President Joe Biden fears he will die before his son Hunter’s legal problems are resolved because the family fears the situation will get worse before it gets better, a new report released Tuesday revealed.
Biden, 80, spoke about his fear of dying behind closed doors, sources close to the Bidens said. NBC News.
This contrasts with Biden’s public persona, where he joked that he was the oldest president in American history. At a fundraiser in New York on Monday evening, Biden presented his age as an experiment.
“A lot of people seem to focus on my age. Believe me, I know this better than anyone,” he said. “When this nation was down, I knew what to do.
“I am more optimistic about the future of this country than in the 800 years I have served,” he added with a laugh.
The president enjoys a clean bill of health from his doctor and receives the best medical care in the world. Still, he sometimes has trouble walking and has had verbal stumbles.
President Joe Biden, 80, fears he will die before his son’s legal problems are resolved, according to a new report.
If Biden wins a second term in next year’s election, he will be 86 when he leaves office.
And polls show voters fear Biden is too old for four more years in the White House.
Additionally, some Democrats fear that the president, who defeated Donald Trump, 77, in the 2020 election, does not have the energy to do it again next year.
“He is in a period of his life where his death is imminent,” said Sharon Sweda, Democratic Party leader in Lorain County, Ohio. The Washington Post . “We are all on a ticking clock. But when you’re his age or Trump’s, time passes a little faster, and that’s a concern for voters.
In addition to the age issue, some aides worry that Hunter’s legal troubles could divide the president’s attention as he needs to focus on running the country and campaigning for re-election.
According to our staff, the president and first lady Jill Biden are reluctant to hear about the political implications of this case and have accepted that Hunter’s legal problems will likely worsen in the coming months. NBC News reported.
A source told the news network that the topic of Hunter is so sensitive that “everyone is walking on eggshells in the West Wing” and doesn’t like to bring up the subject.
Hunter Biden, meanwhile, is going on the offensive after being charged with three federal charges related to his 2018 purchase of a handgun and facing an investigation into his taxes. He sued the IRS for disclosing his tax information, which he said should have been kept confidential.
President Biden has not publicly addressed his son’s latest legal troubles. But he told MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle earlier this year that he was proud of Hunter’s recovery from his drug and alcohol addiction.
“It impacts my presidency by making me proud of it,” Biden said.
President Joe Biden with his wife Jill, son Hunter, Hunter’s wife Melissa and their son Beau in November 2022
Hunter with President Joe Biden in June 2023 – aides fear son’s legal troubles could distract from president
The Biden family suffered another blow earlier this summer when Hunter’s plea deal with federal prosecutors fell apart.
American lawyer David Weiss and Hunter’s lawyers reached a plea deal in July that called for the president’s son to plead guilty in Delaware federal court to two misdemeanor counts of failure to pay his taxes in exchange for probation recommended by prosecutors.
A separate charge of illegal possession of the Colt Cobra .38 Special Handgun would have been dropped within two years if Biden had honored the terms of what is known as a diversion agreement.
The plea deal, which Republicans called a “sweetheart deal,” collapsed in a Delaware courtroom when the presiding judge began questioning some of its details, including one that would protect theoretically Hunter Biden of other tax-related crimes during the same period. .
Prosecutors said no. Hunter’s lawyers said that would be the case. The deal collapsed. The three federal charges related to the gun purchase were announced earlier this month.
Two of the charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, while the third carries a maximum sentence of five years. Each count also carries a maximum fine of $250,000.
Additionally, Biden himself now faces an impeachment inquiry. House Republicans are accusing the Biden family of benefiting from Hunter Biden’s business deals, which they say happened because Joe Biden was vice president.
President Biden has said he was never involved in his son’s business affairs.
He dismissed the impeachment inquiry, telling donors last week: “I have a job to do. Everyone has always asked questions about impeachment. I wake up every day, not joking, not focusing on impeachment. I have a job to do. I have to face the issues that affect the American people every solitary day.
Republicans say Joe Biden spoke to Hunter’s business associates, who called him a “big guy.”
The White House said the conversations were informal and did not involve trade deals.
President Biden with first lady Jill Biden, his son Hunter and his grandson Beau in July 2023
President Kevin McCarthy, facing intense pressure from the right wing of the Republican Party, launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
Hunter’s former business partner, Devon Archer, told the House Oversight Committee in testimony this summer that Hunter put his father on speakerphone during business meetings about 20 times.
At the time of Archer’s closed-door testimony, Democrats in the room said Archer characterized the calls as personal.
“The witness indicated that Hunter spoke to his father every day and that approximately 20 times over the course of a 10-year relationship, Hunter would put his father on the phone with any number of different people, and they would not “They never talked about business relationships,” Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York said at the time.
“As he described it, it was just casual conversations, niceties, the weather, what’s going on. There was not a single conversation about Hunter’s business dealings,” Goldman noted.
But Republican Speaker James Comer of Kentucky said Archer testified that Joe Biden “joined Hunter Biden’s dinners with his foreign associates in person or via loudspeaker more than 20 times” and was put on the phone to sell “the brand”.
Comer said the testimony shows that “Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he had no knowledge of his son’s business dealings and was not involved.” Joe Biden was “the brand” that his son sold around the world to enrich the Biden family.
The White House accused Republicans of election-year politics with its impeachment inquiry.
