Former White House aides say Biden was kept quiet during father’s presidency
Hunter Biden, the 56-year-old son of former President Joe Biden, is conducting an extensive media tour spanning podcasts, cable news shows, and his own Substack newsletter, speaking about his past, his father’s health, and political grievances.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Biden has appeared with a range of interlocutors, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, record producer Benny Blanco, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and Nick Fuentes. He has hung out with Fuentes, ridiculed former Attorney General Merrick Garland, and suggested that his father’s health is worse than the public knows, the Journal reported. Topics have ranged from the challenges of his sobriety to the addictive nature of smartphones and Israeli politicians he said were closeted. One family acquaintance, invoking a word used by Joe Biden’s onetime vice president, described him as “unburdened” now that his family is out of the public’s constant glare.
The public emergence marks a shift from the Biden White House years, when staff avoided mentioning Hunter Biden’s name out of concern for the then-president’s stress over his son’s legal troubles. Former White House aides told the Journal that Hunter Biden was kept quiet in the White House because he was under federal investigation for much of his father’s time in the presidency. Aides cautioned one another not to mention his name and risk upsetting the president with a reminder of the challenges his son faced, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Former aides are now expressing some regret that they did not unleash him earlier, the Journal reported. Ashley Etienne, a former adviser to Joe Biden, told the paper: “The world needs a righteous bad boy willing to call out and take on the bulls—.”
Biden’s media appearances come as he faces financial difficulties, including a lawsuit from his former defense attorney’s firm over unpaid legal fees. In late 2022, Biden stopped using a lawyer closely aligned with the Biden White House and hired Abbe Lowell, a defense attorney known for taking on high-profile clients who, according to documents later filed in court, charged Biden $1,510 an hour. Lowell’s firm later sued Biden for fees in a continuing case, at one point indicating he owed close to $5 million.
Biden testified under oath that the focus on him during his father’s presidency left him in a deep monetary hole, the Journal reported. He has continued to paint and sell his abstract kaleidoscope-esque paintings using alcohol ink and metal straws, but has said that financial difficulties loom.
Biden’s Substack newsletter has more than 65,000 subscribers for essays on sobriety and other topics. He offers paid subscriptions that range from $10 a month to $750 a year, though it could not be learned how many subscribers have opted to upgrade from the free option. In addition to painting and Substack posts, Biden has taken a role as an adviser at the luxury addiction center Peak Path Health.
Biden quickly responds to invitations from online personalities to share his views, people who have interacted with him told the Journal. He took a breezy, unscripted approach with Vlad Lyubovny, whose “VladTV” interviews with rappers and actors have an audience of millions. Lyubovny said he booked Biden through a social-media direct message earlier this summer, that Biden replied quickly with contact information, and that Biden did not seek to limit what topics could be discussed.
Biden has taped interviews with Channel 5 News’ Andrew Callaghan and Fuentes, who said he wanted to moderate his views after making antisemitic comments. Last month, he did an interview with Callaghan and Fuentes about a range of subjects, including Fuentes’s past comments on Jews and Biden’s past use of cocaine, and they also talked about Trump.
Biden told Carlson: “In that total exposure, there was nowhere to hide.”
Biden has been critical of President Trump and the MAGA movement, but also called Garland, his father’s attorney general, the “greatest mistake” of the administration. Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee the federal investigation into Biden.
In one recent interview, Hunter Biden provided what the Journal described as the most substantive update on his father’s health in some time, saying the cancer was “very painful” and “very debilitating.”
He has unleashed foul-mouthed rants about members of the Trump family and journalists he thinks unfairly covered his father, the Journal reported. Biden has at times made fun of himself on X, posting: “Quit the crack. The trolling I’m keeping.” When an X user said they bet he was grateful for his presidential pardon, he replied: “I sure am.”
Biden took an unconventional approach at times during his legal proceedings, including in January 2024, when he sat quietly in the audience during a House Oversight Committee contempt hearing about him.
The Journal reported that Biden defends his father in his recent appearances, even as many Democrats blame Joe Biden for Trump’s second term, having decided to run for reelection only to step aside months before the election. Podcasters told the Journal that the only times Biden has asked for items to be cut from interviews were short clips about his family.
Joe Biden did not comment for the Journal’s article.
After Hunter Biden’s laptop was found and its contents leaked, his online history was made public, including nude photos of himself doing illicit drugs, the Journal reported. The scandal prompted years of investigations and conspiracies, often spread by some of the podcasters Biden is now choosing to sit with.
The Journal reported that Biden’s emergence in public as his 83-year-old father is being treated for prostate cancer has much to do with him wanting to punch back against critics who pored over salacious details of his personal life.
Biden also weighed in on the controversial pardon his father bestowed on him, telling the BBC: “Was it good for our Constitution? Was it good for the American people? Was it good for my dad’s legacy? No. On all counts.”
MSI previously reported that Hunter Biden had recently appeared across an unusual range of political media, including a lengthy conversation with Tucker Carlson and a two-hour conversation with Nick Fuentes, before opening an account on X in May after keeping a lower profile during most of his father’s presidency (Hunter Biden steps up media appearances from Carlson to Fuentes).