Hunter Biden is finally speaking out about the Democrats’ crushing loss in the 2024 election, and he’s not holding back. In his first interview since November, Hunter told Jaime Harrison on the new podcast At Our Table that the party lost because it didn’t stand by Joe Biden.
“We are going to fight amongst ourselves for the next three years until there’s a nominee. And then with the nominee, we better as hell get behind that nominee,” Hunter said. “We lost the election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party. That’s my position.”
He didn’t stop there. “We had the advantage of incumbency. We had the advantage of an incredibly successful administration, and the Democratic Party literally melted down.”
Hunter’s interview with Harrison, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee, comes as the party is still licking its wounds after a brutal election season, according to The Hill. The podcast debuts this week, starting with an episode featuring Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate in the 2024 race.
Joe Biden’s decision to run again despite low approval ratings and age concerns was already controversial. His disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump only fueled doubts. Eventually, mounting pressure from within the party pushed him to drop out. That left Harris scrambling to put together a national campaign in just three months, and she still lost all the key swing states to Trump.
Things got messier with the release of the book Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. The book claims White House aides worried about Biden’s physical condition and even discussed using a wheelchair if he won a second term. It also suggests that some aides kept this from the public, which reignited debate about Biden’s fitness for office.
Republicans jumped on it. Some even claimed Biden didn’t sign off on last-minute clemency decisions and that his staff used an autopen to issue sweeping pardons, including one for Hunter after his conviction on gun charges and tax evasion.
Hunter rejected any talk of conspiracy. He said it would have been impossible to hide anything about his father’s health given how many people are constantly around. “What sells is the idea of a conspiracy,” he said. “Every single day, hundreds of people are around, and you can’t get one of them to go on the record and say, ‘I saw the president do X’?”
He also said he purposely stayed out of his father’s campaign, even though it was painful. According to the Washington Post, he told Harrison, “Which, by the way, broke my heart.”
For Hunter, the party’s mistake wasn’t the candidate or the campaign strategy. It was the lack of unity. His message is simple but stings: when the party turned on its own leader, it gave up its shot.