President Joe Biden responded to his son Hunter Biden’s guilty verdict on Tuesday as a father, framing it as a family matter divorced from politics — and one that many Americans can relate to.
The president’s statement on the verdict discussed his and first lady Jill Biden’s love for Hunter and his struggles with addiction. It reiterated they will respect the verdict. Soon after, the White House announced Joe Biden would make a last-minute trip to his family home in Wilmington, Delaware, presumably to be with family after Hunter was found guilty on three gun-related felony counts. When the president made a speech Tuesday afternoon, however, he didn’t address it at all.
“As I said last week, I am the President, but I am also a Dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today,” he said in his post-verdict statement. As former President Donald Trump and other Republicans seized on the verdict to insist the Bidens are marred by corruption, the president and his allies have tried to set their own narrative. The Bidens aren’t a crime family, Democrats say: They’re one of millions of families affected by addiction. They aren’t orchestrating a two-tiered justice system to target Trump, they are proof that even presidents’ families are not above the law. And they don’t think Hunter’s legal woes should — or will — impact voters’ views of who belongs in the White House.