Hunter Biden recently joined Raw America managing editor Carl Gibson, where the second son of the 46th president of the United States sounded off on President Donald Trump’s corruption, the fight over holding Trump officials accountable under a future Democratic administration, the future of the Democratic Party, his views on the war in Gaza and his own recovery from addiction, among other topics.
Gibson and Biden covered various topics including:
The double standard between Republican attacks on the “Biden crime family” and the Trump family’s shady business dealings during his first and second terms
Whether Democrats should pursue a third Trump impeachment or a more deliberate strategy of hearings and subpoenas if they retake Congress in the fall
Whether there should be a “Nuremberg 2.0” reckoning and whether America needs a formal accountability process to move past the Trump administration
Who could lead the Democratic Party in 2028, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other figures
His remarks calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “evil incarnate” and describing Gaza as a genocide, and his disagreement with his father
His journey through addiction recovery and his father’s support through it all
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Hunter Biden Calls Out Republicans Over Corruption Double Standard
Gibson opened the conversation first by pointing to economist Dean Baker’s recent comparison of the Biden and Trump families’ finances during each administration. Baker noted that while Hunter Biden had a board seat on a Ukrainian energy company and sold paints, Trump’s family was raking in $1.4 billion in profits from cryptocurrency-related ventures, while the president himself boasted about taking $13 billion in oil money from Venezuela and received a $400 million jet as a gift from Qatar’s royal family.
Biden pushed back hard on Republicans’ allegations against him, noting that buyers of his paintings were forced to testify under oath about the actual prices they paid, while the president’s son went out of his way to pursue an income in ways that couldn’t possibly be perceived as political. He added that his income during his father’s presidency averaged around $215,000 to $220,000 a year, and that the scale of scrutiny he faced looks absurd next to what’s happening now.
Hunter Biden pointed to Donald Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital fund and its portfolio companies’ billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts. He also drew attention to Jared Kushner’s exorbitant compensation from a Saudi-backed investment fund.
“It’s such a target-rich environment that I don’t know if I could add anything more than what is also obviously directly in front of their eyes,” Biden said.
‘Yes, And’: Hunter Biden Calls for Both Impeachment Proceedings and Hearings
Gibson noted that there’s a debate right now among Democrats about whether to pursue an unprecedented third impeachment of Trump, or whether to pursue a more focused strategy of subpoenas and congressional hearings.
Biden replied with “yes, and,” indicating he prefers an all-of-the-above approach. Former President Joe Biden’s second son noted that he’s skeptical anyone in the Trump administration will play by the old rules at all, suggesting Democrats shouldn’t feel compelled to hold themselves to what he called “Marquess of Queensberry” rules.
“Donald Trump is the singular existential threat, because he’s broken it all,” Biden said, adding that the current president was a “one-man crime wave.”
He described how he and his wife have talked about the struggle Democrats have on whether to abandon procedural restraint entirely to fully pursue accountability or bind themselves to rules Republicans have long since abandoned. In one example, he noted that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s sons paid pennies on the dollar to buy companies’ tariff refunds in the event tariffs were overturned and rebates were issued, leading them to eventually make billions in profit once those rebates were finally paid out.
‘There has to be a reckoning’: Biden Supports Calls for ‘Nuremberg 2.0’
Gibson then asked Biden how would prefer to see Democrats move beyond the Trump administration should they regain control of the executive branch in 2028. He noted that some prospective presidential candidates have called for Americans to unite and move on, while others have stressed the need for public accountability measures, citing Sen. Ron Wyden’s (D-Ore.) call for a “Nuremberg 2.0” process.
Biden agreed with the latter option, saying that whether it’s framed as “Nuremberg 2.0” or another truth and reconciliation process similar to post-apartheid South Africa is necessary, calling attention to the Trump administration’s direct defiance of federal court orders pertaining to the Epstein files and oversight requests related to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“We’ve lost the constitutional republic as we’ve known it already,” Biden said, adding that Trump’s comments about a third term shouldn’t be dismissed as jokes.
