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      Democrats, It’s OK to Talk About Hunter Biden

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      If you travel in predominantly Democratic circles and want to have a really trying day, write or publicly say something unflattering but true about President Biden, a lament legible or audible beyond people who can be safely depended on to vote for him. Then brace for the furies.Observe that it’s one thing — a noble, beautiful thing — for him to give steadfast support and unconditional love to his profoundly troubled son, but that it’s another for that son to attend a state dinner days after he had cut a deal with federal prosecutors on tax and gun charges. Many of your liberal acquaintances will shush and shame you: Speak no ill of Joe Biden! That’s an unaffordable luxury. You’re playing into his MAGA adversaries’ hands.Note that Biden seems less physically peppy and verbally precise than in years past and suggest that it might be best, for him and for continued Democratic control of the White House, if he let Democrats choose a different 2024 nominee. You’ll be likened to an anchor for Fox News. You’ll be chided for age discrimination. Never mind that you’re examining his behavior, not the year on his birth certificate. You’re being counterproductive.You’ll be asked: What do Hunter Biden and diminished vim matter next to the menace of Donald Trump and a Republican Party in his lawless, nihilistic thrall? That’s a fair question — to a point. But past that point, it’s dishonest and dangerous.Dishonest because the question is often leveled at essentially Biden-friendly observers who have lavished, oh, 100 times as many words on Trump’s epic moral corruption as on Biden’s blind spots and missteps, creating zero impression of any equivalence.Dangerous because it suggests that Americans can’t be trusted to behold politicians in their full complexity — and reality in all its messiness — and distinguish unideal from unconscionable, scattered flaws from through-and-through fraudulence. I don’t see how that’s consonant with the exaltation and preservation of democracy, in which it exhibits scant trust.It also plays into the portrait of Democrats as elitists who decide what people should and shouldn’t be exposed to — what they can and can’t handle. How’s that a winning look?I believe that a victory by Trump in 2024 would be devastating beyond measure for the United States. I believe that a victory by any Republican who has indulged, parroted or promoted Trump’s fictions and assaults on democratic norms would also be a disaster. His abettors have shown their colors and disqualified themselves. And I’ve said that — and will continue to say that — repeatedly.I also believe that Biden has been a good president at a very difficult time, and that even if he’s not near peak vigor, we’d be much, much better served by the renewal of his White House lease than by a new tenant in the form of Trump or one of his de facto accomplices. Biden’s second term, like his first, would be about more than the man himself. It would be about a whole team, a set of principles, a fundamental decency, a thread of continuity, an investment in important institutions.And I believe that there’s more than ample room in all the above to talk about whether Biden is the strongest of the possible Democratic contenders to take on Trump, Ron DeSantis or whomever — although that particular conversation may soon be moot, given the ever-shrinking amount of time for those contenders to put together campaigns and for Democratic voters to assess them.Likewise, it’s possible — no, necessary — to have nuanced conversations about Biden’s and his administration’s mix of virtues and vices. If a big part of the horror of Trump is his estrangement from and perversion of truth, how is the proper or even strategic response to gild or cloak truth and declare it subservient to a desired political end?The intensity of many House Republicans’ fixation on Hunter Biden is deranged, and journalists would be wrong to chronicle every breathless inch of their descent down that rabbit hole. But we’d also be wrong to ignore Hunter Biden entirely, and Democratic partisans who urge that aren’t being realistic and are doing as much to feed suspicions as to quell them.As Peter Baker wrote in The Times last month, “In modern times, the harsh spotlight of media scrutiny has focused on Donald Nixon’s financial dealings with Howard Hughes, Billy Carter’s work as an agent for Libya, Neil Bush’s service on the board of a failed savings and loan, Roger Clinton’s drug convictions and of course the