Hunter Biden said in a wide-ranging interview that the presidential pardon he received from his father was good for him but not for the country. He told the that the decision was not good for the American people, the constitution or Joe Biden's legacy, even as he called himself “the most privileged person there is” after being spared the full force of his federal cases.
The remarks matter because they land after Joe Biden granted his son a full and unconditional pardon in December 2024, covering Hunter Biden's federal gun conviction, a tax case he had pleaded guilty to, and any federal offences committed between 2014 and 2024. Joe Biden had repeatedly said he would not use presidential powers to step into his son's legal troubles, then announced that Hunter had been “selectively and unfairly prosecuted.”
Hunter Biden said he and his father never discussed the possibility of a pardon before it was granted. He also said Joe Biden acted out of concern that he would become a target under Donald Trump's incoming administration, a fear he cast as the reason the president broke from his earlier promises. That is the core of the political cost here: the son says he benefited, but he also says the benefit came wrapped in damage to the very office that gave it.
He defended the choice without pretending it was clean. “It's something that is easily criticised and for good reason,” he said, adding that he was grateful and that only his father could have given him that kind of relief. He also said, “What would you have thought of my dad if he did not do that for me,” a line that puts the pressure back on the presidency as much as on the family.
The interview also pulled the story away from politics and into addiction, where Hunter Biden said the worst period of his drug use was “hell on earth.” He said he drank almost a gallon of vodka a day while smoking crack cocaine almost every 15 minutes, adding that he was not reaching for anything except oblivion and that there was nothing glamorous about it. He said the damage was not abstract, but a collapse he lived through one hour at a time.
He also said his father's cancer has spread and that “cancer is really hard” and “it's really sad to watch.” Taken together, the interview leaves Joe Biden's pardon looking less like a closed family decision than a public judgment that will keep following both men: Hunter Biden says he is grateful, but he also says the pardon was not good for the American people, the constitution or his father's legacy, and he has ruled out seeking elected office.