“If [Trump] leaves and he does not have power, there will be a reckoning. And he fully 100 percent knows that,” Biden added.
Biden Bullish on AOC and the Democratic Party’s Next Generation of Leaders
Gibson noted that Biden previously referred to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) as “the future of the Democratic Party.” He then asked whether Biden believes the country is ready to elect a female president, given that highly qualified female presidential candidates like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris each lost to “an adjudicated rapist and a convicted felon.”
Biden responded by saying that no one thought in 2008 that America would elect a Black U.S. senator from Illinois who was born in Hawaii as president, but that those ceilings were meant to be shattered. Hunter Biden also said he rarely disagrees with Ocasio-Cortez, and heaped praise on her for being able build relationships across the aisle. He also lauded Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and Texas state representative James Talarico, and called on Democrats to stop fussing over who belongs in its “big tent.”
“People just want you to be authentic, like truly authentic,” Biden said. “You can’t fake authenticity.”
Biden Calls Netanyahu ‘Evil Incarnate’ and Gaza a ‘Genocide’ — While Defending His Father’s Record
Gibson pointed out that when Hunter Biden told Tucker Carlson that he viewed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “evil incarnate” and described Israel’s war in Gaza as a “genocide,” those positions were contradictory to the policies his father’s administration embraced. He then asked Hunter if he ever confronted his father over his Israel policy.
Biden acknowledged that Israel was carrying out the “wholesale murder of children,” he noted that his father’s approach was centered on securing the release of hostages taken during Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which 1,400 people were killed in one day. He also noted that President Biden privately clashed with Netanyahu, called him a “crazy motherf—ker” to his face, and withheld 2,000-pound bombs and only agreed to supply defensive weapons like Patriot missiles.
Hunter Biden then turned the question back on his father’s critics, asking where Palestinian solidarity protests are now given how much worse the Trump administration is on Gaza. He also accused Gulf Arab states were silent even as Palestinian civilians were being slaughtered, and emphasized that the whole conflict is intensely complicated. However, he insisted that the most obvious villain was Israel’s far-right regime.
“If you can’t see that Bibi Netanyahu is evil incarnate, then I don’t know what you’re looking at,” Biden said. “It is the wholesale murder of children. Of children!”
Biden Credits His Support Network with His Recovery from Addiction
To close the conversation, Gibson asked Hunter Biden about the viral 2018 voicemail Joe Biden left his son urging him to get help, and what he would say to people currently struggling with addiction battles of their own.
Biden said that voicemail was one of dozens or even hundreds his father left him while he was in the throes of addiction, and credited his recovery to his family — including his father, aunts, uncles, mother, and daughters — who he says never gave up on him. He also pushed back on the oft-repeated advice to first let addicts “hit bottom” before offering to help, saying that in his experience, that’s usually fatal.
“The one advantage that I had is that my family never closed the door on me,” Biden said. “They kept shining the light down the well I had fallen into.”
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Read the full transcript of Gibson and Biden’s conversation below:
CARL GIBSON: Well, Hunter, let’s get right into it. I know one thing I’d love to get your perspective on is the fact that the very same Republicans who spent the last four years accusing you and the “Biden Crime Family” of corruption are suddenly a lot more silent when it comes to this current president and his family making billions off of the presidency. Economist Dean Baker, he wrote a great piece this week, which I’ll link to in the write-up of this conversation. But he broke down the differences between your family and the Trump family, and the contrast is pretty astounding. So, real quick, just to recap: so you know, you sold a painting, you got a board position on a Ukrainian energy company. Trump has bragged about stealing $13 billion worth of oil money from Venezuela, the Trump family has made $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency since just last January. Of course, he was gifted a $400 million jet from the Qatari royal family, which then got almost a billion dollars in upgrades, courtesy of we the taxpayers. And now he’s doing what some would say is insider trading by selling early access to his truth social posts. So, Hunter, I guess my question is: What would you like to see from Democrats when it comes to tackling Trump’s corruption should they win back control of Congress in the fall?
