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      Democratic Leaders Are More Optimistic About Biden 2024 Than Voters

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      Party leaders have rallied behind the president’s re-election bid, but as one top Democratic strategist put it, “The voters don’t want this, and that’s in poll after poll after poll.”As President Biden shifts his re-election campaign into higher gear, the strength of his candidacy is being tested by a striking divide between Democratic leaders, who are overwhelmingly unified behind his bid, and rank-and-file voters in the party who harbor persistent doubts about whether he is their best option.From the highest levels of the party on down, Democratic politicians and party officials have long dismissed the idea that Mr. Biden should have any credible primary challenger. Yet despite their efforts — and the president’s lack of a serious opponent within his party — they have been unable to dispel Democratic concerns about him that center largely on his age and vitality.The discord between the party’s elite and its voters leaves Democrats confronting a level of disunity over a president running for re-election not seen for decades.Interviews with more than a dozen strategists, elected officials and voters this past week, conversations with Democrats since Mr. Biden’s campaign began in April, and months of public polling data show that this disconnect has emerged as a defining obstacle for his candidacy, worrying Democrats from liberal enclaves to swing states to the halls of power in Washington.Mr. Biden’s campaign and his allies argue that much of the intraparty dissent will fade away next year, once the election becomes a clear choice between the president and former President Donald J. Trump, the dominant leader in the Republican primary field.But their assurances have not tamped down worries about Mr. Biden from some top Democratic strategists and many of the party’s voters, who approve of his performance but worry that Mr. Biden, who will be 82 on Inauguration Day, may simply not be up for another four years — or even the exhausting slog of another election.“The voters don’t want this, and that’s in poll after poll after poll,” said James Carville, a longtime party strategist, who worries that a lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Biden could lead to lower Democratic turnout in 2024. “You can’t look at what you look at and not feel some apprehension here.”James Carville, a longtime Democratic strategist, is among those who worry that the party’s voters are not enthusiastic enough about Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign.Raul E. Diego/Anadolu Agency, via Getty ImagesIn recent days, a barrage of grim news for Mr. Biden, including an autoworkers strike in the Midwest that poses a challenge to his economic agenda and the beginning of impeachment proceedings on Capitol Hill, has made this intraparty tension increasingly difficult to ignore. Those developments come amid a darkening polling picture, as recent surveys found that majorities of Democrats do not want him to run again, are open to an alternative in the primary and dread the idea of a Biden-Trump rematch.A CNN poll released this month found that 67 percent of Democrats would prefer Mr. Biden not be renominated, a higher percentage than in polling conducted by The New York Times and Siena College over the summer that found half would prefer someone else.In quiet conversations and off-the-record gatherings, Democratic officials frequently acknowledge their worries about Mr. Biden’s age and sagging approval ratings. But publicly, they project total confidence about his ability to lead and win.“It’s definitely got a paradoxical element to it,” said Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat who is among a group of governors who put aside their national ambitions to support Mr. Biden’s re-election bid. “This is only a matter of time until the broad party, and broadly speaking, Americans, converge with the opinions of folks like myself.”Many party officials say that Mr. Biden is making a high-stakes bet that the power of incumbency, a good political environment for his party and the fact that Democrats generally like the president will eventually outweigh the blaring signs of concern from loyal supporters. Any discussion of an alternative is little more than a fantasy, they say, since challenging Mr. Biden would not only appear disloyal but would also most likely fail — and potentially weaken the president’s general-election standing.One Democratic voter who backed Mr. Biden in 2020, James Collier, an accountant in Houston, sees the situation slightly differently. He said he would like Mr. Biden to clear the way for a new generation that could energize the party’s base.“I think he’s a little — not a little — he’s a lot old,” Mr. Collier, 57, said. “I’m hoping he would in his own mind think, ‘I need to sit this out and let someone else do this.’”There are no indications that anyone prominent will mount a late challenge to Mr. Biden, though strategists working for other elected officials say that a number of well-known politicians would probably jump into the race if, anytime before the end of the year, the president signaled he was not running.The situation is almost the opposite of the Republican field, where Mr. Trump holds a commanding lead among the party’s base but remains far less beloved by a political class that fears his unpopularity among moderate and swing voters will lead to defeat in 2024.William Owen, a Democratic National Committee member from Tennessee, was full of praise for Mr. Biden and said he was puzzled by surveys that consistently showed the president struggling to win over Democratic voters.“I’m looking at all the polling, and I’m amazed that it has so little to do with reality,” he said in an interview this past week. “A big part of it is just pure ageism. The American people are prejudiced against old people.”Yet in describing his interactions with Democrats around Knoxville, which he represented for years in the Tennessee legislature, Mr. Owen said he could not escape questions about Mr. Biden’s health.“People ask me: ‘How’s Joe doing? Will he last another four years?’” Mr. Owen said. “That’s the real question. Will Joe Biden last another four years? I’m happy to say, yes, he will. He’s going to live to be 103.”Officials in Mr. Biden’s campaign insist that hand-wringing about his age is driven by news coverage, not by voters’ concerns. They dismiss his low approval ratings and middling polling numbers as typical of an incumbent president more than a year away from Election Day.A campaign spokesman cited articles about Democrats’ fretting about President Barack Obama before his second term and noted the limitations of polls so far from an election, suggesting that Mr. Biden had ample time to make his case.“President Biden is delivering results, his agenda is popular with the American people and we are mobilizing our winning coalition of voters well ahead of next year’s general election,” said Kevin Munoz, the spokesman. “Next year’s election will be a stark choice between President Biden and the extreme, unpopular MAGA agenda.”Lt. Gov. Austin Davis of Pennsylvania, who is Black and has issued public warnings about Mr. Biden’s standing with Black voters, said that simply casting the election as a referendum on Mr. Trump and his right-wing movement — as Mr. Biden’s campaign did in 2020 — would not be enough to energize the Democratic base. Mr. Davis has urged the White House to be more aggressive about highlighting the impact of Mr. Biden’s accomplishments, particularly with Black voters.“Everyone is kind of exhausted by the fight between Biden and Trump,” he said. “People really want to hear leaders talk about how they’re going to improve the lives of their families.”Lt. Gov. Austin Davis of Pennsylvania has cautioned Democrats against framing the 2024 election as a referendum on former President Donald J. Trump.Matt Rourke/Associated PressOther Democrats argue that Mr. Biden’s campaign must make clearer that the stakes are bigger than just the president.“It’s about showing people that the future of American democracy is at stake,” said Representative Jennifer McClellan of Virginia, who is a member of the Biden campaign’s national advisory board. “It’s not just about which president can get through the day without tripping or stumbling over their words, which everybody is going to do, but which president is going to lead this country forward in a way that helps people solve problems and keeps American democracy intact.”Faiz Shakir, the campaign manager for Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential bid, said Mr. Biden needed to show voters that he was fighting for the American public, pointing to battles like his administration’s legal fight with pharmaceutical companies over their new Medicare pricing plan.“The question that I would want to answer is, is he is a strong leader?” Mr. Shakir said. “When people see he is a strong leader, they will feel different about his age. They will feel different about the economy. They will feel different about a lot of things.”Malcolm Peterson, 34, a waiter in St. Paul, Minn., said he thought Mr. Biden had done a good job tackling issues related to climate change during his first term, but worried about the president’s outlook for a second term.Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesMalcolm Peterson, a waiter from St. Paul, Minn., whose foremost political concern is climate change, said he generally approved of Mr. Biden’s work as president and thought he had done a good job tackling environmental issues. But he said he worried about whether the president would be able to continue that work in a second term.“I just wonder, because he’s quite old, what does he look like in another four years?” Mr. Peterson, 34, said. “I’m not a doctor. I just know what I’ve seen.” More

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      Biden’s Tough Week: The President Faces Personal and Political Setbacks

