Family is Joe Biden’s north star. But Hunter Biden’s legal troubles damage the brand

WASHINGTON — From Joe Biden’s earliest days in public life, politics and family have been intertwined to a remarkable degree.

When he realized his home was outside of the county council district he wanted to represent in Delaware, Biden convinced his parents to swap houses with him.

“My God, Joe, really?” his mom responded, according to the account Biden’s sister, Valerie, gave in her memoir “Growing Up Biden.”

“Aw, come on, Champ, this is a lot,” his dad grumbled. But swap they did.

Family has long been Biden’s north star, central to his identity, and a source of personal strength. That’s why his son’s legal troubles cut close to the core.

Hunter Biden arraignment

Hunter Biden is scheduled to appear Tuesday in a federal court in Wilmington, Del., where he is expected to plead not guilty to felony charges stemming from his purchase of a firearm while being a drug user. He may still face additional charges for failing to pay his taxes in 2017 and 2018.

And House Republicans are hoping to impeach the president by tying him to his son’s business practices.

Although Republicans use the umbrella term “Biden family” when raising questions about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, witnesses at House Republican’s first impeachment hearing last week said the committee hasn’t found impeachable evidence that the president benefited from a corrupt business deal.

“All we hear all day long (is) `Biden family, Biden family, Biden family,’” said Rep. Daniel Goldman, D-N.Y., who was House counsel to the first impeachment of Donald Trump. “And every time you hear that, you know that it doesn’t include Joe Biden.”

The hearing did not dissuade Republicans from continuing their inquiry, including subpoenaing additional banking records of Hunter Biden and the president’s brother, James Biden.

'Proud of my son'

President Biden has dismissed the impeachment inquiry as politically motivated. He’s said little about the federal charges his son faces other than to express his support for Hunter.

“I’m very proud of my son,” he told reporters in June after Hunter Biden struck a plea agreement that later fell apart.

Asked in May how a federal indictment of his son would impact his presidency, Biden told “The 11th Hour” it would not, “because he has done nothing wrong.”

"I trust him. I have faith in him," Biden said. "It impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him."

Hunter Biden has remained a visible member of the president’s public and private events. He’s attended state dinners, participated in the president’s family vacation in Lake Tahoe and weekends at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland. In April, he joined his father’s trip to Ireland that mixed foreign policy with a celebration of family roots.

Most voters aware of legal troubles, poll shows

More than nine out of ten of voters surveyed last month by Monmouth University Poll said they have heard about Hunter Biden’s legal troubles. But most of the voters who said the issue may impact their 2024 vote were Republicans, who are unlikely to support Biden anyway.

Only 2% of the electorate includes voters currently supporting the president who say Hunter Biden’s legal issues may affect their support, according to the Monmouth poll released Monday. Another 2% are Democrats not currently supporting Biden’s re-election bid who said they might factor Hunter Biden’s problems into their vote.

While those numbers are small in statistical terms, said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, “one or two percentage points could be crucial in competitive states.”

2024 election How timing of Hunter Biden trial could overlap with Joe Biden's re-election campaign

Stop the 'blanket immunity'

The devastating losses Biden suffered from the death of his first wife and daughter in a car accident in 1972 and the death of his oldest son, Beau, from brain cancer in 2015 have given him an ability to understand the pain of others that’s as much a part of his persona as is his tight-knit family.

“That is part of what people like about him,” said author Joshua Kendall, whose book, “First Dads: Parenting and Politics from George Washington to Barack Obama,” explores the relationships between presidents and their children.

And substance abuse – which Hunter Biden has publicly struggled with and is related to the gun charges he faces – is something many families can understand.

But while people want to give the president some slack, he may need to be more forthright about the seriousness of the charges Hunter Biden faces.

“He just seems to sort of give his son a blanket sort of immunity all the time,” Kendall said. “And that just, at this point, is starting to grate on some people.”

William Bike, a communications expert and author of a how-to guide called “Winning Political Campaigns, said Biden should “submit to tough questioning about his son, saying that he loves Hunter, admitting to Hunter’s drug problems, but also pointing out that Hunter never has had a post with the Biden administration.”

“Going on '60 Minutes' in 1992 turned Bill Clinton’s faltering campaign around when allegations of infidelity were piling up,” Bike said, “and I believe President Biden throwing himself on the mercy of the nation as a loving father of a wayward son would do wonders.”

Politics is a 'family calling'

When Biden was deciding whether to run for president in 2020, the only thing holding him back – he’s since said – was the fear that his children or grandchildren would become targets.

One of Hunter’s daughters asked for a family meeting. The grandchildren made a case for why he should run, despite the fact that they expected the campaign to get ugly.

“We know, Pop. We know,” Biden recently recalled Beau Biden’s son, Hunter, saying. “But you got to run.”

Politics became a family calling as soon as her brother entered the fray, according to Valerie Biden Owens.

“That’s just the way we did things as Bidens,” she wrote.

Growing up, Valerie and her brothers could fight amongst themselves inside the house, but “we were not allowed to say a single syllable against a sibling on the outside,” Joe Biden wrote in his 2007 memoir “Promises to Keep.”

“It was never, ever, under any circumstances – no matter what my brothers or sister had done – appropriate to do anything other than side with them,” he wrote. “Going against them would’ve been like giving secrets to the Russians in the middle of the Cold War. It was traitorous.”

Forced with the choice in grade school between staying on the safety patrol or reporting on his sister’s bad behavior on the bus, Joe Biden handed in his patrol badge.

As an adult, Valerie Biden Owens managed her brother’s 1970 county council campaign, his seven U.S. Senate races and his first two presidential bids.

Other family members have both worked behind the scenes and made frequent appearances in his stump speeches and other public remarks, particularly when Biden recounts the lessons he learned from his parents.

No one is better than you, but you’re not better than anyone else.

Giving up is never an option.

And “above all, family is the beginning, middle, and end.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hunter Biden gun charges hurt President Biden family brand