HUNTER BIDEN: It’s it’s such a target-rich environment that I don’t know if I could add anything more than what is also obviously directly in front of their eyes. Here’s the thing, okay? What I say is that, regardless if you believed all of the lies that they told about me and my family — and they’re all lies, there’s not a single piece of evidence that I ever involved my dad in any of my business — 90 percent of the things that they talk about occurred during a period of time when my dad was neither vice president nor president. I sold paintings. I did because I’m a painter, and that’s what I chose to do. I chose to do something while my dad was president that was literally the furthest thing that I could think of that was away from politics, away from any idea that there could be any influence or anything, and they created this lie that I was selling paintings for $500,000 to, you know, shadowy people. Every single person who bought a painting from me was named, and had to go and testify before Congress before an impeachment investigation, under oath, and talk about the fact that they bought a painting from me for $35,000 or whatever it may be.
My income was during the period of time when my dad was president was, basically averaged over the four years, about $215,000 to $220,000 a year. That’s it. I didn’t do any other business while my dad was president. Anything. But [if you] believe everything that that they spun about the “Biden crime family,” it doesn’t even remotely compare. It almost pains me to, like the idea that they’re mentioning that supposed corruption in the same breath as we’re watching the country get completely and utterly fleeced. And just the few things that you named, I mean, that’s not even the tip of the iceberg.
Think about this: Don Jr. and Eric Trump, or Don Jr. in particular, started a venture capital fund called I think 1789 Capital a few days before their dad gets inaugurated. That fund — I believe this is the numbers, I’m not positive — but that fund, the underlying companies have received over $3.4 billion in [Department of Defense] contracts to companies, many of them that never existed before they became companies under the umbrella of 1789 Capital, which means Don Jr. got the largest single loan ever granted by the Department of Defense. $620 million pushed through. We’ve seen the communications by Peter Navarro inside the White House for a rare earth minerals company. They used to say like, what did Hunter Biden know about natural gas? What the hell does Don Beavis Jr. Trump know about rare earth minerals? They got a $1.2 billion deal in Kazakhstan. In Kazakhstan. I mean, and it goes on and on. And forget about Jared Kushner, you know, our unelected, non-Senate confirmed spokesperson and policymaker in the Middle East. Well, he’s literally getting paid by the Saudis of at least $6.2 billion, and over $100 million a year, just annually, and it’s all out in the open. They don’t care anymore.
And so, what I say to the members of. Congress that are about to come into, I hope, a position of oversight and chairmanships, at least in the House of Representatives and hopefully in the Senate, is do not let anything go. Don’t let any of this go. They’re not going to participate. It’s not going to be as as straightforward as a lot of people think, because you see what Todd Blanche just did. Todd Blanche says that he will adhere to the Constitution. He gets his nomination goes through. He gets Senate-confirmed, and within 24 hours, he writes a memo to the White House that says executive privilege applies not only to discussions with senior White House staff — which, for the last 250 years, that’s what executive privilege meant — it now applies to anyone basically that the president designates as an outside senior advisor.
So every single person that his family is doing business right with right now, whether it’s Saudis or whether it’s in Indonesia or whether it is in Azerbaijan, or Albania, or in Turkey — by the way, all places that they’re doing business with right now, all places that they’re doing business with — and many more, Qatar, Oman, and keep going down the line, is that they now are senior advisors and will not have to, according to Todd Blanche, will not have to comply with congressional subpoenas in oversight or any investigate investigatory body.
CG: You know, whether Democrats sweep back into Congress or not, some people have called for another impeachment trial. Of course, the list of impeachable offenses is a mile long. Like I think we could agree any other president who did half of what this administration does would be facing impeachment, and rightly so. Now, Jamie Raskin, the who would be the chairman of the Judiciary Committee if Democrats win back the majority, has talked about instead pursuing a strategy of hearings and subpoenas and dragging people before Congress rather than another impeachment trial, which, you know, 67 votes in the Senate, not likely. Do you have any thoughts on like that strategy? Is it like yes, and? Is it one or the other? Like, what do you think about that?