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      In the past seven days, President Biden was targeted for impeachment and his son was indicted. That was just the start.It says something about the way things have been going for President Biden lately that being targeted for impeachment was not the worst news of a tough week.To be sure, it was not a highlight. But over the course of the past seven days, Mr. Biden was besieged on multiple fronts, both personal and political, challenging his capacity, threatening his family and jeopardizing his political position.He was panned by critics for his performance at an overseas news conference. One of his favorite columnists urged him not to run again, sparking more hand wringing in his party. A top ally implicitly questioned his choice of running mate. The auto industry fell into a paralyzing strike that could undermine the economy. His son was indicted on three felony charges. And oh yes, House Republicans opened an impeachment inquiry aimed at charging him with high crimes and misdemeanors.Politics in Washington being what it is today, Mr. Biden and his team exhibited no particular concern over the course of events. After a rocky campaign and two and a half turbulent years in office, they have become accustomed to the gyrations of the modern presidency. Facing a disagreeable short view, they prefer to take the long view, comforting themselves, and arguing to outsiders, that it will work out all right in the end because it has worked out all right before.And Mr. Biden has been blessed by helpful enemies, who now appear poised to provoke an unpopular government shutdown at the same time they pursue an impeachment inquiry that even some Republican lawmakers say is not based on evidence of an impeachable offense. If there is anything that could rally disaffected Democrats and independents, the president’s strategists believe, it is Republican overreach.Conservatives mocked Mr. Biden for his speech in Hanoi, Vietnam.Kenny Holston/The New York Times“President Biden was underestimated two years ago and then he went on to pass historic legislation that has led the U.S. to have the strongest recovery of any developed economy in the world,” Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, said on Friday. “We don’t get distracted by Washington parlor games that most Americans are entirely uninterested in.”Avoiding distraction is hardly easy. Mr. Biden was told of the indictment against his son Hunter Biden on Thursday just before leaving the White House to give a speech in Maryland assailing Republican budget plans, forcing him to put the consequences out of his mind long enough to deliver the talk and work the rope lines.He said nothing about the indictment and little about the rest of the setbacks of the week in public, although there was a moment at an evening campaign fund-raising reception when he lamented the changing culture of politics since he was first elected to the Senate in 1972.“Did you ever think you would have to worry about going through protests where you see people standing with their little kids giving you the middle finger and have banners saying, ‘F the Democrat’?” he asked Democratic donors at a private home in McLean, Va. “It’s becoming debased, our public disgust,” he added. “We just have to change it.”The week started in Hanoi, Vietnam, where he gave a news conference on Sunday evening that conservatives quickly mocked because of a few rambling moments and an odd reference to John Wayne. Mr. Biden had barely landed back home and gotten a few hours sleep before Speaker Kevin McCarthy opened an impeachment inquiry accusing the president of corruption without evidence that he had either profited from his son’s business dealings or misused his power to help.The next day, the president picked up The Washington Post to find a column by David Ignatius, who has enjoyed considerable access to the Biden White House, arguing that despite what he considered a laudable record, the 80-year-old president should not run for another term next year. The column caused much buzzing in Washington because Mr. Ignatius has broad respect in the nation’s capital as a reasoned voice often supportive of the president and represents the establishment whose approval Mr. Biden has long craved.Mr. Ignatius’s plea for the president to reconsider his decision to seek a second term resonated among many Democrats deeply anxious about his prospects but reluctant to say so out loud for fear of undermining him. Mr. Ignatius addressed the matter on “Morning Joe,” the MSNBC show that Mr. Biden is known to watch, with much discussion of whether the president was too old for another term, as polls show many voters believe.Just hours later, Senator Mitt Romney, one of the most prominent Republican critics of former President Donald J. Trump, announced that he would retire in favor of “a new generation of leaders” and urged Mr. Biden to do the same. Charlie Cook, a well-regarded nonpartisan election analyst, then weighed in with a column making the case for the president stepping aside.A crowd listening to Mr. Biden speak on Thursday at Prince George’s County Community College in Largo, Md.Anna Rose Layden for The New York TimesHunter Biden’s indictment was followed on Friday by the first union strike against all three major American automakers, a seismic disruption of a key industry with uncertain effects on the economy. White House officials were watching the situation in Detroit with some trepidation, reasoning that a short strike would not make much difference in the long run but an extended walkout could unsettle the economy at a tenuous moment.While many Democrats for months have privately hoped for what Mr. Ignatius publicly voiced, there is no indication that Mr. Biden is or would consider abandoning his re-election campaign. Advisers say privately that the idea never comes up and would be ludicrous. If anything, the importunings of the “chattering class,” as they like to put it, would push Mr. Biden, who believes he is consistently underestimated, in the opposite direction.“The Ignatius thing probably did break his heart, however that’s the kind of thing that forces him and the campaign and his family into their comfort zone of being underdogs,” said Michael LaRosa, a former spokesman for Jill Biden. “The way they view it is: You guys said he couldn’t win last time, he couldn’t win from the center, he couldn’t beat Bernie, he couldn’t bring back bipartisanship, he couldn’t beat Trump, he couldn’t win the midterms. That’s how they see things.”There is no class of elder statesmen who might persuade Mr. Biden of the opposite, no one he would listen to, according to Democratic strategists. Mr. Biden is said to still resent former President Barack Obama for gently pressing him not to run in 2016, and his relationship with former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is complicated by conflicting ambitions.The only ones who might persuade Mr. Biden to change his mind would be his own family, particularly Jill Biden, who talked him out of running for president in 2004. But by all accounts, she and other family members strongly support another campaign, viewing any alternative as a capitulation to the doubters who never believed in the president and the enemies who in her view have weaponized their family against him.For all the concern in the party — and interviews make clear it is deeper than White House officials are willing to acknowledge — there is also a sense of resignation among many Democrats that there are no obvious alternatives to Mr. Biden ready and able to beat Mr. Trump.Jill Biden talked Mr. Biden out of running for president in 2004.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesEven former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has worked closely with Mr. Biden to pass his legislative agenda, seemed to call Vice President Kamala Harris into doubt in an interview this week. Asked on CNN twice if she were the best running mate for Mr. Biden, Ms. Pelosi did not directly say yes. “He thinks so,” she said of the president, “and that’s what matters.”Keeping Mr. Trump out of the Oval Office is such a paramount goal for Democrats that even skeptics of Mr. Biden within the party are increasingly coming to the conclusion that it is too late to think about an alternative and more important now to rally around him.Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who was seen as a possible candidate if Mr. Biden did not run, recently told fellow Democrats it was “time for all of us to get on the train and buck up,” as he put it in an interview.Donna Brazile, a former Democratic Party chair, insisted that reports of hand wringing are overwrought. “No matter his age or accomplishment, Democrats must begin to focus on every branch of government, preserving our democracy, inspiring young people to run for office and vote — not to mention raise money and run as if we are 10 points behind,” she said. “There’s only one way to win: You have to believe in the candidates on the ballot.”So far, the polling has been unforgiving, undercutting Mr. Biden’s argument that he is the safest choice to defeat Mr. Trump. Multiple surveys have shown him statistically tied with his predecessor, and his approval rating has remained mired around 40 percent despite improving economic conditions.Mr. Biden’s advisers dismiss such findings, noting that Ronald Reagan, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama all rebounded from low approval ratings to win re-election handily. Mr. Biden’s campaign has already started airing ads in battleground states, and advisers argue that when the time comes for a choice that matters, voters will return to Mr. Biden rather than switch to an unpopular challenger who has been indicted four times, including for trying to subvert democracy.In the meantime, they said, no one should worry about one week or another. The president survived plenty of tough weeks before pushing through landmark legislation and enacting other major policy goals. After a half-century in politics, they said, he has seen it all and he sets the tone for his White House.“When I read these stories on Biden’s age or polling status, it reminds me of what I used to tell the staff,” said Ms. Brazile. “Keep your head down, make your phone calls and just do the work.” More

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      President Biden Keeps Hunter Close Despite the Political Peril

