“It’s been quite the journey for Hunter Biden,” said Adam Gabbatt in The Guardian. In a matter of weeks, the son of former president Joe Biden has gone from “a political liability to an unlikely galvanizing force within the Democratic Party.” That transformation began in mid-May, when Biden, 56, started posting on X about addiction and recovery, his family, art, and the hypocrisy of Republicans who hounded him for influence peddling but are now engaged in an orgy of corruption. He’s earned more than 781,000 followers with his often wry and self-deprecating posts. Asked by an X user if a bag of cocaine found at the White House in 2023 was his, Biden replied, “I would never have forgotten my drugs.” His populist posts about politics—“Groceries cost too much,” “Endless wars are stupid”—even have some fans urging Biden to run for president in 2028. Asked if that was a good idea, President Trump said that the former first son’s checkered past would present a problem. Biden, who in 2024 was convicted of six felony tax and gun charges, responded: “I’m 28 felonies, 6 bankruptcies, and an Epstein bromance short of his checkered past.”
“By all accounts, Biden is no longer smoking crack,” said Robby Soave in Reason, yet he continues to make terrible decisions. As part of his comeback tour, he sat down last month for an interview with antisemitic conspiracy theorist Candace Owens. On the podcast, he tried to rescue his dad’s reputation, claiming Democratic elites pushed Joe Biden off the ticket in 2024 because “he was never part of the Epstein class.” But that’s “complete nonsense.” President Biden was not forced out because he threatened to expose a secret sex trafficking network but because his health “rendered him patently unfit to serve.” Hunter has implied that his substance abuse issues also “render him an outsider to the elite class,” said Zeeshan Aleem in MS.now. “This, too, is nonsense.” Biden traded on his father’s name to “make insane amounts of money” and had his criminal history scrubbed by a presidential pardon.
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