HB: Yes, and, I don’t, look, I think that this idea that we’re going to play by any set of rules that, and, I have this discussion with my wife all the time. She says, “just lock them up.” You know what I mean? And I say, “well, what about the Constitution?” And she says, “they don’t follow the Constitution.” They don’t follow the rules. They run roughshod over everything. And by the time people wake up to the idea that all the rules have changed, they get away scot-free and everything. And by the way, that’s January 6. That’s everything that happened before January 6. I mean, people’s memories are so short. The level of corruption that occurred in the first Trump administration was beyond what every single other president combined had ever done, and that’s in the first administration. We forget how many cronies of theirs took advantage of COVID and were selling masks and getting contracts with the government and the DoD and the DHS and all of that.
And by the way, we’re talking about the Trump family alone. Think about what Howard Lutnick is doing right now. Think about the one instance of this. Okay, the Secretary of Commerce decides that he’s going to go out and he’s going to push for these tariffs, and his sons, at the same time, are going to go and they’re going to buy up the rights that companies potentially have if the tariff gets overturned by the [Supreme Court]. So pennies on the dollar, they go to these major corporations and they say, “if the tariff gets overturned and you’re due a refund, we’ll buy that from you now for 10 cents on the dollar.” So when it got overturned, the tariffs — that he said were completely constitutional — Howard Lutnick and his sons just made billions, billions of dollars when they knew it was unconstitutional. They knew that it was going to get overturned. And so my point is, is that I just, I don’t fully know the answer, and I don’t pretend to know the answer. I don’t know. What’s your opinion? What’s the opinion of people that are listening to this right now? It’s like, you know, sorry, I talk too much, but I’ve had four cups, I’m on my fourth cup of coffee.
CG: It’s all good.
HB: Exactly! So do you remember, there’s a famous play, and then also a movie called “A Man for All Seasons,” and here’s a scene in the play where the son goes to Thomas More, and the king is about to basically eventually execute Thomas More, and his son says, “You have to go after the king.” And he said, “by what law?” And he says, “what does it matter with the law?” And Thomas More says to his son-in-law, Roper, he says — and it’s an overused thing — but he says, “when you chase the devil into the forest and you cut down every tree to get to him, what tree do you hide behind when he turns on you?” And that I think is the question of our time. What is it that we can do to stop the lawlessness of this president within the bounds of the of the Marquess of Queensberry rules of Congress, of oversight of the Constitution as it exists right now? And I don’t know the answer to that, and that’s why I say that Donald Trump is the singular existential threat because he’s broken it all. What does he do? He’s literally a crime boss. We are going through a one-man crime wave globally right now. Okay? He’s making money off the Iran War. He’s making money off of Gaza. He’s making money off of the death and destruction of thousands of people, and that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. So what do we do? He’s broken it. He’s broken the whole system. The question is, how do we rebuild it in a way that it never it never happens again?
CG: Well, aside from the corruption issue, which obviously we could talk about all day, but you look at ICE. I know they just spent $20 million to equip agents in the field with electric shock gloves. Of course, you know the shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, no accountability has happened for them. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, who we had here on Raw America last week, he’s used the phrase “Nuremberg 2.0,” which calls up images from the post-World War II trials of Nazi officials. Do you think we need something like that to heal as a country before we can move forward? I know a lot of people who are going to run for president in 2028 will say, you know, let’s let’s not rehash the past, let’s move forward, let’s unite. And some people would say we have to have trials, we have to have accountability. If we’re going to have the rule of law in this country, we have to enforce those laws and show that no one is above the law. Like, what direction would you be leaning in?
HB: 100 percent, I believe that whether you call it Nuremberg 2.0, whether you call it Truth and Reconciliation, whatever it is, you don’t have to be punitive to the degree that there’s not a chance for healing, but they they have to be held accountable. And I know that there are a lot of people out there say, “Oh, well, you got a pardon in this, that, and the other thing.” Well, I’m here to say this. They’ve broken the entire system. They have broken it to a degree that there has to be a way in which we are all at least able to come to a common set of facts and truth about what just occurred. And I’m just hoping that we get there. I’m hoping, I want people to understand that this battle — and we should call it a battle — the battle that is occurring right now isn’t to sustain or save our democracy. We’ve lost the the constitutional republic as we’ve known it already. It’s that it’s happened. It’s not a matter of whether we will lose it. I truly believe that.