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      The possibility of a federal indictment of Hunter Biden stunned the president. Yet the bond between him and his only surviving son is ironclad.Earlier this summer, President Biden was feeling hopeful.His son Hunter’s lawyers had struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors on tax and gun charges, and it seemed to the president that the long legal ordeal would finally be over.But when the agreement collapsed in late July, Mr. Biden, whose upbeat public image often belies a more mercurial temperament, was stunned.He plunged into sadness and frustration, according to several people close to him who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve their relationships with the Biden family. Since then, his tone in conversations about Hunter has been tinged with a resignation that was not there before, his confidants say.Now, as the Justice Department plans to indict Hunter Biden on a gun charge in coming weeks, White House advisers are preparing for many more months of Republican attacks and the prospect of a criminal trial in the middle of the 2024 presidential campaign.Republicans have cast Hunter’s troubles as a stew of nepotism and corruption, which the Biden administration denies. But there is no doubt that Hunter’s case is a drain, politically and emotionally, on his father and those who wish to see him re-elected.The saga reflects the painful dynamics of the first family, shaped by intense ambition and deep loss, along with anger and guilt. It is the story of two very different if much-loved sons, and of a father holding tight to the one still with him.This account is based on interviews with more than a dozen people close to the Biden family who declined to speak on the record out of concern about jeopardizing their relationships with the Bidens, along with writings from Biden family members.People who know both men say their bond is singular in its intensity. But even allies of President Biden, who prides himself on his political and human instincts, say he has at times been too deferential to his younger son, appearing unwilling to tell him no, despite Hunter’s problems and his long trail of bad decisions.And that has created unexpected political peril for the president.The Family BusinessMr. Biden with his sons Hunter, left, and Beau in the early 1970s. The two boys were close growing up.via Associated PressHunter was born on Feb. 4, 1970 — a year and a day after his older brother, Beau.The two boys were close growing up. Beau was seen as the future of the Biden political brand — the one who should be running for president, his father has said. President Biden has described Beau as “me, but without all the downsides.”Beau was a natural leader, a student athlete and Ivy League-educated lawyer who rose to become the most popular political figure in Delaware. As President Barack Obama described him, Beau was “someone who charmed you, and disarmed you, and put you at ease.’’Hunter grew up intelligent and artistic, sharing his father’s loquacious personality. After graduating from Georgetown University, he served in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Portland, Ore., where he worked at a food bank in a church basement and volunteered at a socialization center for disabled people. He met a fellow volunteer, Kathleen Buhle, in the summer of 1992. Within months she was pregnant, and in July 1993 the two married. Hunter later graduated from Yale Law School.By the early 2000s, living in Delaware with his wife and three young daughters, Hunter had begun drinking heavily at dinner, he has said, at parties and after work at Oldaker, Biden & Belair, a law and lobbying firm where he was a partner.He moved away from lobbying around the time his father became vice president, after the Obama administration issued restrictions on lobbyists working with the government. But his later ventures drew scrutiny as well. In 2014 he joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that was under investigation for corruption, as Mr. Biden, then the vice president, was overseeing White House policy toward Ukraine.When Hunter was discharged from the Navy Reserve in 2014 because of cocaine use, Mr. Biden’s email to his family about the news coverage was succinct. “Good as it could be,” he wrote. “Time to move on. Love Dad.”As his father and brother showed a talent for public service, Hunter envisioned himself as the financier supporting the family business of politics.For a time, it was work that made him proud, because it made him feel needed.“I had more money in the bank than any Biden in six generations,” he wrote in “Beautiful Things,” his 2021 memoir, noting that when his lobbying career was steady in the late 1990s, he helped pay off his brother’s student loans, enrolled his three daughters in private school and covered the mortgage on a house where he and Beau were living.Decades later, though, he was known to complain about the responsibility. A person close to Hunter said those complaints were exaggerated, expressed at a time when Hunter was feeling bruised.Tragedy and substance abuse have stalked the Biden family for generations. Hunter was not quite 3 years old when his mother and baby sister were killed in a car accident that left him and Beau seriously injured and in a hospital for months. Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, at age 46. After that, Hunter descended further into alcoholism and a devastating addiction to crack cocaine.Mr. Biden with Hunter, left, and other members of their family at a memorial service for Beau Biden in Dover, Del., in 2015.Patrick Semansky/Associated PressPresident Biden’s father had bouts of drinking, according to people who knew him, and one of his brothers, Frank, has struggled with alcoholism. Mr. Biden’s daughter, Ashley, has sought treatment for addiction. On the campaign trail in 2008, when Mr. Biden was a candidate for vice president, he offered a blunt explanation for his own decision not to drink: “There are enough alcoholics in my family.”As his problems with addiction worsened in recent years, Hunter’s life unraveled. His marriage to Ms. Buhle ended in 2017, and he had a romantic relationship with his brother’s widow, Hallie, that set off tabloid headlines and more family angst.At times the elder Mr. Biden has seemed at a loss to respond, and worried about pushing Hunter away. At his son’s behest, Mr. Biden released a statement in support of the relationship between Hunter and Hallie. When that relationship ended soon after, Hunter cycled in and out of rehabilitation facilities and tried experimental therapies including ketamine and “the gland secretions of the Sonoran Desert toad,” according to his memoir. He was often not able to stay sober for more than a couple of weeks at a time.Hunter has a fourth child, Navy Joan Roberts, who was conceived during an encounter in 2017 he says he does not remember. Hunter has said he does not have a relationship with the child. President Biden did not acknowledge the girl, who was born in Arkansas, until July, and only after Hunter gave him the OK, according to a person close to the president.Mr. Biden’s devotion to his son means that he has long followed Hunter’s lead. At one point, after a family intervention over Hunter’s drug use, a distraught Mr. Biden approached his son in the driveway of Mr. Biden’s home in Delaware.“I don’t know what else to do,” Mr. Biden cried out. “Tell me what to do.’”Hunter has said he finally got sober after meeting his second wife, Melissa Cohen, in 2019.A Father, Not a PoliticianPresident Biden tries to keep his son close.When Hunter accompanied the president on a trip to Ireland in the spring, he traveled on Air Force One and slept on a cot in his father’s hotel room. When Hunter flies to Washington from his home in Malibu, he stays at the White House, sometimes for weeks at a time. When he is on the West Coast, his father calls him nearly every day, sometimes more than once.Hunter shares his father’s tendency toward effusiveness and intensity in interactions with people he loves, according to people who know both of them. They also share a quick temper.“I’m like his security blanket,” Hunter told The New Yorker in 2019. “I don’t tell the staff what to do. I’m not there giving directions or orders. I shake everybody’s hands. And then I tell him to close his eyes on the bus. I can say things to him that nobody else can.”Allies of the president have deep respect for the bond, but have privately criticized Mr. Biden’s apparent inability to say no when Hunter sought to pull him into his business dealings. Some allies of the president say his loyalty to his son — inviting him to state dinners, flying with him aboard Marine One and standing on the White House balcony with him — has resulted in wholly avoidable political distractions.Hunter Biden is often seen at presidential events with his family, like watching the Fourth of July fireworks at the White House.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesNo hard evidence has emerged that Mr. Biden personally participated in or profited from the business deals or used his office to benefit his son’s partners while he was vice president. And Mr. Biden’s advisers have pointed to legal experts who argue that the tax and gun charges against the president’s son are rarely prosecuted.Still, Hunter Biden’s business dealings have raised concerns because testimony and reports have indicated that he traded on the family name to generate lucrative deals. Devon Archer, Hunter’s former business partner, told congressional investigators that Hunter used “the illusion of access to his father” to win over potential partners.Mr. Archer said that Mr. Biden had been in the presence of business associates of his son’s who were apparently seeking connections and influence inside the United States government.But Mr. Archer’s testimony fell short of Republican hopes of a smoking gun to prove the president’s involvement in his son’s efforts to drum up business overseas. The elder Mr. Biden would occasionally stop by a dinner or a hotel for a brief handshake, Mr. Archer said, or engage in a few pleasantries over the phone.Although many observers see the investigation as a darkening shadow over the presidency, President Biden and his son do not dwell on it in their daily phone calls.They do talk politics occasionally; Hunter is an informal adviser who has helped his father brainstorm speeches. But mostly, the president shares updates from the rest of the family and simply asks how his son is doing, people familiar with the calls say.Anger in CaliforniaHunter Biden’s life in California is a world away from his father’s in Washington.He lives with his wife and their toddler son, who is named for Beau, in a rental home high above the Pacific Ocean. It is a place that feels impossibly idyllic — except for signs that warn of wildfires that could burn the fragile paradise to the ground.Most mornings, he sits in his home and paints, putting oils and acrylics to canvas in a ritual that he says helps keep him sober. Then he drives, Secret Service agents in tow, to the nearby house of Kevin Morris, a Hollywood lawyer who has become a financial and emotional lifeline since the two met at a fund-raiser for the Biden campaign in 2019.Hunter Biden painting in his California studio in 2019. He says painting keeps him sober.Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York TimesThat year, Hunter told The New Yorker he was making about $4,000 a month. He had moved to California, in his telling, to “disappear” as his father was running for the presidency. His new wife was pregnant. He had chosen to live in one of the most expensive areas of the country, and he was struggling to stay afloat. Mr. Morris, who made his fortune brokering entertainment deals and representing celebrities including Matthew McConaughey, saw an opportunity to help. He has lent Hunter millions to pay back taxes and support his family, according to people who know about the arrangement.Friends of the family fear for Hunter’s well-being out in California because he is a recovering addict who is under pressure. He has said that his new career as a painter is a form of survival, keeping him “away from people and places where I shouldn’t be.”Despite the concerns, people closer to Hunter say he is determined and resilient. But they also describe him as angry and spoiling for a fight.These days, under the watchful eye of a drone that Mr. Morris uses to scan for photographers and intruders, he and the president’s son huddle together in anger and isolation, assessing the day’s damage. The collapse of a plea deal. A special counsel investigation. A looming indictment. A likely trial.Every day, on and on, there is a new crisis.President Biden only occasionally makes the trip out West to raise money or deliver remarks on his policy agenda. His political ethos is rooted more in middle-class Scranton, Pa., than in the wealth that surrounds his son’s home in the hills of Malibu.There is tension between Mr. Biden’s allies, who favor a cautious approach in Hunter’s legal proceedings, and Mr. Morris, who prefers a more aggressive approach.That tension reached a boiling point last winter, when Mr. Morris pushed to remove Joshua A. Levy, an attorney recommended by Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, from Hunter’s legal team.Kevin Morris, a Malibu-based entertainment lawyer, has funded Hunter Biden’s legal team and is said to have a brotherly bond with the president’s son.Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty ImagesAfter Mr. Levy resigned, Mr. Morris replaced him with Abbe Lowell, one of Washington’s best-known scandal lawyers, who has a reputation for bare-knuckle tactics. (He had also recently represented Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald J. Trump.) For now, the strategic command center is at Mr. Morris’s dining room table in Malibu, not in Washington.Mr. Biden does not believe that Republican attacks on his son will hurt him with voters as he runs for re-election in 2024, and there is data to suggest that is largely true, at least for now. A June poll by Reuters and Ipsos found that 58 percent of Americans would not factor Hunter Biden into their decision in the presidential race.The White House declined to comment for this article, as did Hunter Biden and his attorneys.“Joe Biden’s been around politics all his life,” said the Democratic strategist David Axelrod, who noted that Mr. Biden’s decisions about Hunter were not made by advisers or consultants. “This is about him and how he feels and his relationship with his son.”Mr. Biden told MSNBC in May that his son had done nothing wrong.“I trust him,” he said. “I have faith in him.”Last month, when asked by reporters at Camp David about the special counsel investigation into his son, Mr. Biden’s response was terse.“That’s up to the Justice Department,” Mr. Biden said, “and that’s all I have to say.”Mr. Biden then left Camp David and rode aboard Air Force One to Lake Tahoe for vacation. Hunter joined him there.That time, the president’s son flew commercial. More