various financial and security clearance issues involving Mr. Trump’s children and son-in-law.”Baker later added: “Even some of the president’s Democratic allies have privately said there were legitimate questions about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China that seemed to trade on his name.”This is a strange, scary time. The leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is an indicted, twice-impeached former president who cares only for his own eminence and survival and doesn’t let a shred of civic concern, genuine patriotism or recognizable scruple dilute his solipsism. He could well take up residence in the White House again.So the temptation, given the stakes, is to bathe whichever Democrat stands in the way of that in a beatific light, to sing that person’s praises as loudly and unflaggingly as vocal cords permit. That feels like the prudent response. It feels like the ethical one.It’s neither, certainly not for those of us in the news media. It would put us in the business of creating outcomes, not chronicling events, which would be obvious to voters on top of being wrong. It would further erode our credibility, which has suffered plenty of erosion already. It would betray the fundamental purpose and real power of journalism.We do best as a profession — and all of us do best as a democracy and a society — when we hold everyone accountable, regardless of the special circumstances, and when we’re honest across the board. To act otherwise is to send the message that all is gamesmanship and that integrity is for suckers. That’s probably not how we defeat Trump. It’s more likely how he defeats us, long before and long after whatever happens in November 2024.For the Love of SentencesAdele performs in Las Vegas.Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for ADIn recognition of a time of year with much volitional long-haul air travel, David Mack mulled matters baggage-related in The Times: “I’m terrible at packing. Laughably terrible. Concerningly so. On a recent trip to Las Vegas with my boyfriend (I’m gay) and both our mothers (again, we are extremely gay) to see Adele (you get the idea), we both packed so much that you’d be forgiven for thinking we were moving there.” (Thanks to Conrad Macina of Landing, N.J., and Jean Dunn of Southbury, Conn., for spotlighting this.)Also in The Times, Jane Margolies described a growing trend of corporate office buildings trimmed with greenery that requires less maintenance: “As manicured lawns give way to meadows and borders of annuals are replaced by wild and woolly native plants, a looser, some might say messier, aesthetic is taking hold. Call it the horticultural equivalent of bedhead.” (Sally Hinson, Greer, S.C.)And Michael Kimmelman bemoaned the Sisyphean efforts to make Penn Station in Manhattan bearable: “The only thing everyone seems to know for certain is that nothing meaningful ever really happens to improve North America’s busiest and most miserable train hub, despite decades of demands and promises. Hope has long gone to die on the 6:50 to Secaucus.” (Guy Heston, Las Vegas, and David Ballard, Asbury Park, N.J.)In The Globe and Mail of Toronto, Cathal Kelly pondered the cantankerous trajectory of the tennis star Andy Murray: “In his dotage, Murray has become the guy who’s visibly counting what you’ve put down in the ‘eight items or less’ checkout line.” (Hamish Cameron, Toronto)In The Guardian, Stuart Heritage reflected on the end of the Sussexes’ deal with Spotify, for which Meghan Markle hosted “Archetypes,” a short-lived, inspiration-minded podcast on which she interviewed other prominent women: “As an entity, Harry and Meghan are only interesting for as long as they can destabilize the monarchy. Their Oprah interview did that. Their documentary did that. Harry’s book ‘Spare’ did that. ‘Archetypes’ did not do that, and as such was roughly as interesting as listening to changing-room chatter in the world’s most insufferable yoga studio.” (John Donaldson, Carlsbad, Calif.)In The Boston Globe, Scot Lehigh pondered a popular current riddle: “DeSantis must have some political skills. Saddled with qualities that evolution traditionally rewards in porcupines but not politicians, he has still managed to succeed on a state level.” (Kathie Lynch Nutting, Mashpee, Mass.)In The New Yorker, Julian Lucas profiled the trailblazing and visionary science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany, now 81: “With long white hair, heavy brows and a chest-length beard that begins halfway up his lightly melanated cheeks, Delany has the appearance of an Eastern Orthodox monk who left his cloister for