Hunter Biden trashes Democrats he sees as betraying his father

WASHINGTON - In a pair of podcast appearances over the past several days, Mr Hunter Biden, the son of former president Joe Biden, appears to be trying to settle scores with Democrats he sees as having contributed to his father’s political undoing.

The younger Biden delivered a broad critique of the party last week on the debut episode of a podcast hosted by Mr Jaime Harrison, a former Democratic National Committee chair, arguing that Democrats lost the 2024 election because they did not remain loyal to his father.

In a separate, three-hour-plus podcast released on July 21, the younger Biden named names, unleashing a profane tirade against a host of perceived enemies, including senior Biden aide Anita Dunn; Democratic eminences grises David Axelrod and James Carville; Obama administration alumni who built Crooked Media, a booming liberal podcast network; CNN host Jake Tapper; and actor George Clooney.

In a single minute-long clip, he used a version of the same expletive 13 times.

His interviewer this time was Mr Andrew Callaghan, a YouTuber previously known for crisscrossing America in a recreational vehicle.

In the videotaped conversation, Mr Biden dismissed Mr Clooney as “a brand” and Mr Carville as someone who “hasn’t run a race in 40 years”. Mr Axelrod, he said, “had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama, and that was because of Barack Obama”.

The former Obama aides behind Crooked Media and its Pod Save America flagship, he said, were “four white millionaires that are dining out on their association with Barack Obama from 16 years ago”.

And he asserted that Ms Dunn, who ran the White House press operation throughout most of Mr Joe Biden’s presidency, had made “US$40 million to US$50 million” from the Democratic Party.

He said his father’s disastrous debate performance against President Donald Trump that led to the Democrat stepping aside as presidential candidate was the result of him taking Ambien due to his travel. It was to help him rest after two European trips and a political fund-raiser in Los Angeles in the preceding weeks.

The elder Biden had spent the most recent five days at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, preparing for the debate.

“And I’ll tell you what, I know exactly what happened in that debate. He (Joe Biden) flew around the world, basically the mileage he could have flown around the world three times. He’s 81 years old; he’s tired,” he said, adding yet another profanity. “They give him Ambien to be able to sleep, and he gets up on the stage and he looks like he’s a deer in the headlights.”

The former president’s debate performance against then-Republican presidential candidate Mr Trump, in which the Democrat regularly struggled to finish his thoughts, triggered a backlash against Biden’s candidacy for the 2024 elections.

Less than a month after that June 27, 2024, debate, he stepped aside as presidential candidate after having trailed Mr Trump in the polls. Former Vice-President Kamala Harris then became the candidate for the Democrats and went on to lose to Mr Trump in the November elections.

In the days after the debate, the former president blamed his debate performance on jet lag after two overseas trips earlier that month.

A spokesperson for the former president declined to comment.

The younger Biden saved perhaps his strongest venom for Mr Tapper, who co-wrote a bestselling book that asserted that there was a partywide effort to cover up the decline of Mr Joe Biden’s mental acuity.

“What influence does Jake Tapper have over anything? He has the smallest audience on cable news,” Mr Hunter Biden said, before suggesting, in another profane aside, that Mr Tapper’s CNN ratings had declined since the book was published in May.

Most of his targets resisted being drawn into a war of words with the former president’s son, who was convicted of three felonies in 2024 before receiving a pardon from his father weeks before his presidency ended.

“Never have the words ‘No comment’ been more appropriate,” Mr Axelrod said.

Mr Carville said the Bidens “got into this frenzy that they were these people who were disrespected and that’s their whole culture”. He urged Democrats to move on.

An aide to Mr Clooney declined to comment. Ms Dunn did not respond to messages.

Mr Tommy Vietor, a Pod Save America co-host, mocked the younger Biden on social media.

“It’s good to see that Hunter has taken some time to process the election, look inward and hold himself accountable for how his family’s insular, dare I say arrogant at times, approach to politics led to this catastrophic outcome we’re all now living with,” he wrote.

Mr Dylan Rose Geerlings, a CNN spokesperson, took pains to defend Mr Tapper’s reputation, calling him “one of the most influential political journalists of his time”.

July 21 was one year to the day since then President Biden ended his re-election campaign. NYTIMES