Think about it. What are the ultimate guardrails? Is it that he ignores court orders? Look what he’s doing as it relates to the Justice Department and the Epstein files right now. They are literally in Judge [Emmet] Sullivan’s court completely ignoring all a congressionally mandated oversight and the release of the files, and they’re just purely ignoring it. They’re doing that in I don’t know how many cases as it relates to the DHS, as it relates to ICE, they’re doing it. They’re doing it in terms of any oversight, as it relates to what [former DHS Secretary] Kristi Noem did… the guy that dressed up in the Nazi uniform—
CG: —Gregory Bovino.
HB: They are completely ignoring the rule of law, and when you have a president of the United States that continues to go out and “joke” about running for a third term and calls himself a king, I would suggest to people that it is not a joke. He can’t leave. If he leaves and he does not have power, there will be a reckoning, and he fully 100 percent knows that. And I’m not here to say that I have the answer to it, but I think that Senator Wyden is 100 percent right, and whether you call it Nuremberg 2.0 or, you know, or Trump 1.0. I don’t know, but but there has to be a reckoning.
CG: We’re here with Hunter Biden. Hunter is joining us. We’re talking about everything from Trump’s corruption to the midterms and everything else in between. If you’re just joining us, I’m Carl Gibson, managing editor of Raw America. If you like independent media that doesn’t take a dime from billionaires and doesn’t have a corporate owner deciding what you get to know. Please support, subscribe to Raw America. We greatly appreciate it. You can also follow and subscribe to Hunter Biden on his Substack as well.
Hunter, I want to get into now as we’re talking about 2028. Who could be the [Democratic] Party’s standard bearer in the next presidential election? I noticed in your most recent interview you referred to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as “the future of the Democratic Party,” and that she isn’t afraid to acknowledge that the system is broken and that we need radical change. She hasn’t ruled out a run for the White House in 2028, but, you know, a lot of people would say that America is too sexist to vote for a woman, seeing as highly qualified candidates like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Kamala Harris, lost to an adjudicated rapist and convicted felon. What would you say to those people who are hesitant about running a woman in 2028?
HB: I would say that I remember a time when America wasn’t ready for somebody named Barack Obama, a Black United States senator from the state of Illinois who was born in Hawaii. I mean, I think that those rules are meant to be broken, and they better be meant to be broken because it’s time that we have a woman as president of the United States. I think that just for the pure reason that I think that there is so much leadership that has been provided out there by women — and mainly, in my opinion, in the Democratic Party — women of color. And so, look, I don’t have any time for anybody that tells you that we have to figure out right now who’s going to be the leader. You know, that’s what a primary process is for. I always say to people, you know, Will Rogers’ words, “I’m I’m not a member of any organized party. I’m a Democrat.” It’s true, and it’s been true for a very long time.
It’s because we are the Big Tent Party. We do welcome a plethora of voices, and then we go and we form circular firing squads, and and we decide that these talking head arbiters that have never really done much, but spend a lot of time talking on cable news shows, tell us that this person should be in and that person should be out, and the label of socialist is going to be the thing that kills us, and we’re going to lose with rural voters. And you know what? I think that we’re going to we will land on our leadership by the process that we’ve always gone through as a party, by a competitive race, by people expressing their vision of what this country should look like. I listen to AOC a lot, and I very, very, vary rarely disagree with her, and I think that she is an incredible communicator, and I think that she also has proven that she is able to talk to people outside of her direct constituency or her perceived constituency. Look at the way that she has relationships across the aisle, even in this environment, and is able to sit down and talk with other people. And so, I mean, I just really love her.
