President Joe Biden responded Tuesday night to the mounting allegations and ridicule against his son, Hunter Biden, for his drug-addict past, tax crimes and for allegedly making a false statement while purchasing a gun.
Sitting with Jake Tapper in the journalist’s first evening hosting of “CNN Tonight,” the president said that Hunter Biden has “overcome” his past and that “what he says and does are consistent with what happens.”
“I’m just so proud of him,” President Biden said.
The comments come while there’s mounting media reporting – including from CNN and The Washington Post, as Tapper pointed out – that suggest that prosecutors believe they have enough to charge Hunter Biden for tax crimes and for making a false statement in the purchase of a gun.
Hunter Biden revealed in 2020 that U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss was heading a criminal probe into his tax affairs, and it now rests with the appointee of former President Donald Trump on whether to move forward with charges. The Post reported that, per their unnamed sources, federal agents “determined months ago they had assembled a viable criminal case against the younger Biden.”
This week has also seen critical response of Sean Hannity for his handling of Hunter Biden’s history as a drug addict. On Monday, the Fox News host released a private voicemail President Biden left his son in an attempt to embarrass and disparage the Biden family – a move that has been widely considered “grotesque” and monstrous online.
“Replace the name Biden with Trump and imagine how the mob and the media would be covering all of this,” Hannity scoffed.
In conversation with President Biden on Tuesday, Tapper asked point blank how he feels about his son’s ongoing troubles.
“Personally and politically, how do you react to that?” Tapper posed.
While President Biden didn’t address Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes explicitly, he did express that he loves his son and that he believes him when he says he’s overcome his past.
“First of all, I’m proud of my son. This is a kid who got – not a kid, he’s a grown man – he got hooked on, like many families have had happen, hooked on drugs. He’s overcome that. He’s established a new life,” President Biden began. “I’m confident that what he says and does are consistent with what happens. For example, he wrote a book about it, his problems [“Beautiful Things: A Memoir”]. And he was straightforward about it. I’m proud of him.”
Addressing the accusations that he made a false statement while purchasing a gun, President Biden said it’s already been addressed in that same memoir.
“He came along and said, ‘By the way, this thing about a gun, I didn’t know anything about it.’ But it turns out that when he made an application to purchase a gun, what happened was, you get asked the question, ‘Are you on drugs or do you use drugs?’ and he said no,” Biden explained. “He wrote about saying no in his book.”
“So I have great confidence in my son,” President Biden concluded. “I love him, and he’s on a straight and narrow and he has been for a couple years now. I’m just so proud of him.”
Watch the full segment of President Biden’s interview with CNN in the video above.