a biker gang.” (Max Sinclair, DeKalb, Ill.)And in a letter to the editor in The Washington Post, a reader named Michael D. Schattman poked fun at the oddities of a now-famous plaintiff: “A fair reading of the Supreme Court’s opinion in 303 Creative v. Elenis is that the Colorado anti-discrimination law is in fact constitutional, except when applied to a business that does not wish to provide a product it does not offer to a nonexistent gay couple who are not seeking a website for an imaginary wedding of which the business owner does not approve.” (Lee Hudson, Gilboa, N.Y.)To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here and include your name and place of residence.On a Personal NoteStephen Speranza for The New York TimesNot all seasons are created equal. If you live in a place with a real autumn — with that football-weather nip in the air, those leaves going out in a blaze of glory — you know that it has no match. And if you live in a place with a real spring — with that sudden return of birdsong, those pink and red and purple blossoms — you know that it comes a close second.But how to rank summer and winter? Most of the people I know put winter last, and many of them misguidedly vault summer all the way to the top. For me, summer’s the bottom, and T.S. Eliot’s take on the calendar was all wrong. August is the cruelest month, barely edging out July.In the great outdoors, it’s harder to get cool in the summer than warm in the winter, when layers do the trick. And it’s getting harder all the time. Earth experienced what scientists said was probably its hottest day in modern history a week ago Monday. Then it beat that — twice — in the days just after that.The languid summer air is a soporific. And summer comes wrapped in the oppressive insistence that it’s the season of liberation, of abandon, of fun: no school, less clothing, vacations, the beach, the beach, the infernal beach. Summer is like New Year’s Eve that way. It’s decreed revelry. I like my revelry spontaneous, serendipitous and in soft, long-sleeved, flab-concealing flannel shirts.I like seasons with fewer ticks, fewer mosquitoes, less sunburn. Summer is hazardous. I’m surprised it doesn’t make everyone sign some sort of waiver.Perhaps you disagree? I hope you disagree. Because if you do, I invite you to send me, at this address, anywhere from one to four sentences arguing summer’s case. If I get enough deft, spirited responses, persuasive in their humor or eloquence, I’ll compile and share some of them in a newsletter between now and the end of this over-baked stretch of the calendar.Meantime? Apply your sunscreen. Trim your toenails (all those damned sandals and flip-flops). HAVE FUN! Summer will tolerate nothing less. More

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      La hija de Hunter Biden y una historia de dos familias

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      El relato que rodea a la nieta del presidente en Arkansas, que aún no ha conocido a su padre ni a su abuelo, trata de dinero, política corrosiva y lo que significa tener el derecho de nacimiento de los Biden.Hay una niña de 4 años en una zona rural de Arkansas que está aprendiendo a andar en una cuatrimoto con estampado de camuflaje junto a sus primos. Algunos días lleva un lazo en el cabello y otros pasa su larga cola de caballo rubia por detrás de una gorra de béisbol. Cuando tenga edad suficiente, aprenderá a cazar, como su madre cuando era joven.La niña sabe que su padre es Hunter Biden y que su abuelo paterno es el presidente de Estados Unidos. Habla a menudo de ambos, pero no los conoce. Su abuelo materno, Rob Roberts, la describe como muy inteligente y divertida.“Puede que no sea el presidente de Estados Unidos”, señaló Roberts en un mensaje de texto, pero afirmó que haría cualquier cosa por su nieta. Dijo que ella “no necesita nada y nunca lo necesitará”.La historia que rodea a la nieta del presidente en Arkansas, cuyo nombre no figura en los documentos judiciales, es la historia de dos familias: una de ellas es poderosa; la otra, no. Pero, en el fondo, es una historia de dinero, política corrosiva y lo que significa tener el derecho de nacimiento de los Biden.El jueves, sus padres pusieron fin a una larga batalla judicial por la manutención de la niña al acordar que Hunter Biden, quien ha iniciado una segunda carrera como pintor y cuyas obras se han ofrecido hasta por 500.000 dólares cada una, cederá varios de sus cuadros a su hija, además de darle una pensión mensual. La niña seleccionará los cuadros de Biden, según los documentos judiciales.