That being said, I also love Gretchen Whitmer. I and I know that a lot of people in the Democratic Party right now are mad because she didn’t do this, or did this, or did that. But you know, it’s the same way, I say we’re crazy if we all don’t just get behind Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, you know, 100 percent. We have a a Michigan-born Rhodes scholar who is this incredible athlete. On top of that, who is also a a board-certified doctor, who’s also an epidemiologist, who also talks to people the the way that they talk to each other. The same way that I think that [Texas state representative] James Talarico is an incredible candidate.
I think that we have this incredible cast of leaders that are out there, that are young, that are, you know, that have an enormous amount of energy, and we just all need to get behind them rather than sitting around talking about, you know, whether Hasan Piker should be a part of the party. Like, I look at somebody like Hasan, and I realize that he’s grown up on these platforms, and he’s created an incredible constituency that he has, and he’s said really stupid things in the past that he’s taken back, and, I don’t know about you, but there’s a whole generation from 18 to 35 years old that understands politics in a very, very different way than anybody like James Carville, the Pod Save America guys, understand politics. And they’ll say, “Oh, Hunter doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.”
But you know, I’ve been out there, I’ve been talking to people, I’ve been on these shows, and one of the reasons I so enjoy being on these shows is because I’ve figured out that, you know what? People just want you to be authentic, like truly authentic. You can’t fake authenticity, and more than anything, they can sniff out a bullshitter from a mile away. Ane so anybody that’s going out there, and figuring out that with their political analysts, like you know their eight-point plan … you know, doesn’t interest me. And I and that’s why I like AOC. It’s a long answer about AOC. Sorry.
CG: Well, you talk going on all these different shows, and you know, as I was is watching different appearances that you’ve done, you went on Tucker Carlson’s podcast earlier this month, and I thought it was really interesting. You referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “evil incarnate.” You called what the Israeli military is doing in Gaza as a “genocide.” I know your dad caught a lot of heat for his support of Netanyahu in spite of the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, which is ongoing. Did you ever talk to him to try to get him to see the other side of that issue? And I’m just curious, like your journey on that issue, like when you started really seeing what was happening and speaking out about it.
HB: Look, I’m not here to defend my dad’s position on anything. I’m here to defend my dad as a dad and as a person. And I think that obviously there were some mistakes made. But one of the things I do know is that what my dad was doing with Netanyahu was not embracing him during that period of time. There was one instance after October 7, where a horrific massacre occurred… let’s all realize how complicated it is, and not very complicated in that moment. Over 1400 Israelis, Israeli Jews were murdered, and I don’t remember the exact number, but well over 100 that were taken as hostages. Okay? My dad’s first principal goal was to get the hostages released, and that’s what he began to do. And he had to work directly with the Israelis to do that.
And, by the way, I’m of the belief that that Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israelis and the Mossad knew that an attack was coming. I don’t see any other way that it could possibly have happened that the response time could have taken 10 hours, and so I think that. I believe in that conspiracy, by the way. But regardless, a response was due, and then from that point on, I know that my dad — and he gets to write about this in his book — I mean, I don’t know how many times he kicked Benjamin Netanyahu out of his office and called him, you know, a crazy motherfucker, literally to his face. I mean, all they did during that time, he took away the 2000-pound bombs… The vast majority of the weaponry that they did provide at that time was the defensive weaponry as it relates to the Patriot missile system.
People can all agree with that, but let me ask this question: for all the people that were out there protesting my dad, that were in front of the White House on a daily basis, and I understand their passion and the reason why. Where are they now? Where are they now? Is there a permanent Palestinian protest outside of the White House right now? Because Donald Trump has literally posted images that he’s going to turn Gaza into a Trump-themed golf course. Literally! They are literally advocating the removal of the remaining million-plus Palestinians from Gaza, to where nobody knows, so that they can turn it into a resort designed by Jared Kushner, and that isn’t even a joke. That’s literally what they’re saying. So where are they now?
