In the first half hour of Hunter Biden’s conversation with Candace Owens, the youngest son of the 46th president was doing what he intended to do: win me over.
That wasn’t a small task.
The infamous laptop and its disturbing images are seared in my mind, even though I never sought them out; they showed up unbidden on my social media feeds.
Also lodged forever in my memory are Biden’s questionable business dealings, the accusations of influence peddling. The out-of-wedlock daughter he wouldn’t acknowledge. The taxes he didn’t pay. And whatever else illegal or unsavory that was swept away in the presidential pardon Joe Biden issued shortly before he left office, saying, “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”
But here was the younger Biden, seven years sober, clean cut: talking about how addiction sent him into a tailspin — not once but twice — reflecting on how dangerous alcohol is, and how toxic our politics are. He was self deprecating. He read a prayer. He confessed that he had done “horrible things in my addiction, in terms of my relationships and decisions that I made. And more than anything, it’s just removing myself from being present for the people that love me.”
He expressed gratitude to Owens for being willing to sit down and talk to him “as a human being and not, you know, Hunter Biden laptop.” He seemed, as one person incredulously put it on X, likeable.
And then, an hour and 10 minutes in, he lost me when he used the name of the Savior in vain.
In a culture in which previously verboten expletives fly about like confetti, the use of the holy name in this context is still shocking to me, especially coming from a man who, just moments before, was talking about his Catholic faith and quoting Mother Teresa. It seemed a glimpse of the real Hunter Biden, as if the person who had been talking before wasn’t real.
Biden is not the only person to talk like that, of course. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, also a Catholic, exclaimed the Lord’s name so much in his podcast conversation with Charlie Kirk that Kirk called him out for it — twice.
In the antiquated language of, say, 20 years ago, “taking the name of the Lord in vain” is generally known to be wrong, and yet people who do it seem completely unaware of how it lands, and how it reflects on them.
Biden’s casual utterance, which came an hour and 10 minutes into the conversation, went unnoticed in the news coverage of the podcast. It came as he and Owens were discussing — for the second time — the mysterious cocaine found in the White House in 2023, which Biden assured Owens he had nothing to do with.
“Anyway, but my point is, is that what if I’m flying back to LA and I go through security and they find drugs in my bag? Who would believe me that I’m clean and sober? Who would possibly believe me? No one.”
And with that, Hunter Biden lays out the problem he still has: Who will possibly believe him? It was just a year ago that he had another lay-it-all-out-on-the-table conversation with the YouTuber Andrew Callaghan, in which he covered much of the same confessional ground, with even more profanity.
Owens, a central figure in the so-called podcast wars because of her criticism of Erika Kirk and her rhetoric about Israel, talked with Biden about the problem of believing the caricatures of a human being that are drawn by others. The economy of rage relies on people accepting only the worst things that others say about us, rejecting any nuance and context. In Biden’s case, there is plenty of context: the loss of his mother and sister when he was a toddler and later the loss of his older brother. This is a family that deserves no small measure of grace.
Still, while Biden has been admirably open about his struggles with addiction, he has been far less forthcoming about the other questions Americans have rightly had about his conduct and business dealings. He talks a lot about religion and Catholicism, but said he doesn’t go to church “as much as I used to” and that “what I realized is that my real faith is ... just do the next right thing.”
During their conversation, Biden was also uncritically accepting of Owens’ conspiracy-minded views about the murder of Charlie Kirk, applauding her “for asking the questions for someone who was like a brother to you.”
While acknowledging that they disagree about many things, he said, “But I listen to you and I go, right on.”
Really?
Who is Hunter Biden? We still do not know.
On X, an unverified account that appears to belong to Hunter Biden posted in advance of the podcast release, “I’m Hunter Biden. You’ve never actually heard from me” and later, “She’s got questions. I’ve got answers.”
Some, but not nearly enough.