“Lo resolvimos entre nosotros”, dijo Lunden Roberts, la madre de la niña, en una entrevista con The New York Times. “Se resolvió” en una conversación con Biden, dijo.Hunter Biden no respondió a una solicitud de comentarios para este artículo.Hunter Biden se mantiene cercano a su padre y aparece a menudo en actos de la Casa Blanca.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesRoberts aseguró que retiró la petición de que se cambiara el apellido de la niña de Roberts a Biden (Biden se había opuesto a que su hija llevara su apellido). Roberts se limitó a decir que la decisión de retirar la petición fue mutua. “Ambos queremos lo mejor para nuestra hija, y ese es nuestro único objetivo”, declaró.Aunque se ha evitado el juicio previsto para mediados de julio, personas de ambas partes temen que se mantenga la toxicidad política que rodea al caso. Los medios de comunicación conservadores, desde Breitbart hasta Fox News, ya han hecho eco del caso, y los comentaristas conservadores atacaron a la familia Biden tras darse a conocer el acuerdo.Tanto Hunter Biden, el hijo privilegiado y problemático de un presidente, como Roberts, la hija de un armero rural, tienen aliados cuyas acciones han politizado más la situación. No hay pruebas de que la Casa Blanca esté implicada en esas acciones.Clint Lancaster, abogado de Roberts, ha representado a la campaña de Donald Trump. También llamó a Garrett Ziegler, un activista y exasesor de Trump en la Casa Blanca que ha catalogado y publicado mensajes de una memoria caché de archivos de Hunter Biden que parecen proceder de una computadora portátil que dejó en un sitio de reparaciones, para que actúe como testigo experto en el caso de la pensión alimenticia. En la otra esquina, aliados de grupos demócratas dedicados a ayudar a la familia Biden han difundido información sobre Ziegler y la familia Roberts para destacar sus vínculos con Trump.Y luego está el presidente.Su imagen pública gira en torno a su devoción por su familia, incluyendo a Hunter Biden, su único hijo varón sobreviviente. En las reuniones de estrategia de los últimos años, se ha dicho a los asesores que los Biden tienen seis nietos, no siete, según dos personas familiarizadas con las conversaciones.La Casa Blanca no respondió preguntas sobre el caso, en consonancia con la forma en que los funcionarios han respondido a las preguntas sobre la familia Biden anteriormente.Varios aliados del presidente temen que el caso pueda dañar sus posibilidades de reelección al atraer más atención sobre un hijo al que algunos demócratas ven como un lastre. Otros dicen que la extrema derecha se ha centrado en Hunter Biden, un ciudadano que no es servidor público, pero ha ignorado las fallas morales y éticas del expresidente Trump.“Tiene más acusaciones que todos los jugadores de dos equipos del Super Bowl”, dijo de Trump el escritor y estratega político Stuart Stevens, quien abandonó el Partido Republicano en 2016. “Pero eso no importa: ahí está Hunter Biden. Es solo ira en busca de un argumento”.‘La gente se hace una imagen de mí’Lunden Roberts, de 32 años, procede de un clan tan unido como el de los Biden. Su padre es un fabricante de armas de un estado republicano, entre cuyos compañeros de caza se encuentra Donald Trump Jr., y le enseñó a cazar pavos y caimanes desde muy pequeña. Trabaja en la empresa familiar, situada en una sinuosa carretera rural salpicada de pastizales a las afueras de Batesville, Arkansas.Roberts, de 1,73 metros de estatura y el orgullo de su familia, se graduó con honores en la secundaria Southside de Batesville, y jugó baloncesto en la Universidad Estatal de Arkansas, donde, según una biografía del equipo, disfrutaba la caza y el tiro al plato. Tras graduarse, se trasladó a Washington para estudiar investigación forense en la Universidad George Washington. Nunca terminó el programa. Fotos de esa época la muestran asistiendo a partidos de béisbol en el Nationals Park y a conciertos de Drake y Kanye West.Lunden Roberts llegando para una audiencia en el caso de paternidad en Batesville, Arkansas, en mayo. Roberts y Hunter Biden llegaron a un acuerdo el jueves.Karen Pulfer Focht/ReutersEn el camino, conoció al hijo de un futuro presidente que estaba cayendo en la adicción y visitaba los clubes de bailarinas desnudas de Washington.A mediados de 2018, Roberts trabajaba como asistente personal de Hunter Biden, de acuerdo con una persona cercana a ella y a los mensajes de una memoria caché con archivos de Biden. Su hija nació a finales de ese año, pero, para entonces, Biden había dejado de responder a los mensajes de Roberts, incluido uno en el que le informaba la fecha de nacimiento de la niña. Poco después de que nació su hija, en