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      Justice Dept. Says It Will Indict Hunter Biden on Gun Charge This Month

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      The timetable, following the collapse of an earlier deal that would have allowed President Biden’s son to avoid any jail time, means he will face prosecution as his father seeks re-election.David C. Weiss, the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden, said on Wednesday that he planned to indict the president’s son on a gun charge before the end of the month — a move prompted by the acrimonious collapse of a plea deal in July.In a three-page update filed in federal court in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Weiss laid out plans to bring charges related to Mr. Biden’s purchase of a pistol in 2018, when prosecutors say he lied on a federal form by stating that he was not using drugs at the time. Mr. Biden had previously agreed to participate in a two-year diversion program for nonviolent gun offenders as part of the plea deal, which unraveled dramatically at the last minute this summer.Mr. Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, signaled in a statement that he would challenge any effort to proceed with a trial, arguing that the original agreement reached over the summer “remains valid and prevents any additional charges from being filed.”The government’s filing, while expected, adds an additional and volatile element to an already packed calendar of criminal cases coinciding — and colliding — with the 2024 presidential race. It piles on a possible federal trial of President Biden’s son to former President Donald J. Trump’s two federal and two state criminal cases.The status report by Mr. Weiss was filed at the request of a federal judge. It makes no mention of the status of likely separate charges stemming from the five-year investigation of Mr. Biden’s business dealings, and subsequent failure to pay taxes, conducted by Mr. Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware who was appointed last month as a special counsel after overseeing the investigation. Last month, prosecutors told the court they intended to file the tax charges in either California or Washington, D.C.Leo Wise, a veteran prosecutor detailed to Mr. Weiss’s team in June, said in the court filing on Wednesday that the Justice Department would seek the return of an indictment on the gun charge before Sept. 29, citing a timetable set by the Speedy Trial Act.Mr. Biden appeared to be just hours away from resolving his legal troubles this summer through a deal that would have cleared up both the tax and gun investigations. But under questioning by a judge in federal court in Wilmington, prosecutors and defense lawyers were forced to acknowledge that they had very different interpretations of the terms of the agreement, leading to its collapse.After subsequent negotiations to revive an agreement on the tax and gun charges foundered, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland elevated Mr. Weiss to the status of special counsel, giving him more flexibility in pursuing the tax charges and the freedom to continue investigating other elements of the case.Under the original deal, Mr. Biden had agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and to settle the gun investigation without being charged.Despite the collapse of the agreement, Mr. Lowell said that his client had been abiding by the terms of the original deal “for the last several weeks” and had been making regular visits to his court-assigned probation officer.Mr. Lowell suggested that he was continuing to pursue a “fair” deal with Mr. Weiss, not subject to “outside political pressure.”Mr. Weiss is the third special counsel appointed since Mr. Garland took office in March 2021, joining Jack Smith, who is overseeing the investigations of Mr. Trump, and Robert K. Hur, who is examining President Biden’s retention of sensitive documents from his tenure as vice president.The gun charge stems from Hunter Biden’s response of “no” on a federal form he filled out as part of the purchase of a handgun when asked whether he was an “unlawful user” of drugs. At the time, Mr. Biden, who had been addicted to crack cocaine, was struggling to remain sober.Such federal prosecutions are relatively rare, and seldom pursued as stand-alone charges. Officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responsible for reviewing Mr. Biden’s file were skeptical of bringing charges against him, especially considering that he had sought treatment and had no prior criminal history, according to another person with knowledge of the situation. (The widow of his brother, Beau, later found the gun and threw it in a dumpster.)Another factor that could complicate the government’s case: Last year’s Supreme Court ruling that gave people a broad right to carry guns outside the home. Mr. Biden’s lawyers have argued that recent lawsuits challenging federal regulations, including the drug use restriction, could render a prosecution of Mr. Biden moot. More

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      Biden Team Isn’t Waiting for Impeachment to Go on the Offensive

