Hunter Biden: Father’s pardon not good for country

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1:25Paddy O'Connell:We make the choices we do and how to make better ones to help avoid costly mistakes. Listen to choiceology at schwab.com slash podcast or wherever you listen.

1:38Paddy O'Connell:Hello, I'm BBC presenter Paddy O 'Connell, and this is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world. I want to get freedom. I like their freedom. A gender equal world would be a better world for men too. We need this is fire. We need healing. We need trust. These companies don't really, they don't care what governments do. This is a war. The first thing that we want is the war to end. For this interview, I spoke to Hunter Biden, the son of the former US President Joe Biden. In the discussion, Hunter addresses the health of his father, whether he has presidential aspirations of his own, and the decision taken by Joe to pardon his son at the end of his one term in office.

2:28Paddy O'Connell:The unconditional pardon was issued in December 2024 as Hunter faced sentencing for two criminal cases. In a statement at the time, the president said his son had been singled out and called his cases a miscarriage of justice. Hunter Biden also talks about the depths of his drug and alcohol addictions and the toll it took on his family. It was all-consuming. And the truth of the matter is that the thing that threatened my health was more the alcohol than the crack cocaine, as well as smoking at the time, that kind of two-year period of time, as I was drinking what we call a handle of vodka, almost a gallon of vodka a day.

3:09And that in and of itself, the way in which that impacts your body is just absolutely devastating.

3:16Paddy O'Connell:Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Hunter Biden.

3:24Paddy O'Connell:I mean, your story is a remarkable one. I really must start, I think, by asking, how are you? How is your health? I'm in the best place that I've ever been. And at least for today, as I always say, and I've been clean and sober for a little over seven years now. My health is great, but more important than that is my mental health is in a really good place. You're talking about the best place. I wonder if I can ask you about the worst place. In your own summary, you're now a recovery advocate. How low did you go, Hunter Biden? I went about as low as you could possibly go. One of the things that I say to everybody, it doesn't matter how low you go, it's how far you climb.

4:11and for me it was a long climb but it was well worth it and the thing that has been the most rewarding to me is how many people have reached out to me and told me that my sharing my story of exactly how far I went down gave them hope that they may be able to climb out of the same hole that I found myself in.

4:36Paddy O'Connell:And everyone must own it for recovery to work and you were addicted to smoking crack cocaine. How regularly? At one point, every 15 minutes or so, and I wouldn't sleep for days. It was it was it was hell on earth. And there's nothing glamorous about it. And it was all consuming. And the truth of the matter is, is that the thing that threatened my health was more the alcohol than the crack cocaine, as well as smoking at that time, that kind of two-year period of time, is I was drinking what we call a handle of vodka, almost a gallon of vodka a day. And that in and of itself, the way in which that impacts your body is just absolutely devastating.

5:22And it's the hardest thing to come off of. So one drug other than benzodiazepam is that you can die from withdrawing from. And so it took a lot of care to get myself out of that loop.

5:32Paddy O'Connell:You were born into a family that became one of the most famous in the United States of America and in the West. And you were drinking a gallon of vodka and smoking crack cocaine. Was it the risk that you enjoyed? Was it a feeling of being tin plated? You were from a famous family. You could get away with it. Yeah, well, clearly I couldn't. It didn't get away with much. And no, I don't think it was. I wasn't reaching for anything except oblivion. I think that addiction is a very difficult thing for people that haven't physically experienced it themselves to understand. Because it's the obvious question.

6:13And the question is why? Why would you do something that is so destructive, not only to you, but to everybody around you, to the people that you love, to the things that you find purpose in? And most of the time, I think we reach for an answer as addicts that is, you know, that is not true. And the truth is, the reason that I use drugs and alcohol is because it worked. It solved the problem that I had. And the problem that I had, whether it was created by trauma or whether it was created by my genetic makeup, whatever it may be, is that I always felt alone in a crowd. I felt an enormous sense of anxiety that I would hide.

6:58And what a drink did for me from the first time I ever took one was it gave me the confidence to ask the girl to dance. I mean, something as trivial as that. But it also quieted the voices in my head and that sense of that no one could understand me or the fear that people would really see me for who I am. And and that person was not enough.

7:20Paddy O'Connell:And the thing is, the trauma in the Biden family is really horrific to read about the loss that's been surrounded in violent car crashes and so on. But I wonder if you agree you created trauma. And how has your fall and rise impacted your relationship with your family and your father? Ultimately, it's a community disease. It's a family disease first. It impacts everyone around you in really significant ways. And the biggest trauma was to my family, to my three older daughters that were in their late teens, early 20s at the time that I went through the worst of it. And, you know, I was very present as a as a parent in their lives from the time they were born.

8:07And after my brother died, who are they very close to, my whole world fell apart and I fell into this addiction. And I did probably the worst thing that I could do to them, which was not be present, not be there for them, not be there for their grief, not be there to guide them through the trauma that they were experiencing. That's the greatest trauma.