noviembre de 2018, quitó a Roberts y a la niña de su seguro médico, lo que llevó a Roberts a ponerse en contacto con Lancaster.Ella interpuso una demanda en mayo de 2019, y las pruebas de ADN de ese año establecieron que Hunter Biden era el padre de la niña. En la presentación de una solicitud de custodia en diciembre de 2019, Roberts dijo que Hunter Biden no conocía a su hija y “no podría identificar a la niña en una serie de fotos”.Roberts aseguró en una entrevista que se había acostumbrado a la avalancha de escrutinio en torno al caso: “Leo cosas sobre mí de las que no tengo ni idea”, afirmó. Pero una cosa que no soporta es que la llamen mala madre. “La gente puede llamarme como quiera, pero no pueden decirme eso”, dijo.Su cuenta pública de Instagram narra su propia historia: “Espero que algún día, cuando mires atrás, te enorgullezcas de quién eres, de dónde vienes y, lo más importante, de quién te crio”, escribió al pie de una foto de las dos en la playa a principios de este año. En otra fotografía, compartida en su cuenta en abril de 2022, su hija llevaba una gorra de béisbol del Air Force One y estaba delante del Jefferson Memorial.“La gente se hace una imagen de mí, pero pocos aciertan”, escribió Roberts en otra foto de julio de 2022.Roberts publicó una foto de ella y su hija en Washington el año pasado.Visto desde un ángulo, las fotos son un poderoso testamento público de amor de una madre a su hija. Desde otro punto de vista, son explotadoras, desde luego desde la perspectiva de los aliados de Biden, que temen que las imágenes —y la niña— estén siendo utilizadas como arma contra la familia Biden.Por su parte, Roberts dijo que no llevó a su hija a Washington para castigar a los Biden. Dijo que la llevó a Washington porque no muchas niñas pueden decir que su abuelo es el presidente.“Está muy orgullosa de quién es su abuelo y quién es su padre”, dijo Roberts. “Eso es algo que nunca le permitiría pensar de otra manera”.Un hijo problemáticoHunter Biden, de 53 años, se está recuperando de su adicción al crack y es el último hijo varón sobreviviente del presidente, ya que perdió al mayor, Beau, por un cáncer cerebral en 2015. El menor de los Biden tiene cinco hijos y ha dicho que fue padre de la cuarta en un momento bajo de su vida.“No recordaba nada de nuestro encuentro”, escribió Biden en su libro de memorias de 2021. “Así de poca conexión tenía con toda la gente. Era un desastre, pero un desastre del que me he hecho responsable”.Antes del acuerdo del jueves, Biden le había pagado a Roberts más de 750.000 dólares, según sus abogados, y había intentado reducir el pago de 20.000 dólares al mes por la manutención de su hija alegando que no tenía el dinero. La nueva cantidad es inferior a la ordenada originalmente por el tribunal, según una persona familiarizada con el caso.“Estoy muy orgulloso de mi hijo”, declaró recientemente el presidente Biden a la prensa.Al Drago para The New York TimesCon juicio o sin él, Hunter Biden seguirá siendo uno de los puntos débiles políticos de su padre. Desde que su adicción se descontroló y sus tratos con gobiernos extranjeros llamaron la atención de los conservadores, las decisiones de Hunter Biden se han convertido en combustible para los memes, los paneles de noticias por cable conservadores y la recaudación de fondos de los republicanos. La ronda más reciente se inició después de que llegó a un acuerdo con el Departamento de Justicia para declararse culpable de dos delitos fiscales menores y aceptar condiciones que le permitieran evitar ser procesado por otro cargo de posesión de armas.Además, ha sido objeto de múltiples investigaciones en el Congreso, y el contenido de la computadora portátil que dejó en un local de reparaciones ha sido estudiado y difundido por activistas que afirman que sus comunicaciones privadas demuestran la comisión de delitos.En la Casa Blanca, los asuntos relacionados con Hunter Biden son tan delicados que solo los asesores de más alto rango del presidente hablan con él sobre su hijo, de acuerdo con personas familiarizadas con la situación.A pesar de todo, el presidente lo ha apoyado de manera incondicional. En lugar de distanciarse de su hijo, ha incluido a Hunter Biden en los viajes oficiales, ha viajado con él a bordo del Marine One y se ha asegurado de que esté en la lista de invitados a las cenas de Estado.“Estoy muy orgulloso de mi hijo”, declaró hace poco el presidente a la prensa.