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      The White House has enlisted two dozen attorneys, legislative liaisons and others to craft strategies in the face of Republican threats to charge the president with high crimes and misdemeanors.Just before 8 p.m. on Thursday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a video of herself at a town hall in her Georgia district declaring that she “will not vote to fund the government” unless the House holds a vote to open an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.It took just 68 minutes for the White House to fire back with a blistering statement that such a vote would mean that House Republicans had “caved to the hard-core fringe of their party in prioritizing a baseless impeachment stunt over high-stakes needs Americans care about deeply” like drug enforcement and disaster relief.The White House, as it turns out, is not waiting for a formal inquiry to wage war against impeachment. With a team of two dozen attorneys, legislative liaisons, communications specialists and others, the president has begun moving to counter any effort to charge him with high crimes and misdemeanors with a best-defense-is-a-good-offense campaign aimed at dividing Republicans and taking his case to the public.The president’s team has been mapping out messaging, legal and parliamentary strategies for different scenarios. Officials have been reading books about past impeachments, studying law journal articles and pulling up old court decisions. They have even dug out correspondence between previous presidential advisers and congressional investigators to determine what standards and precedents have been established.At the same time, recognizing that any impeachment fight would be a political showdown heading into an election season, outside allies have been going after Republicans like Ms. Greene and Speaker Kevin McCarthy. A group called the Congressional Integrity Project has been collecting polling data, blitzing out statements, fact sheets and memos and producing ads targeting 18 House Republicans representing districts that voted for Mr. Biden in 2020.“As the Republicans ramp up their impeachment efforts, they’re certainly making this a political exercise and we’re responding in kind,” said Kyle Herrig, the executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project. “This is a moment of offense for Democrats. They have no basis for impeachment. They have no evidence. They have nothing.”The White House preparations do not indicate that Mr. Biden’s advisers believe an impeachment inquiry is inevitable. But advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal thinking said that it was important to take on the prospect aggressively and expressed hope that the situation could be turned to their advantage.Republican congressional investigations have turned up evidence that Hunter Biden traded on his family name to generate multimillion-dollar deals and a former partner, Devon Archer, testified that Mr. Biden would put his father on speakerphone with potential business clients to impress them.Republican congressional investigations have turned up evidence that Hunter Biden traded on his family name to generate multimillion-dollar deals.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut Mr. Archer testified that the elder Biden only engaged in idle chitchat during such calls, not business, and no evidence has emerged that the president directly profited from his son’s deals or used his power inappropriately while vice president to benefit his son’s financial interests.Republicans have not identified any specific impeachable offenses and some have privately made clear they do not see any at the moment. The momentum toward an impeachment inquiry appears driven in large part by opposition to Mr. Biden’s policies and is fueled by former President Donald J. Trump, who is eager to tarnish his potential rival in next year’s election and openly frames the issue as a matter of revenge. “Either IMPEACH the BUM, or fade into OBLIVION,” he demanded of Republicans on his social media site this past week. “THEY DID IT TO US!”That stands in sharp contrast to other modern impeachment efforts. When impeachment inquiries were initiated against Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Bill Clinton and Mr. Trump, there were clear allegations of specific misconduct, whether or not they necessarily warranted removal from office. In Mr. Biden’s case, it is not clear what actions he has taken that would be defined as a high crime or misdemeanor.Mr. McCarthy, the California Republican, cited “a culture of corruption” within the Biden family in explaining on Fox News last weekend why he might push ahead with an impeachment inquiry. “If you look at all the information we’ve been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry,” he said.Even if Republican investigators turned up evidence that Mr. Biden had done something as vice president to help his son’s business, it would be the first time a president was targeted for impeachment for actions taken before he became president, raising novel constitutional issues.For now, though, it is hardly certain that Republicans would authorize an inquiry. Mr. McCarthy told Breitbart News on Friday that if they pursued such an inquiry, “it would occur through a vote on the floor,” not through a decree by him, and veteran strategists in both parties doubt he could muster the 218 votes needed to proceed.The speaker’s flirtation with holding such a vote may be simply a way of catering to Ms. Greene and others on his right flank. He has used the thirst to investigate Mr. Biden as an argument against a government shutdown, suggesting that a budgetary impasse would stall House inquiries.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has vowed to oppose funding the government unless the House holds a vote to open an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesBut some Republicans have warned that a formal impeachment drive could be a mistake. Representative Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado, has said that “impeachment theater” was a distraction from spending issues and that it was not “responsible for us to talk about impeachment.” Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, said impeachment could “unleash an internal Republican civil war” and if unsuccessful lead to “the worst, biggest backfire for Republicans.”The White House has been building its team to defend against Republican congressional investigations for more than a year, a team now bracing for a possible impeachment inquiry. Richard Sauber, a former federal prosecutor, was appointed special counsel in the spring of last year, and Ian Sams, a longtime Democratic communications specialist, was brought on as spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office. Russell Anello, the top Democratic staff member for the House Oversight Committee, joined last year as well.After Republicans won control of the House in the November midterm elections, more people were added to handle the multitude of congressional investigations. Stuart Delery, the White House counsel who is stepping down this month, will be replaced by Ed Siskel, who handled Republican investigations into issues like the Benghazi terror attack for President Barack Obama’s White House.A critical adviser for Mr. Biden will be his personal attorney, Bob Bauer, one of the most veteran figures in Washington’s legal-political wars. As a private lawyer, he advised the House Democratic leader during Mr. Clinton’s impeachment and then the Senate Democratic leader during the subsequent trial, helping to shape strategies that kept Democrats largely unified behind their president.Mr. Biden himself has seen four impeachment efforts up close during his long career in Washington. He was a first-term senator when Mr. Nixon resigned rather than face a seemingly certain Senate trial in 1974 and a fifth-term senator when he voted to acquit Mr. Clinton in 1999. It was Mr. Biden that Mr. Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating, leading to the former president’s first impeachment in 2019. And it was Mr. Biden’s victory in 2020 that Mr. Trump tried to overturn with the help of a mob that attacked Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, leading to a second impeachment.The Clinton impeachment battle has provided some lessons for the Biden team, although the circumstances are significantly different and the political environment has shifted dramatically in the 25 years since then. Much as the Clinton White House did, the Biden White House has tried to separate its defense against Republican investigators from the day-to-day operations of the building, assigning Mr. Sams to respond mostly off camera to issues arising from the investigations rather than Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, during her televised briefings.As in the late 1990s, the strategy now is to paint Republicans as rabid partisans only interested in attacking the president of the other party out of political or ideological motives in contrast to a commander in chief focused on issues of importance to everyday voters, like health care and the economy.The approach worked for Mr. Clinton, whose approval ratings shot up to their highest levels of his two terms, surpassing 70 percent, when he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice. Mr. Biden’s approval ratings remain mired in the low 40s, but advisers think a serious impeachment threat would rally disaffected supporters.Mr. Herrig’s Congressional Integrity Project, founded after last year’s midterm elections, hopes to turn the Republican impeachment drive against them. His group’s board chairman, Jeff Peck, is a longtime Biden ally, and it recently hired Kate Berner, the former White House deputy communications director.The group has teams in New York and California and plans to expand to other battleground districts. “This is a political loser for vulnerable Republicans,” Mr. Herrig said. “McCarthy’s doing the bidding of Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene and putting his majority at risk.” More

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      Trump señala a Hunter Biden por sus negocios. Sobre su familia, no habla

