“We lost the last election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party,” said Hunter Biden – son of former President Joe Biden – in an interview set to be released next week, per The Washington Post.
His father dropped out of the 2024 presidential election following a much-criticized debate performance against current President Donald Trump, who he beat in the 2020 election. Even before the debate, there were concerns about the former president’s age – he turned 82 last November.
This year, a book from CNN journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson also indicated that Democrats and the Biden administration kept some health concerns related to the elder Biden secret. They said advisors even contemplated the possibility of Biden using a wheelchair while in office. It was also announced this year that the former president was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, alongside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. She officially became the candidate during the 2024 Democratic National Convention and ran the shortest campaign in modern history.
In addition to concerns about Biden’s age and health, Hunter Biden himself posed challenges to his father’s reelection campaign and was a frequent target of criticism from the GOP. While his father was running, Hunter was prosecuted and found guilty in two cases. One involved the illegal possession of a firearm and another for federal tax evasion.
Biden surprised critics and supporters last December when he pardoned Hunter after previously pledging not to.
“I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process, and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision,” Biden said in a statement.
Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden feared that Trump would continue to try to prosecute Hunter if he was not pardoned. Indeed, the move did come with backlash from Republicans, including Trump.
“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” he said in a post on Truth Social post. Trump did eventually go on to pardon people who were involved in the deadly riot. In March, he also revoked Secret Service protection for Hunter Biden, as well as his sister, Ashley Biden.
According to The Washington Post, the upcoming “At Our Table with Jaimie Harrison” podcast interview with Hunter will be his first since the 2024 election. Harrison was formerly the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2021 through 2025. Walz was the first guest on the new show.
“We had the advantage of incumbency, we had the advantage of an incredibly successful administration, and the Democratic Party literally melted down,” Hunter told Harrison, per clips from the episode released this week.
The Post noted that Hunter Biden “has long been known as fiercely protective of his father – and vice versa,” and that he refuted claims of a “conspiracy” to cover up issues with his father’s health.
“What sells, Jaime? What sells is the idea of a conspiracy,” Hunter said.
Earlier this year, the former president spoke with “The View” about the 2024 election results and said that racism and sexism were to blame. If she were elected, Harris would have been the first woman to be president in the U.S. as well as the first president of South Asian ancestry and the second Black president in the nation.