8:28Paddy O'Connell:I just wonder if I could be blunt and ask you if your own fall precipitated more decline in your dad. He must have feared he was going to lose another son. This is a very difficult thing to talk to you about. But do you think you made life worse and the health worse for Joe Biden? Of course I did. That's what addiction does. You know, I think that most people would sit here and try to, you know, run from that question or be offended by it. But absolutely not just in my dad, but in my mom and my aunts and uncles, to my children, to my relationships down the line. But in particular to my dad, who never let go.

9:12And even through that, even with the knowledge of that, he never, ever, ever let me go. He always left the door open. And I always say to people that unconditional love doesn't mean love without consequences. It doesn't mean love without accountability. My dad never let me off the hook. But what my dad did was always make it clear that when I was ready to come back, the door was open and that he loved me just as much no matter what. That is the singular thing that saved me, that the door was left open. A lot of people always say is that, you know, you've got to let an addict hit rock bottom. Well, the addicts that I know that hit rock bottom are either dead or in jail.

10:00And what my dad did when I fell down this well of despair is he shined the light down and helped guide me out. And that's a beautiful thing, but it's not without its cost. And the cost is that it never goes away. That's stress.

10:24Paddy O'Connell:You're listening to The Interview from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Hunter Biden, the son of the former U.S. President Joe Biden.

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11:37Paddy O'Connell:I have met many people like Hunter Biden. That is to say, people who are from famous families who have done stupid things. And if you are speaking the language of recovery, you are expected to own up. You are expected to apologise. Now, we live in an age of shamelessness, and I felt this was a very interesting part of our discussion. People don't really apologise for much anymore in public life in America. That's one of the strands that we all talk about. Hunter Biden had to tell us on the BBC what the scope of his addiction had been, and he had to apologise for the toll it took on his father.

12:17Paddy O'Connell:Or it would be seen that he was not addressing his recovery. And so part of what you hear there, I hope you'll agree, is what it does for everybody to admit to something and to then try to make amends. Anyway, you will be the judge because you are the listener as we return to my conversation with Hunter Biden. You are also from a very public family. And I wonder if your loyalty to your father and the way he treated you meant that you felt the need to reward him with unconditional loyalty. And maybe you allowed him to run for president when he should not. In a normal family, you take the keys to the car away from dad after a difficult conversation.

13:02Paddy O'Connell:And in your family, maybe Hunter Biden, you allowed yourself to allow your dad to run when he should not, which is the widely held view in the Democratic Party now. Let me tell you something. The idea that I allow or disallow my father to do anything to this very day is is is laughable to me. But it's an appropriate question. I understand what you're trying to say. But here's the truth, is that I support my dad in whatever decision that he makes, because I know that my dad always makes his decisions as, first, what the impact on his family would be, and second, and just as important, equally as important, the impact on the American people.

13:44And that's why he alone made every single decision about his politics, about his future, and about what he would do on behalf of the American people. Joe Biden made all the decisions. There was no taking the keys away from a president that had done more for the American people in a four-year period of time than any single one of his predecessors had since FDR.

14:10Paddy O'Connell:Did you advise him to run again? No, I did not. Watching the 2024 presidential debate, where were you, Hunter, when your father failed to complete a sentence on primetime television during a presidential election campaign. Where were you watching that? I was at my house here in California, and I was watching, and I always like to, if I'm not with him, to be able to watch alone. And so I was alone in a room with the TV, and I was watching it. And like everybody else, I was shocked. I could tell as soon as my father came out that something was wrong. I've never seen him with kind of the 100-yard stare that he had.

14:54And, you know, everybody has their questions, you know. But the reason that we know about that is not because Joe Biden wasn't on TV or in public a million and a half times before and after. The reason that was so shocking is because it had never happened before and it hasn't happened since. And so I can't necessarily explain it. I have theories about it. I have theories about the fact that he had traveled as much as he did. I also know that he obviously had cancer, whether it impacted him or not. He had by nine months later, he was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer and stage four metastatic bone cancer, none of which we knew.

15:37But my reaction to it was that I was as shocked, I think, as anyone who knew Joe Biden was.

15:42Paddy O'Connell:What were the discussions in your family leading to Joe Biden's decision to withdraw in favor of Kamala Harris? The fact of the matter is that the Democratic Party or no one, no one could have taken the nomination away from my dad. He could have gone on to the to the convention. But I think that he saw that the American people and particularly the Democratic Party were ready to pass the torch. And he passed the torch in an enormous war chest to Kamala Harris, the only person that obviously he would do that, his vice president. And then she had 107 days to make the case that they had been making all along against someone who had been convicted of 34 felonies.

16:25And somehow we failed to do that. Yeah.