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      El expresidente ha arremetido contra Joe Biden por los negocios de su hijo en el exterior, a pesar de que la familia Trump hace muchos tratos de ese tipo.Tras su cuarta acusación formal, que eleva a 91 el total de cargos en su contra por delitos graves, el expresidente Donald Trump publicó en línea la semana pasada un video en el que tilda de delincuentes al presidente Joe Biden y su familia.“La familia de delincuentes Biden”, según él, recibió millones de dólares de países extranjeros. “Creo que tenemos un presidente que es vulnerable”, señaló Trump, y añadió: “Es un pelele. Por eso el corrupto Joe deja que otros países pisoteen a Estados Unidos”.Para Trump, la indignación es selectiva cuando se trata de familias presidenciales que reciben millones de dólares de países extranjeros. Durante sus cuatro años en la Casa Blanca y los más de dos años y medio que han pasado desde entonces, Trump y sus familiares han recibido dinero de todo el planeta en cantidades muy superiores a las que, según se ha informado, recibió Hunter Biden, el hijo del presidente.A diferencia de otros presidentes modernos, Trump nunca renunció al control sobre sus extensos negocios con intereses en múltiples países y tampoco dejó de hacer tratos en el extranjero, incluso durante su mandato como presidente. Ganó dinero y promovió con total descaro su empresa familiar, ignorando todo tipo de normas. Por ejemplo, el hotel de lujo que abrió muy cerca de la Casa Blanca se convirtió en el destino preferido de grupos de cabildeo, negociadores y gobiernos extranjeros, incluidos los de Arabia Saudita, Kuwait y Baréin, que gastaron a manos llenas en hospedaje, galas y otros eventos.Además, Trump permitió que su familia ocupara puestos en el gobierno sin ninguna división clara con sus intereses privados. A diferencia de Hunter Biden, tanto la hija de Trump, Ivanka Trump, como su yerno, Jared Kushner, formaron parte del personal de la Casa Blanca, donde podían definir políticas decisivas para las empresas del extranjero.Kushner estuvo muy involucrado en la definición de la estrategia gubernamental para Medio Oriente y estableció múltiples contactos en la región. Después de salir de la Casa Blanca, Kushner fundó una firma de capital de inversión con 2000 millones de dólares en fondos de Arabia Saudita y cientos de millones más de otros países árabes para los que las políticas estadounidenses fueron ventajosas, y a los que les conviene que Trump regrese a la presidencia.“Los enredos comerciales de la familia Trump en el extranjero fueron mucho más numerosos e involucraron decenas de conflictos con empresas foráneas”, señaló Norman Eisen, abogado que objetó ante tribunales, sin éxito, la costumbre del exmandatario de aceptar dinero del extranjero durante su mandato.Estos enredos “implicaban a gente como Jared e Ivanka, que sí trabajaban en el gobierno; Hunter, en cambio, nunca fue empleado gubernamental”, añadió Eisen. “De hecho, el mismo Trump se benefició abiertamente, mientras que no hay ni la más mínima prueba de que Biden se haya beneficiado nunca”.Los negocios de Hunter Biden generaron inquietudes debido a que, tanto en testimonios como en noticias, se dio a entender que aprovechó su apellido para concretar acuerdos lucrativos. Un antiguo socio comercial les comentó a investigadores del Congreso que el joven Biden aprovechaba “la ilusión de acceso a su padre” para conseguir posibles socios.Jared Kushner, yerno del expresidente, creó una empresa de capital riesgo con 2000 millones de dólares en fondos procedentes de Arabia Saudita.Tamir Kalifa para The New York TimesNo se ha presentado ninguna prueba real de que Joe Biden, mientras fue vicepresidente, haya participado en esos negocios o se haya beneficiado, ni de que haya aprovechado su cargo para favorecer a los socios de su hijo.No obstante, aunque Biden afirma haberse mantenido distanciado de las actividades de su hijo, sus afirmaciones se han visto socavadas porque, según algunas declaraciones, Hunter puso a su padre en el altavoz durante conversaciones con socios internacionales de negocios; el futuro presidente hablaba sobre temas informales como el clima, no de negocios, según las declaraciones, pero al parecer el objetivo era impresionar a los colaboradores de Hunter.Por lo regular, todo esto originaría algún tipo de escrutinio en Washington, donde los familiares de los presidentes desde hace tiempo han aprovechado su posición para ganar dinero. La fama y el acceso al poder valen mucho en la capital de la nación, así que un familiar que frecuenta Camp David, tiene un buen asiento en una cena oficial o vuela en el Air Force One tiene garantizado que le regresen las llamadas. Esta tradición ha enfadado a muchos estadounidenses, e incluso los demócratas expresan en privado su desagrado por las actividades de Hunter Biden.“Si hizo negocios gracias a la influencia de su padre, debería rendir cuentas por eso”, dijo hace poco el representante Jim Himes, demócrata de Connecticut, en MSNBC. “Y lo enfatizo porque nunca nadie ha escuchado a un republicano decir lo mismo sobre Donald Trump o su familia”.Los republicanos que investigan a la familia Biden señalan que ganaron más de 20 millones de dólares de fuentes extranjeras en China y Ucrania, entre otros lugares, pero un análisis de memorandos del Congreso efectuado por el Washington Post indicó que la mayoría del dinero lo recibieron sus socios de negocios y la familia Biden solo obtuvo siete millones de dólares, principalmente Hunter.“Lo que tienen en común Hunter y Jared es que son hijos bien educados de personas prominentes, además de que sus relaciones familiares sin duda les ayudaron en los negocios”, explicó Don Fox, antiguo abogado general de la Oficina de Ética del Gobierno de Estados Unidos. “Pero las similitudes no pasan de ahí”.“Hunter nunca ha ocupado un cargo en el gobierno y realizó gran parte de su trabajo relacionado con Ucrania cuando su padre no estaba en el poder”, prosiguió Fox. La cantidad de dinero que Kushner podría ganar gracias a los fondos que invirtieron los sauditas, añadió, “eclipsa lo que cualquiera le haya pagado a Hunter”.La analogía con Hunter Biden irrita a Kushner, que ya tenía una larga trayectoria en los negocios antes de trabajar en el gobierno y se enorgullece de haber negociado los Acuerdos de Abraham, los convenios diplomáticos que normalizaron las relaciones entre Israel y varios de sus vecinos árabes.Algunas personas de su círculo cercano afirman que la inversión de los sauditas y otros árabes se debe a que confían en que puede ayudarles a ganar dinero, no a que estén agradecidos por las políticas que impulsó. Además, resaltaron que el gobierno de Biden no ha dado marcha atrás a esas políticas, sino que ha tratado de lograr más avances a partir de los Acuerdos de Abraham.“No existe ninguna comparación de hecho entre Hunter y Jared”, indicó un representante de Kushner en un comunicado. “Jared ya era un empresario exitoso antes de incursionar en la política, logró concretar acuerdos de paz y de comercio históricos y, al igual que muchos antes que él, regresó a los negocios después de prestar sus servicios gratuitamente en la Casa Blanca, donde cumplió por completo con las normas de la Oficina de Ética del Gobierno”.Chad Mizelle, director legal de Affinity Partners, la empresa de Kushner, señaló en un comunicado: “Fuera de la política partidista, nadie ha identificado nunca algún lineamiento específico, legal o ético, que Jared o Affinity hayan contravenido”.Uno de los contados republicanos que han criticado la forma en que la familia Trump combinó el servicio en el gobierno con los negocios en el extranjero es Chris Christie, antiguo gobernador de Nueva Jersey que compite con el expresidente por la nominación republicana. “La familia Trump ha estado involucrada en actividades fraudulentas desde hace algún tiempo”, aseveró en CNN en junio.Christie, que como fiscal de Estados Unidos procesó al padre de Kushner, señaló los negocios del yerno del expresidente.“Jared Kushner, seis meses después de abandonar la Casa Blanca, obtiene 2000 millones de dólares del fondo soberano saudita”, dijo. “¿Qué estaba haciendo Jared Kushner en Oriente Medio? Teníamos a Rex Tillerson y Mike Pompeo como secretarios de Estado. No necesitábamos a Jared Kushner. Lo pusieron ahí para hacer esas relaciones, y luego las aprovechó cuando dejó el cargo”.Durante su tiempo en la Casa Blanca, Kushner reafirmó las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y Arabia Saudita y convenció a su suegro de que el reino fuera su primer destino en el extranjero como presidente, ayudó a negociar miles de millones de dólares en ventas de armas y forjó una relación estrecha con el príncipe heredero Mohamed bin Salmán.Kushner defendió al príncipe heredero Mohamed después de que los agentes sauditas asesinaron a Jamal Khashoggi, columnista de The Washington Post y residente en Estados Unidos. La CIA concluyó que el príncipe heredero Mohamed ordenó el asesinato en 2018. En 2021, el fondo soberano del príncipe heredero Mohamed aprobó la inversión de 2000 millones de dólares en la nueva firma de Kushner, a pesar de las objeciones de los propios asesores del fondo.El representante James Comer, republicano por Kentucky y presidente del Comité de Supervisión de la Cámara de Representantes que está investigando a los Biden, reconoció tener preocupaciones por el acuerdo saudita de Kushner.“Creo que lo que hizo Kushner cruzó la línea de la ética”, dijo Comer cuando se lo preguntó Jake Tapper de CNN a principios de este mes. “Lo que dijo Christie, sucedió después de que dejó el cargo. Igual, no hay excusa, Jake. Pero ocurrió después de que dejara el cargo. Y Jared Kushner en realidad tiene un negocio legítimo. Este dinero de los Biden ocurrió mientras Joe Biden era vicepresidente, mientras volaba a esos países”.Trump ha atacado al presidente Biden por los negocios de su hijo, Hunter Biden, en el extranjero.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesDe hecho, como indican los informes del comité de Comer, parte del dinero de Hunter Biden en el extranjero llegó mientras su padre era vicepresidente, pero una parte significativa llegó después.Los portavoces de Comer y Trump no respondieron a las peticiones de comentarios.Trump nunca ha rehuido el dinero del extranjero. Incluso cuando era candidato en 2016, trató de concretar en secreto un convenio para construir una Torre Trump en Moscú hasta después de haber obtenido la nominación republicana. Uno de sus abogados se comunicó con el Kremlin para lograr que apoyaran el proyecto, el mismo Kremlin con el que interactuó Trump unos meses más tarde en carácter de presidente.Para calmar las inquietudes en torno a sus intereses financieros fuera del país, Trump prometió no emprender nuevos negocios en el extranjero mientras ocupara la presidencia. Pero no renunció a los numerosos proyectos que ya tenía en otros países y que le generaban dinero, y su empresa, la Organización Trump, cuyos directores formales son sus hijos Donald Trump Jr. y Eric Trump, tampoco dejó de ampliar sus operaciones en el extranjero.Durante los cuatro años de Trump en la Casa Blanca, la Organización Trump recibió la aprobación de 66 marcas comerciales en el extranjero, según un informe de la organización Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics en Washington, la mayoría de ellas de China y otras de Argentina, Brasil, Canadá, Perú, Filipinas, Indonesia, México, Emiratos Árabes Unidos y la Unión Europea.Las empresas extranjeras fueron buenos clientes de Trump. Mientras estuvo en el cargo, 145 funcionarios extranjeros de 75 gobiernos visitaron inmuebles de Trump y gobiernos extranjeros o grupos afiliados a ellos organizaron 13 eventos en sus hoteles y resorts, según el informe del grupo defensor de la ética.Aunque Trump describió en el video de la semana pasada a Biden como marioneta de los chinos y agregó la falsedad de que “China le ha pagado una fortuna”, su propia familia ha tenido relaciones significativas con Pekín. Además de las marcas comerciales mencionadas, Forbes calculó que un negocio de Trump durante su presidencia recaudó por lo menos 5,4 millones de dólares por concepto de renta del Banco Industrial y Comercial de China, controlado por el gobierno.La familia de Kushner negoció con firmas chinas y cataríes el rescate de la torre ubicada en el número 666 de la Quinta Avenida en la ciudad de Nueva York, que estaba sumida en deudas, y al final se concretó un contrato de arrendamiento de 1100 millones de dólares con una empresa estadounidense que tenía entre sus inversionistas al fondo soberano de Catar (para entonces, Kushner había vendido la parte de la torre que era de su propiedad a un fideicomiso familiar del que no era beneficiario, y las personas involucradas en el acuerdo indicaron que los cataríes no supieron nada de ese acuerdo con anterioridad).Por su parte, cuando se integró al personal de la Casa Blanca, Ivanka Trump conservó en un principio su línea de ropa y accesorios y recibió autorización para 16 marcas comerciales de China en 2018; más adelante, decidió suspender las operaciones del negocio.Aunque Eisen y otros promovieron demandas por violaciones a la cláusula de emolumentos de la Constitución, ninguna autoridad ha declarado ilícita alguna de las operaciones comerciales de la familia Trump en el extranjero. Tampoco ha sido así en el caso de Hunter Biden.Pero, según Donald Trump, un negocio es suficiente para comprometer a un presidente y del otro no hay que hablar.Peter Baker es el corresponsal jefe de la Casa Blanca y ha cubierto a los últimos cinco presidentes estadounidenses para el Times y The Washington Post. Es autor de siete libros, el más reciente The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, con Susan Glasser. Más de Peter Baker More

