – Astralbee"
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : SHIN JaeGuk , Answer Author : chasly – supports Monica