Hunter Biden trashes Democrats he saw as betraying his father
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.
WASHINGTON - In a pair of podcast appearances over the past several days, 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, Biden dismissed 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 Biden's presidency, had made 'US$40 (million) (S$51 million) to $50 million' from the Democratic Party.
Mr Biden also claimed that his father had been given the prescription sleep aid Ambien before
his fateful debate to help him rest after two European trips and a political fundraiser 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.
'He's 81 years old; he's tired,' Biden 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.'
A spokesperson for the former president declined to comment.
The younger Biden saved perhaps his strongest venom for Mr Tapper, who cowrote 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,' 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 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
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