It was somethingof a political hall of mirrors: Hunter Biden arriving at Candace Owens’s house, sitting in a book-filled room decorated with a crucifix and orchids in the shape of a heart, holding a coffee cup labeledconspiracy theorist, and answering a range of questions from a podcast host who has called him “an alleged sex predator” and “A DEGENERATE THAT SHOULD BE IN PRISON” who comes from a “SCUM family.” The first question: “The cocaine that was found at the White House, was it yours?”
To say this was an unusual pairing is an understatement. To claim it was Frost/Nixon is an overstatement. But it said something about modern-day politics—and the weirdness of online culture—that the son of a former Democratic president and a right-wing podcaster were sitting there together, conversing for nearly two hours, finding common ground on being misunderstood, on being targeted by a powerful president, and on questioning the circumstances of Charlie Kirk’s death and whether the assassination attempts against Donald Trump were staged.
Owens apologized for treating Biden like “a caricature” and joining the “political machine” that attacked him during one of the lowest moments of his life (“I’m really sorry that I contributed to that. Like, I just feel really shitty”). He lavished her with praise (“You’re probably the most effective communicator I’ve ever heard behind the microphone”). She encouraged him to spend time in confession (“Don’t worry,” he responded, “I’ve been to confession”), and he giddily proposed that they go see Pope Leo XIV together: “For real, let’s go to the Vatican.” Biden offered book recommendations (“Have you ever readThe Devil’s Chessboard?”), and Owens complimented his intelligence (“Not to be rude, but I thought you were dumb”).
Much of the conversation focused on Biden’s recovery story, human details of which Owens seemed largely unaware. “I just didn’t even consider: He’s a crackhead. That’s actually a very relatable thing,” she said at one point. (Never mind that in December 2024 she devoted a segment to President Biden pardoning his son, in which she mentioned “crack” more than two dozen times over about 20 minutes.) To anyone who has read Hunter Biden’s 2021 memoir, followed his federal court cases, or heard him in previous interviews, there were a lot of familiar themes: The guy who has long had addiction issues, and been in and out of rehab through much of his adult life. The guy who spiraled further after his brother died. The guy who watched as compromising photos, his private text messages, and more than a decade of emails became public fodder and complicated his dad’s campaign and presidency. “It forced me into a choice,” he said. “And the choice was: Do I get out of bed and live, or do I die? And it became that much of a dichotomy. And I chose to live, and it wasn’t easy.”
Biden has spent years living under Republican attacks. Owens herself led many of them alongside other fixtures of the hard right. Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene once, during a congressional hearing, held up graphic images of Biden engaged in sex acts. Yet earlier this week, Greene wrote on social media, “I am so interested in this interview. This is what real journalism looks like along with where the political underground of America is moving.” Both Owens and Greene have been repeatedly criticized for making anti-Semitic comments, downplaying the Holocaust, and playing into anti-Jewish tropes.
The most revealing moment came toward the end, as Biden recounted the attacks he faced. “They tore off all my clothes, tarred and feathered me, and put me in the center of town, and said, ‘Look at him.’ And I survived,” he said. Owens locked eyes with him and apologized several times. “Genuinely, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I did partake in just the inhumanity of justLook at this guy at the worst moment of his life, with prostitutes. He’s on crack, he’s on drugs, and we should make fun of him.” Biden began tearing up, wiping his eyes. “For you to say that to me, I truly mean it, just from a purely selfish point of view, means the world. And I truly didn’t come here for that.”
But why was he there? Why did he recently reactivate his account on X? And what’s next for the man many Republicans have loved to hate and many Democrats have hoped would disappear?
Ihave gotten to knowHunter Biden quite well over the past few years. I spent months in 2021 combing through a copy of his hard drive—the product of an infamous laptop that he allegedly dropped off at a computer-repair shop and never retrieved—and learned way more about him than I cared to. The research produced a number of stories abouthis business pursuits, about his relationship withTucker Carlson, and about how hebenefitedfrom his family name.
I also wrote about Biden’s attempts to become an artist, along with theethical concernshis ambitions raised in the White House and thecongressional investigationsthat followed. That all can seem quite quaint now. For some time, Biden has been privately angry about the Trump family and their business pursuits that involve far more money and foreign countries, pose far more conflicts of interest—and get far less scrutiny. That anger burst out in the interview with Owens.
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Source: Drudge Report
