Those close to former President Joe Biden wish that his son, Hunter Biden, would stop grabbing headlines with his off-the-wall media appearances.
Allies of the 82-year-old told Politico’s Playbook that they “sometimes grimaced” at Hunter’s attempts to defend his father and his doomed 2024 reelection bid. Playbook asked one source whether Hunter is doing his father’s bidding.
“He probably thinks he is and thinks he is doing what is best and defending his father,” the former Biden White House official said. “But it’s not helpful.”
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While Hunter recently defended his father during a podcast interview with Jaime Harrison, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, it was his three-hour appearance on the Channel 5 podcast earlier this month that drew the most attention.
During an expletive-ridden talk with host Andrew Callaghan, Hunter fired shots at his father’s critics.
Hunter blasted Democratic Party donor George Clooney as not “a f---ing actor, [but] a brand” and slammed veteran Democratic strategist James Carville for not having “won a race in 40 f---ing years.” Both Carville and Clooney had called on Biden not to seek a second term.
In one of the more striking soundbites from the Channel 5 interview, Hunter, who has struggled with drug addiction, described in detail the difference between crack and cocaine.
He also attributed his father’s disastrous, low-energy CNN debate performance to the sleep medication Ambien.
“I know exactly what happened in that debate. He flew around the world,” Hunter said. “He’s 81 years old. He’s tired as s--t. They give him Ambien to be able to sleep, and he gets up on the stage, and he looks like a deer in the headlights.”
In an opinion piece for the Daily Beast, political commentator Chris Cillizza suggested Hunter would have been better off keeping mum.
“Hunter Biden has made up his mind that everyone in the political world is an idiot. And not only that, but that he really has to broadcast that opinion,” Cillizza wrote. “Here’s some real talk, Hunter: No one is interested in your takes. If your goal is to help either a) your dad or b) the Democratic Party, you are doing it all wrong.”
Hunter previously garnered national headlines—and the scorn of MAGA—after his father pardoned him over his federal gun and tax convictions in the final few weeks of his term. A number of GOP figures later pushed a conspiracy theory that the elder Biden used an autopen to sign off on the pardon without his approval, which the former president recently denied to The New York Times.
A spokesperson for the former president did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
