On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom saw fit to tie himself to noted solicitor of prostitutes, strip club aficionado, and crack addict Hunter Biden — a man who cashed in on his father’s vice presidency and then became an ink blot artist on the basis of his father’s presidency.
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In a chummy interview on his podcast, Newsom sought to rehabilitate the now-clean Hunter. The video, titled “Hunter Biden Is READY To Reclaim The Biden Legacy,” shows Newsom telling Hunter just how proud Joe Biden is of him.
“Well, Hunter, you know this and I’ll just add my voice,” Newsom said. “You know how proud of you he is, brother, and I’m proud to have had this opportunity to share all this with you.”
The Bidens have been embattled in recent weeks by Democratic outrage over how they handed Trump the presidency by covering up Joe’s cognitive decline and are now seeking out national attention through books, speeches, and media appearances.
After former First Lady Jill Biden’s memoir, View from the East Wing, came out last month, Democrats were clear that they just wanted the Bidens to go away in shame. (RELATED: Jill Biden: The Worst First Lady Ever)
CNN’s Jake Tapper responded to the book release by disputing Jill’s claim that she would have said something if her husband showed cognitive impairment and called her the “queen of omission.”
Democrats were particularly outraged by Jill’s claim in her book that she believed her husband was having a stroke on the debate stage, as she said after the debate, “Joe, you did such a great job! You answered every question!”
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham was unmistakable in her criticism. At a Democratic National Committee meeting, she said, “I don’t need to be distracted about anyone’s book. What I need to do is to focus on making a difference in the lives of people.”
Others were upset by the attention Hunter Biden has been seeking out for himself and his father through his recent social media fame on X, where he has attained nearly 800,000 followers.
Pete Giangreco, a Democratic strategist, said, “Nobody wants to relitigate the worst debate performance since the Greek Republic. Why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about Hunter Biden? Why is Hunter Biden talking about Hunter Biden?”
Newsom asked Hunter to respond to what he termed the “cynics” and “this idea that somehow once we turn the page on one administration and family, we’re supposed to just move on and never hear from them again, this idea that they don’t have a voice.”
Hunter responded by telling Newsom that he will not step off the stage “for f**king anybody” and that he has given his life up for America.
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“Whatever you think about us,” Hunter said, “my dad has given his whole adult life to this, not for personal gain, not to become a billionaire, not to become a millionaire, not to make more than the salary he was paid, given his whole life to this. I’ve given up my life for it. And here we are. And you know what? I’m not stepping off the stage for f**king anybody because more than anything I want to make my dad proud.”
This is when Newsom piped up with his “You know how proud of you he is, brother” comment.
Newsom has every incentive to push for Hunter’s rehabilitation and to prop up his effort to restore Joe to Americans’ good graces. That’s because the California governor made himself into Joe Biden’s No. 1 defender prior to and following Biden’s disastrous debate performance.
On the night of that debate, Newsom was there as Biden’s top surrogate. As soon as the debate ended, media coverage turned to an interview with Newsom, who remained as stalwart as ever in his defense of the president. “We gotta have the back of this president,” he said. “You don’t turn your back because of one performance. What kind of party does that?”
Newsom then embarked on a trip to Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey in an effort to save the president’s campaign. In Michigan, Newsom told a hesitant, small crowd: “Joe Biden is our president. He said he’s all in, I doubled down, said I’m all in, and not only that, I’m here with you to prove it.”
Prior to the debate, Newsom had practically taken up a part-time job of defending Biden on cable news show after cable news show, particularly in regard to his cognitive health, and had been deemed Biden’s “cheerleader in chief.”
That means that in the intra-Democratic squabble over whether Joe Biden should be pushed to the sidelines as a historic disaster whose selfishness doomed the party to Donald Trump or upheld as a good president who aged more than everyone realized in the final year of his presidency, Newsom falls into the latter camp.
In the 2028 Democratic primary, Newsom is bound to face questions over how he enabled Joe Biden’s doomed campaign when the president was so obviously cognitively disabled. It is in Newsom’s best interest for Biden’s legacy to be revamped, and so it is to his benefit for Hunter to use his newfound social media popularity to improve Americans’ perceptions of his father’s legacy.
Joe Biden certainly can’t do anything to improve his own legacy, as his cognition is too poor to do so. At a speech he delivered earlier this month in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, he was “halting and hard to understand,” per the New York Times. That leaves Hunter as one of the few Biden surrogates who can improve the perception of Biden’s legacy.
Newsom saw that, and he jumped on the opportunity to help Hunter do so via his podcast. Of course, there is always a risk in being cozy with a scandal-ridden, formerly heroin-addicted man who got his brother’s widow hooked on crack cocaine.
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