And here’s another question that I have for all of these people that out there that are saying that this is, you know, such a cut-and-dry thing. Where are the Saudis on this? Where are the [United Arab Emirates]? They’ve never lifted a finger to be able to do anything for the Palestinians. Not a finger from any single other place. The only place that ever did anything was Lebanon, and Lebanon was ended up becoming destroyed by it. And so, the history of this is far more complicated then they’re right or wrong. But I know this in this moment, if you can’t see that Bibi Netanyahu is evil incarnate, then I don’t know what you’re looking at, because what he is doing, the way in which he has gone about organizing his government, the IDF, and the Israeli people, to, I don’t know what other word to use than genocide. I don’t know what other word. If somebody can come up with a better word that that that that appeases their sense of justice, then please let me know what it is. But whatever it is, it is the wholesale murder of children. Of children! And so, I don’t know the solution to this, and it is one of the most intractable and painful things to watch. But that’s why I like going on and talking to people that I don’t agree with.
CG: Well, and I’d love to talk to you more about that. We’re a little short on time. I did want to ask, Hunter, just as we’re closing out here, I wanted to talk about your journey as a recovering addict. I remember the audio of the voicemail that your dad left you back in 2018. I’ll link to this in the write-up as well. He said, “It’s Dad, I called to tell you I love you. I love you more than the whole world, pal. You got to get some help. I don’t know what to do.” And I know you started your recovery journey in 2019. I’m curious to know if that voicemail like helped start you on that path, and also what you would say to people watching right now who may be in the middle of their own struggles with addiction, whether it be alcohol or drugs or anything else.
HB: Yeah, you know the thing is, that was just one of probably, I don’t know, tens, if not dozens or hundreds of voicemails during that period of time that my dad left me on my phone. And the thing that I talk about as it relates to my recovery, I don’t have a prescription for anybody else — and I’m here to tell you, if anyone tells you that they do have, like, you go from A to Z, they’re not telling you the truth — all I can say is what helped me, and one of the things that I had an incredible advantage over anybody, and I was incredibly privileged, is this: I had a family that never let me go. Not just my dad, but it also included my aunts and uncles, and my mom, and included my daughters more than anybody else. My three adult daughters that never let me go.
And one of the things that people say often in recovery is, when you get these people, the advisors, and it’s well meaning, and I understand it because there’s a lot of pain, that addiction is a family disease. It is not just the disease of the individual. It affects it. There’s a blast radius around it, and one of the things they say is, you just got to let them hit bottom. Well, from my experience, the people that have hit bottom are dead. And the one advantage that I had is that my family never closed the door on me. Not only did they not close the door on me, but they kept shining the light down the well I had fallen into, and in order to get better, you have to have some sense of connection… These windows in addiction that I’ve experienced, at least, in which you get this kind of clarity of what you’re doing to yourself, and and in that window, if there’s no hand reaching out to you, it’s so much harder. And that’s why I always say, like, my God… comparatively to so many people that I know have gotten clean and sober on their own, without the family that I had, without the love that I had — and that those people I think are the bravest, most amazing people in in the world — and but for me that voicemail is indicative, but it does not paint the whole picture. Just how much my father’s always been there for me.
CG: We’ve been here talking to Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden is joining us here on Raw America. We’ve been talking about politics, world affairs, everything else here on Raw America. If you’re just joining us, I’m Carl Gibson, managing editor of Raw America. We are fully reader supported. We are editorially independent. We are not for sale. If you like supporting independent journalism that doesn’t take orders from billionaires or corporations, please subscribe and follow us. We greatly appreciate it. Hunter, I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us, and I hope this isn’t the last time that we talk to you.
HB: No, thanks, and I really, really, really appreciate it. And I love this Substack. Go to my Substack too, guys. You know? No billionaires for me either.
CG: Yeah, Hunter Biden is on Substack. Follow and subscribe to him as well. Everyone.
HB: By the way, I listen to you guys all the time, and just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s truly amazing, and you know, it’s not like I agree 100 percent of the time, but I appreciate it 100 percent of the time. So I really mean it. Thank you, and I’m honored that you would have me on.
CG: That means a lot, Hunter. I appreciate it.
HB: Thank you. Thanks, man.
