Former Vice President Joe Biden’s staff say they are afraid to broach the subject of the political problems posed by his son Hunter Biden, according to a New Yorker profile published on Monday.
When I asked members of Biden’s staff whether they discussed their concerns with the Vice-President, several of them said that they had been too intimidated to do so. “Everyone who works for him has been screamed at,” a former adviser told me. Others said that they were wary of hurting his feelings.
New Yorker reporter Adam Entous paints a picture of Biden’s close friends and advisers too nervous to talk to him about the potential problems his son might cause for the campaign.
The former Vice President declined to comment for the New Yorker article, which explores Hunter’s painful family story and history of drug and alcohol abuse.
In 2016, Hunter Biden filed for divorce from his wife and began dating his deceased brother’s widow Hallie. Hunter begged his father to issue a statement approving the relationship.
A former Biden aid confirmed to Entous that Biden issued the statement because of “concerns about Hunter’s well-being.”
In 2018, Hunter Biden moved away from Hallie to Los Angeles, and in June 2019 he married a South African woman female filmmaker named Melissa Cohen.
Hunter later called his Dad to talk about his new marriage.
“I called my dad and said that we just got married. He was on speaker, and he said to her, ‘Thank you for giving my son the courage to love again.’ ” Hunter paused, his eyes filling with tears. “And he said to me, ‘Honey, I knew that when you found love again that I’d get you back.’ ”