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      Trump Condemns Hunter Biden’s Foreign Business. He’s Quiet on His Own.

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      Donald J. Trump has berated Joseph R. Biden Jr. for his son’s overseas deal making, despite plenty of overseas deal making by the Trump family.After his fourth indictment, bringing his total count of felony charges to 91, former President Donald J. Trump last week posted a video online accusing President Biden and his family of being criminals.“The Biden crime family,” he claimed, had received millions of dollars from foreign countries. “I believe we have a compromised president,” Mr. Trump said, adding: “He’s a Manchurian candidate. That’s why Crooked Joe is letting other countries walk all over the United States.”For Mr. Trump, outrage is a selective commodity when it comes to presidential families taking millions of dollars from foreign countries. During his four years in the White House and in the more than two and a half years since, Mr. Trump and his relatives have been on the receiving end of money from around the globe in sums far greater than anything Hunter Biden, the president’s son, reportedly collected.Unlike other modern presidents, Mr. Trump never gave up control of his sprawling business with its interests in multiple countries, nor did he forswear foreign business even as president. He shattered norms in his money making and unabashed boosting of his family’s company. The luxury hotel he opened down the street from the White House, for example, became the favored destination for lobbyists, dealmakers and foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, which paid handsomely for accommodations, galas and more.Mr. Trump also permitted his family to take positions in government that blurred the lines when it came to their private interests. Unlike Hunter Biden, Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner both served on the White House staff, where they could shape policies of concern to overseas businesses.Mr. Kushner was heavily involved in setting the administration’s approach to the Middle East and made multiple contacts in the region. After turning in his White House badge, Mr. Kushner started a private equity firm with $2 billion in funds from Saudi Arabia and hundreds of millions more from other Arab countries that stood to benefit from U.S. policies and have an interest in a possible second Trump administration.“The Trump family foreign commercial entanglements were far more numerous, involving dozens of foreign business conflicts,” said Norman Eisen, a lawyer who led unsuccessful court challenges to the former president’s practice of taking foreign money while in office.The entanglements “implicated those like Jared and Ivanka who were actually working in government, whereas Hunter never did,” Mr. Eisen added. “Indeed, Trump himself openly benefited, whereas there’s not a shred of evidence that Biden the elder ever did.”Hunter Biden’s business dealings have raised concerns because testimony and reports have indicated that he traded on his family name to generate lucrative deals. A former business partner has told congressional investigators that the younger Biden parlayed “the illusion of access to his father” to win over potential partners.Jared Kushner, the former president’s son-in-law, started a private equity firm with $2 billion in funds from Saudi Arabia.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesNo hard evidence has emerged that Mr. Biden, while vice president, personally participated in or profited from the business deals or used his office to benefit his son’s partners.But Mr. Biden’s statements distancing himself from his son’s activities have been undercut by testimony indicating that Hunter put his father on speakerphone with international business associates; the future president talked about casual things like the weather, not business, according to testimony, but it seemed intended to impress Hunter’s associates.All of which would typically generate scrutiny in Washington, where relatives of presidents have long taken advantage of their positions to make money. Access and celebrity are coins of the realm in the nation’s capital, and a relative who frequents Camp David, enjoys a good seat at a state dinner or rides Air Force One can get phone calls returned. This tradition has turned off many Americans, and even Democrats privately voice discomfort at Hunter Biden’s activities.“If he traded on his father’s influence, he should be held accountable for that,” Representative Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, said on MSNBC recently. “And I’m emphasizing this because you never, ever heard a Republican say the same thing about Donald Trump or his family.”Republicans investigating the Bidens say they made more than $20 million from foreign sources in China, Ukraine and elsewhere, but a Washington Post analysis of congressional memos indicated that most of the money went to business associates, with $7 million going to the Bidens themselves, mainly Hunter.“What both Hunter and Jared have in common is that they are the well-educated sons of prominent people, and that their familial ties certainly helped them in business,” said Don Fox, a former general counsel of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. “That is where the similarities end.”“Hunter never held public office, and a fair amount of his work involving Ukraine occurred when his father was out of office,” Mr. Fox continued. The amount of money that Mr. Kushner could earn from the funds invested by the Saudis, he added, “dwarfs what anyone ever paid Hunter.”The analogy to Hunter Biden rankles Mr. Kushner, who had a long track record in business before joining government and takes pride in negotiating the Abraham Accords, the diplomatic agreements normalizing relations between Israel and several Arab neighbors.People close to him argue that the investments from the Saudis and other Arabs were based on trust that he could make money for them, not out of gratitude for policies he promoted. And they noted that the Biden administration has not reversed those policies but instead sought to build on the Abraham Accords.“There is no factual comparison between Hunter and Jared,” a representative for Mr. Kushner said in a statement. “Jared was a successful businessman before entering politics, achieved historic peace and trade agreements, and like many before him, he re-entered business after serving for free in the White House, where he fully complied with the Office of Government Ethics rules.”Chad Mizelle, the chief legal officer for Affinity Partners, Mr. Kushner’s firm, said in a statement: “Partisan politics aside, no one has ever pointed to a specific legal or ethical guideline that Jared or Affinity has violated.”One of the few Republicans to criticize the Trump family’s blending of government service and foreign business has been Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor running against the former president for next year’s Republican nomination. “The Trump family have been involved in grifting for quite some time,” he said on CNN in June.Mr. Christie, who as a U.S. attorney prosecuted Mr. Kushner’s father, singled out the business dealings of the former president’s son-in-law.“Jared Kushner, six months after he leaves the White House, gets $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund,” he said. “What was Jared Kushner doing in the Middle East? We had Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo as secretaries of state. We didn’t need Jared Kushner. He was put there to make those relationships, and then he cashed in on those relationships when he left the office.”While in the White House, Mr. Kushner bolstered ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia, convincing his father-in-law to make the kingdom his first foreign destination as president, helping broker billions of dollars in arms sales and forging a close relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.Mr. Kushner defended Prince Mohammed after Saudi operatives murdered Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Post and United States resident. The C.I.A. concluded that Prince Mohammed ordered the 2018 killing. In 2021, Prince Mohammed’s sovereign wealth fund approved the $2 billion investment in Mr. Kushner’s new firm despite objections from the fund’s own advisers.Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the House Oversight Committee that is investigating the Bidens, acknowledged concerns with Mr. Kushner’s Saudi deal.“I think that what Kushner did crossed the line of ethics,” Mr. Comer said when asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper earlier this month. “What Christie said, it happened after he left office. Still no excuse, Jake. But it happened after he left office. And Jared Kushner actually has a legitimate business. This money from the Bidens happened while Joe Biden was vice president, while he was flying to those countries.”Mr. Trump has attacked President Biden for his son Hunter Biden’s overseas deal making.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesIn fact, as Mr. Comer’s committee reports indicate, some of Hunter Biden’s overseas money came while his father was vice president, but a significant share came afterward.Spokesmen for Mr. Comer and Mr. Trump did not respond to requests for comment.Mr. Trump has never been allergic to foreign money. Even as a candidate in 2016, he secretly pursued a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow until after he had effectively secured the Republican nomination. One of his lawyers reached out to the Kremlin for support for the project, the same Kremlin that Mr. Trump would interact with a few months later as president.To address concerns about foreign financial interests, Mr. Trump promised not to pursue new business overseas while in office, but he did not give up his many existing moneymaking ventures in other countries and his company, formally run by his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, continued to expand operations abroad.During Mr. Trump’s four years in the White House, the Trump Organization received 66 foreign trademarks, according to a report by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, with most of them coming from China but others from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Peru, the Philippines, Indonesia, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and the European Union.Foreign entities were good customers for Mr. Trump. While in office, 145 foreign officials from 75 governments visited Trump properties and foreign governments or affiliated groups hosted 13 events at his hotels and resorts, according to the ethics group report.While Mr. Trump in last week’s video described Mr. Biden as a puppet of the Chinese, falsely claiming that “China has paid him a fortune,” his own family has had significant financial ties to Beijing. Beyond the trademarks, Forbes calculated that a Trump business during his presidency collected at least $5.4 million in rent from the state-controlled Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.Mr. Kushner’s family negotiated with Chinese and Qatari entities to rescue its debt-saddled Manhattan tower at 666 Fifth Avenue, eventually brokering a $1.1 billion lease deal with an American company whose investors included Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. (By that time, Mr. Kushner had sold his share of the tower to a family trust of which he was not a beneficiary, and people involved in the deal said the Qataris did not know about the deal before it was made.)Ivanka Trump, for her part, initially kept her own clothing and accessories line while serving on the White House staff and received approval for 16 trademarks from China in 2018 before later deciding to shut down the business.Despite lawsuits by Mr. Eisen and others alleging violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, none of the Trump family’s overseas deal making was ever determined to be illegal by any authority. Nor has any of Hunter Biden’s.But in Mr. Trump’s telling, one is enough to compromise a president and the other is not something to talk about. More

