Jill and Hunter ‘Tell Biden to Fight On and Fire His Staff’
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Joe Biden’s wife and son are among the loudest voices telling him to stay in the race, a new report from NBC News has claimed.
Hunter Biden, who was with his father in the White House Wednesday afternoon, and First Lady Jill Biden have both urged him both to stay on and to fire his staff, the network claimed.
They are said to have pointed fingers specifically at Anita Dunn, the president’s White House adviser, and her husband, Bob Bauer, his personal attorney. Bauer played Donald Trump in the days of debate preparation at Camp David which preceded Biden’s disastrous performance against the Republican candidate last week in Atlanta, Georgia.
Claims of tensions between the First Family and Biden’s advisers first surfaced last weekend in the aftermath of the debate, but the new report from NBC News suggested that the tensions have not been put to rest and may even have grown. The network said one source of tension was that Dunn and Bauer had urged Hunter Biden to keep a lower profile for the last year.
Jill Biden is said to be pushing her husband to stay in the electoral race and have voiced unhapiness with is aides. The White House has denied reports of tensions.
The 53-year-old First Son was convicted of gun offenses last month in a federal trial in Delaware attended almost daily by Jill Biden. It aired the Bidens’ darkest secrets, including how Hunter’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, was shunned by the president and Dr. Biden, how Hunter’s affair with his brother Beau’s widow resulted in her smoking crack, and desperate messages between Hunter and his eldest daughter, Naomi.
But Hunter, who will be sentenced by October 9, a month before the presidential election and who faces up to 25 years in prison, has been increasingly present at his father’s side. He was present Wednesday afternoon as his father posthumously issued Medals of Honor to two Union soldiers executed by Confederates during the Civil War. NBC News reported that he is one of the family members pitching in his view of how his father should campaign.
The report prompted a lengthy series of on-the-record denials from the White House, suggesting that those closest to Biden find stories about his family particularly challenging. Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, told NBC News, “The president and first lady have full confidence in their team, including Anita and Bob. There is absolutely no truth to these unfounded and insulting rumors.” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said, “President Biden has been consistent: he is staying in the race.”
Biden is reported to have told different people both that he is unsure he can continue to run for a second term and that he is fighting on. A White House spokesperson said he had been clear that he is continuing.
Bates was responding to NBC’s report that Biden himself is vacillating between what it called “defiance and acceptance.” It said that to some people Biden had acknowledged that he might be unable to continue to fight, but that to others he has been resolute in staying in the race.
Biden himself has not pointed the finger at staff in public or, NBC reported, in private.
Among the family members he has yet to meet in person but was due to on July 4 is Valerie Biden Owens, his 78-year-old sister who has been his longest-standing campaign helper. Her input has been seen as crucial in helping him decide whether to stay in the race.
The mounting sense of panic in Democratic circles has not been assuaged by any of the president’s actions so far. On Wednesday evening he met Democratic governors at the White House, with three of them–New York’s Kathy Hochul, Maryland’s Wes Moore and Minnesota’s Tim Walz–walking out of the West Wing to vocally back the president.
Valerie Biden Owens, who attended Hunter's gun offenses trial with her brother James Biden and his wife Sara Jones Biden, was meeting the president July 4.
Walz told reporters on the White House driveway, that “the governors have his back and we are working together.” He added: “The feedback was good. The conversation was honest and open, and the action that will come out of that, we will make sure we are getting the message out.”
But other governors who attended in person, including California’s Gavin Newsom and North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, both of whose names have been quietly floated as possible runners if Biden steps aside, did not emerge to make statements. Newsom later used X to say, “I heard three words from the President tonight -- he’s all in. And so am I.”
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