WILMINGTON, Del. — Some days it’s with a text. On others, it’s a call, even just to leave a message.
President Joe Biden reaches out to his son Hunter regularly to check on him. And increasingly, those messages have taken on a fresh sense of urgency.
The younger Biden is facing new criminal charges and could soon be held in contempt of Congress after refusing to testify in a Republican-led hearing meant to impugn the reputations of both him and his father. Those closest to the president have grown more worried about the personal toll it is taking on the older man.
“I know when he hurts. He doesn’t talk about it much, most of us don’t,” said former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who has been friends with the elder Biden for more than four decades. “He has a real human decency, and a lot of it is created by scarring. And he’s worried.”
Joe Biden’s concern about his surviving son has only grown since he took office, according to aides and confidants — five in total — all of whom were granted anonymity to speak about private conversations.
The White House has long stressed that the president does not interfere in matters before the Justice Department. But privately, fears about the upcoming campaign and potential criminal trial have become an ever-present weight on the president, according to those close to him. The elder Biden has told friends he worries that his son could even backslide into addiction.
In recent months, Biden also has asked some of his closest friends — those he has known for decades from Wilmington and Washington — to call or email his son themselves to check on him, so the younger Biden always knows he has a support system in place, according to two of the people asked to check in on the younger Biden.
Hunter Biden has ratcheted up his own defenses, taking an aggressive tact against the criminal and political, at times to the dismay of his father’s political advisors. The new charges against him — and the accompanying spotlight — come at a politically perilous moment for his father, whose poll numbers have slipped and show a dead heat with his likely GOP rival, Donald Trump.
Those close to the president don’t believe his ability to do the job has been impacted by his concerns about his son. But they see his worry.
“You can see it in his eyes, and you can see his shoulders slump,” said one confidant of the president in describing a recent conversation. “He’s so worried about Hunter. And we’re worried it could consume him.”
The younger Biden could face up to 17 years in prison if convicted of three felony and six misdemeanor charges — including filing a false tax return — that were included in an indictment released last week. He also faces a felony gun charge in Delaware and risks facing contempt of Congress proceedings after he failed to appear at a closed-door deposition Wednesday before the GOP committees leading the impeachment inquiry into his father.
Hunter Biden has offered to testify publicly, which Republicans rejected. The younger Biden, in turn, refused to testify behind closed doors, but he appeared Wednesday on the Hill anyway to defend his father and reject the GOP attacks.
“They have taken the light of my father’s love for me and done their best to turn it into darkness,” he said. “They have no shame.”
Members of the president’s inner circle have expressed frustration over how the matter was all but behind them. Hunter Biden was just a few minutes from accepting a plea deal that would have kept him out of prison when it collapsed in a Delaware courtroom last summer. Several people close to the elder Biden portrayed him as having been deeply anxious for months about his son’s legal fortunes and frustrated at the appointment of a special counsel, at the time singling out Attorney General Merrick Garland for private criticism.
President Biden has checked in on his son as part of his daily routine. Hunter Biden and his family frequently visit the White House, Camp David and the family home in Delaware. As the spotlight on the younger Biden has grown, the president’s instinct has been to pull him closer, even if it hands fodder to his critics, according to the people close to him.
The 81-year-old president is deeply sensitive about his son and has barked at aides who have mused about Hunter Biden as an electoral liability or those who wondered if he should be accompanying the president on the road. Many aides now choose to avoid the subject, for fear of triggering the president’s temper, according to two of the five confidants. For example, no one raised whether it was a good idea for Hunter Biden to attend a June state dinner for India’s prime minister just days after accepting a plea deal.
The president, though, is not shy about expressing his worries over the phone to family members and a select group of confidants. He has quizzed them as to what they thought would happen to his son and expressed that he fears the worst if his son were convicted or faced any sort of prison time.
Hunter Biden knows he is in the political crosshairs. In recent conversations with family friends, he has worried that he might have to flee the country if Trump were to be elected president again, according to two people who have spoken to him. He has also worried about the intense scrutiny that his family would face during the 2024 campaign — and went public in recent days with his own concerns about the toll on his father.
“What they're trying to do is they're trying to kill me, knowing that it will be a pain greater than my father could be able to handle — and so therefore destroying a presidency in that way," Hunter Biden told the musician Moby in a podcast released last week.
Biden’s own frequent calls and texts to his son are largely upbeat, focusing on the family’s love, according to a person familiar with their contents but not authorized to publicly discuss them. They lack the panic of a 2018 voicemail, published by the Daily Mail, that Biden left his son when the younger man was in the throes of addiction
"It's Dad. I'm calling to tell you I love you. I love you more than the whole world, pal," Biden said at the time, sounding emotional. "You gotta get some help. I don't know what to do. I know you don't either."
That voicemail was played up by conservative media, which believed it would show Biden enabling a corrupt son. Instead, many White House aides believe it simply showcased the concerns of a loving father and resonated with many Americans whose own families are touched by addiction.
Those close to the president say he is experiencing the worry that any parent would have about a troubled son. But aides note his ability to simultaneously handle the world’s most difficult job, including managing a pair of foreign wars and an economic recovery while preparing to fully launch his reelection campaign.
But the president also faces enormous guilt about the circumstances his son faces, according to two people close to him. Hunter Biden was just 3 years old when he and his brother Beau survived a 1972 car accident that killed their mother and sister. Beau Biden then grew up to become Delaware’s attorney general and a rising political star before dying of brain cancer in 2015 after serving in Iraq with the state’s Army National Guard.
A grieving Joe Biden responded by clinging tightly to his surviving son. While serving as vice president, he allowed his son to travel with him extensively overseas — a practice that raised eyebrows in the Obama White House. Republicans claim that travel helped Hunter Biden enrich himself by offering prospective clients access to his father. But it’s unclear if he was simply offering the veneer of access. GOP investigators have yet to provide evidence of any illegal behavior by the now-president.
Joe Biden, who takes enormous pride in his son’s sobriety, has privately confided to friends that he knows his decision to run for the presidency in 2020 made his son’s life harder and that next year’s campaign will take an enormous toll. The impact that the scrutiny of another campaign might have on Hunter Biden was weighed, according to three people not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.
Some Democrats believe that the trials could damage Biden politically. And friends of the president and some Democrats now worry they could shadow the campaign and that Biden would worry about the younger man. But they also noted Hunter Biden’s resilience and vow to fight for his father’s reputation.
“The president has said over and over again: He’s proud of his son,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre this week, “and he is proud of him building his life back up.”