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      Democrats Root for a Rowdy G.O.P. Debate

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      Top Democrats, suddenly feeling a bit better about 2024, would love to see Republicans talk about a national abortion ban. They’re less excited about the inevitable Hunter Biden tirades.After a year of fretting about President Biden’s political standing and their electoral chances in 2024, Democrats are at a moment of high confidence as Republicans prepare for their first presidential debate on Wednesday.They will be watching with bated breath in hopes that the Republican candidates embrace the likely-to-be-absent Donald J. Trump, defend him over his four criminal indictments, endorse national restrictions on abortion and — in the Democrats’ dream scenario — call for cuts to Social Security and Medicare.Even without Mr. Trump onstage, Democrats see the Republican White House hopefuls as avatars for what they describe as a party in thrall to its extreme elements. Nobody is rooting for the debate to go off the rails more than Democrats praying for Mr. Biden’s re-election.“All I want these people to do is say the same stuff they’ve been saying on the campaign trail on national TV,” said Jim Messina, the campaign manager for President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election bid. “Please continue to double down on a six-week abortion ban. That would be wonderful. Thank you for doing this.”Mr. Biden probably won’t watch the debate, a spokesman said, but odds are that his compatriots will. Here’s what Democrats are looking for from the Republicans on the debate stage in Milwaukee.Will they rally around a national abortion ban?Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, Democrats have used the abortion issue to turbocharge their voters — particularly in red and purple states like Kansas, Wisconsin and, this month, Ohio.Nothing would make Democrats happier than to see Republicans embrace a national ban on abortion during a nationally televised debate. When Mr. Trump held a CNN town hall event in May, the moment that had Democrats doing cartwheels afterward was not his continued denial of the 2020 election results, but when he took a victory lap for the Supreme Court’s decision.“I’d like to see a huge defense of President Trump and a full-on assault on reproductive freedom and abortion,” said Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat. “To me, that would be a gift that would keep on giving.”In reality, many of the Republican candidates have tended to be more cagey about the issue.Mr. Trump, at the CNN event, declined to call for a national abortion ban, and Gov. Ron DeSantis has also treaded carefully despite signing a six-week prohibition into law in Florida this year. But avoiding the subject may be tricky given former Vice President Mike Pence’s enthusiastic support for limiting abortion rights.How much do Republicans cozy up to Trump?Mr. Trump probably won’t be at the debate, but Democrats expect nearly all of the candidates onstage to make explicit plays for his share of the Republican base — a move Democrats hope will focus attention on their own efforts to brand the entire G.O.P. as the party of MAGA.“It doesn’t matter who ‘wins’ the debate on Wednesday, the MAGA Republican presidential candidates have all chosen a losing strategy that is extreme and out of touch with the American people,” Michael Tyler, the communications director for Mr. Biden’s campaign, wrote in memo to supporters on Friday.Mr. Biden has for months been on a mission to paint all Republicans as marching in lock step with Mr. Trump’s most loyal, hard-right supporters. On Wednesday, Democrats are hoping to see Republicans engaged in stylistic efforts to attract Trump voters.“I’m a wrestling fan,” said Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “I’m imagining a royal rumble on the debate stage, sort of a rehash of the debates in 2016 where they’re talking about each other’s mamas and all kinds of craziness.”But one lesson that has been abundantly clear in the Trump era of politics is that no other Republican can get away with the type of outrage and public shamelessness that Mr. Trump regularly evinces.Mr. DeSantis’s efforts to be a drama-free, more competent version of Mr. Trump have flopped so far. Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech executive who has sought to portray himself as a millennial version of Trump, has risen in early polling but remains largely unknown.Will the Trump indictments be a focus?The biggest story about Mr. Trump is the one Mr. Biden won’t talk about — the four criminal indictments the former president is facing.The problem for the Republicans running against Mr. Trump is that many of their voters agree with his belief that the cases against him are politically motivated.Democrats on the sidelines have been left waiting, to little avail, for Mr. Trump’s G.O.P. rivals to make a case to their voters that the legal problems are politically disqualifying.“Normally candidates would be more than happy to point out if their opponent has been indicted four times!” Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota wrote in a text message. “They ARE running against him after all.”That plea is unlikely to get much airtime on Wednesday. Of the candidates onstage, only former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey — who is running an anti-Trump campaign that has won him new respect from Democrats — has made an explicit case that Mr. Trump’s indictments have merit and are bad for the party.What about Hunter Biden?One thing the Republican candidates are all but certain to do is equate Mr. Trump’s legal problems with those of Hunter Biden, the president’s son, who is facing his own special counsel investigation after a plea agreement on tax and gun charges fell apart last month.Democrats aren’t exactly popping popcorn for this scenario — it is an intensely painful episode for the president, and the prospect of a criminal trial isn’t appealing to them — but they are confident that any detour down a Hunter Biden rabbit hole will take emphasis away from issues that moderate and independent voters care about.“If Republicans want to make this election about attacks on the president’s family, it’s a losing strategy,” said Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat. “It would be a mistake for them to make that an issue.”Democrats hope to dispel with the fiction that it won’t be Trump.Democrats widely view Mr. Trump as the easiest Republican candidate to defeat next year. Mr. Biden beat him once already, they reason, and Mr. Trump’s cascading legal problems and singular ability to repel moderate Republicans and swing voters make him the one they’d like to face.Mr. Trump’s dominance in polls of the Republican primary and the reluctance of most of his G.O.P. rivals to attack him have led most Democrats to conclude that Wednesday’s debate, along with much of the primary, are an academic exercise being held before next year’s Trump-Biden rematch.“I was just going to watch it for comic relief,” said Representative Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat. “This is done. We are going to have Trump versus Biden 2.0. That’s what’s about to happen. Anyone who is kidding themselves into believing that they have a shot is just delusional.”And for the cast of candidates who barely qualified for the Republican stage, hoping that a standout debate performance would propel them to relevance — a TV show, a future cabinet post or maybe a campaign for some other office — a former presidential long shot had a piece of advice.“Learn how to count to 200,” said Representative Eric Swalwell of California, who, many people may have forgotten, ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. “Because that’s about the amount of seconds that you’re going to have to speak.” More