16:28Paddy O'Connell:Because in the book Original Sin, this is called a cover up. It has been said that Democrats and family members. Who wrote that book? Well, it's co-authored by two. Who wrote that book? Jake Tapper. Oh, that, yeah. OK, that book. Yeah. What are the sources? He's the CNN anchor who's spoken to secretaries who were in the cabinet, who were in the White House. That's how he sources the book. You can ask me these questions, of course. But let's not use a unsourced book that was written, in my opinion, as a cash grab by someone who I think is a very poor job. But all I know is this, even in that book, Patty, no one, no one says that Joe Biden didn't make every single decision of his presidency and that he was incredibly capable and that he did an amazing job as president of the United States.

17:19Paddy O'Connell:So here's another of his own decisions, which is attracting controversy as well, which is a pardon for his son, for you, Hunter. And it does lead to critics saying that this is a problem in the American system. It looks like a favour to the family, which is another word for critics for a corruption, which you've criticised the Trump administration for. Do you think that he went too far as a dad in issuing a pardon to you? well here's what all i know is that i i am uh i'm i am the most privileged uh person as it relates to that that could possibly be i was one of one um and i'm eternally grateful for it i am eternally grateful for it because i think that donald trump has proven to be exactly who my dad thought he was going to be as it relates to the revenge and retribution that he would seek on his political enemies.

18:21He spent in the first hundred days alone, he mentioned or criticized my dad or me six times a day. And if I was in a in the in the Federal Bureau of Probation or, God forbid, in a in a prison, then I think that he would have had a hold on my family that would make it not just unbearable, but incredibly unjust and unfair. And that's the decision that my dad made. Now, here's the real answer to your question, though, what you're saying. Was it good for our Constitution? Was it good for the American people? Was it good for my dad's legacy? No, on all counts. It was not. It's something that is easily criticized and for good reason.

19:08And I can't pretend otherwise. All I know is that I'm grateful that he did it for me. And all I can say to anybody out there is that what would you have thought of my dad if he did not do that for me and left me to the whims of Donald Trump? What would you think of a dad that would say, I'll put you in a prison controlled by a guy who's made it clear that he's willing to do just about anything to get his way for himself. And so, but no, you're right, Patty. It is a, it's not fair. I was the only one in the world that could have gotten what I got from the only person in the world who could give it, my father.

19:51Paddy O'Connell:Did you have that conversation with him, using similar words that you've shared with me just now? yes yeah after um we were very very very clear and i want people to understand this is that when i say that my dad and i did not talk about a pardon is because of the fact that there is no way that you can have those kinds of discussions that would not become public by virtue of somebody that with the ability to subpoena and putting you under oath asking that we did not have that discussion until he granted me the pardon. I know why he made the decision now, because he's talked about it. He's talked about it publicly, and we've talked about it as a family, and for all the reasons that I just told you.

20:35Paddy O'Connell:Listening to you and this journey that you're on in which you are fighting to bring your reputation back into the light side from the dark side, It leaves me wondering, is this going to end in a race, Hunter Biden? Are you running? I'm coming over and I'm going to run for prime minister. You've got to tell me where I'd have to move to become an MP first. But no, the one thing is this, is that I have no interest in elected politics. And one of the things, one of the reasons is, is that I have a much, much bigger goal. And I don't want to impact this. And my goal is this, is that I believe that addiction and the hope of recovery are something that connect us all.

21:32I believe that we are not nearly as divided as they have led us to believe. I believe that we are not the grand total sum of our algorithms. And there are forces that have absolutely 100 percent interest. And the interest is money and dividing us. Are you going to stand for office, do you think? No, I'm not going to stand for office. The answer is no.

21:55Paddy O'Connell:In your drive to share the recovery story, it's a religious fervor you have. It's taking you into some very unusual spaces with people that you don't necessarily see eye to eye with politically. For instance, Nick Fuentes, who was saying once he loved Hitler, Candace Owens, we're ruled by satanic pedophiles who work for Israel. And you chosen to be interviewed by those people because of the powerful feeling you have about getting your message out. Do you think that that was probably a bridge too far, Hunter Biden? What I wanted to do is I wanted to sit down with each one of them to understand them, to understand what it is that makes them so popular, to understand what it is about them that is human that I could find common ground with.

22:45And, you know, sometimes I may get it wrong and sometimes I may not push back as much as other people would want me to. But I think that we have to stop being afraid to talk to each other and just remain in our own silos and, you know, shouting to the echo chamber. I think that we have to have the guts to sit in front of people and say the things that we believe and see if they hold any space for them in their heart. and I found in each one that there is and so I'm going to keep doing it.

23:17Paddy O'Connell:I asked you if I could end by talking about your father's health. Jill has given some public comments that he has prostate and bone cancer and will forever live with cancer. How has the family taken this diagnosis? It's really tough, Paddy. That's the real answer.