‘La bendición más grande de la vida’El presidente ha trabajado durante el último medio siglo para que su apellido sea sinónimo de valores familiares y lealtad. La fuerza de su personaje político, que hace hincapié en la decencia, la familia y el deber, fue suficiente para derrotar a Trump la primera vez, y tendría que mantenerla intacta si Trump es el candidato republicano en 2024.En una proclama emitida con motivo del Día del Padre, Biden aclaró que su padre le había “enseñado que, por encima de todo, la familia es el principio, el medio y el fin, una lección que he transmitido a mis hijos y nietos”. Añadió que “la familia es la mayor bendición y responsabilidad de la vida”.El presidente Biden; Jill Biden, la primera dama; y sus hijos y nietos observan los fuegos artificiales desde la Casa Blanca tras la toma de posesión de Biden en 2021.Doug Mills/The New York TimesDesde que llegaron a la Casa Blanca, el presidente y Jill Biden, la primera dama, han centrado su vida familiar en torno a sus nietos y les han brindado los beneficios que conlleva vivir en estrecho contacto con la Casa Blanca.Naomi Biden, de 29 años, es la hija mayor de Hunter, fruto de su primer matrimonio, con Kathleen Buhle, que terminó en 2017. Naomi Biden se casó en el Jardín Sur de la Casa Blanca el año pasado con un vestido de Ralph Lauren que ella definió como el producto de sus “sueños americanos”. Ella y sus hermanas han hecho viajes por todo el mundo con el presidente y la primera dama. Hunter Biden se casó con Melissa Cohen en 2019. Su hijo menor, que lleva el nombre de Beau y nació en 2020, es fotografiado con frecuencia con sus abuelos.En abril, el presidente relató a un grupo de niños que tenía “seis nietos. Y estoy loco por ellos. Y hablo con ellos todos los días. No es broma”.El hijo menor de Hunter Biden, Beau, es visto frecuentemente viajando y asistiendo a eventos con sus abuelos.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesPero el presidente aún no ha conocido ni mencionado públicamente a su otra nieta. La Casa Blanca no ha respondido a las preguntas sobre si la reconocerá públicamente ahora que se ha resuelto el caso de la pensión alimenticia.Sin embargo, Stevens, el estratega político, dijo que el apoyo de Biden a su hijo, incluso contra una avalancha de críticas republicanas y escándalos desagradables, solo ha enfatizado su amor incondicional por su familia.“El neto positivo de todo esto ha sido para Biden, por cierto”, dijo Stevens refiriéndose al presidente. “Ha estado a su lado”.Preocupaciones políticasPocos de los implicados creen que las particularidades de este caso, aunque se haya resuelto, se apacigüen, especialmente dada su omnipresencia en los medios de comunicación de derecha.“En otro acuerdo ventajoso, Hunter Biden se ha librado de la manutención de su hija”, escribió el consejo editorial de The New York Post, que ha seguido de cerca el caso.Aparte de la cobertura informativa y los comentarios, los aliados de la familia Biden temen en privado que la implicación de agentes de la derecha en el asunto haya dificultado cualquier compromiso de la familia.Ziegler, quien fue nombrado testigo experto en el caso, tuvo un papel destacado en los esfuerzos de Trump por impugnar los resultados de las elecciones de 2020: en diciembre de 2020, Ziegler escoltó al exasesor de seguridad nacional de Trump, Michael Flynn, y a la abogada Sidney Powell a la Oficina Oval, donde un grupo discutió con Trump un plan para tomar el control de las máquinas de votación en estados clave. Los privilegios de invitado a la Casa Blanca de Ziegler fueron revocados más tarde.Ziegler se negó a confirmar su participación en el caso de manutención de la niña.El abogado de Roberts, Lancaster, también tiene antecedentes en el activismo conservador. Él es elocuente en las redes sociales sobre su apoyo a Trump, a menudo retuiteando críticas de los medios conservadores y Elon Musk, el dueño de Twitter. También trabajó como abogado para la campaña de Trump durante un recuento de votos electorales en Wisconsin después de las elecciones de 2020.Simpatizantes del expresidente Donald Trump en un mitin en 2020. Aliados de la familia Biden temen que el caso de paternidad se utilice contra el presidente Biden en la campaña de 2024.Al Drago para The New York TimesPor otro lado, personas afiliadas a organizaciones de izquierda, como Facts First USA, un grupo de defensa dirigido por David Brock, desconfían de lo que pueda hacer el equipo que rodea a Roberts en la antesala de la campaña de 2024.Los miembros del grupo, que opera independientemente de la Casa Blanca y ha adoptado una actitud más antagónica con los críticos que el gobierno de Biden, han distribuido una foto del padre de Roberts posando con Donald Trump Jr.Roberts padre dijo en un mensaje de texto que había ido de caza con Trump, pero que no recordaba cuándo se habían conocido.El encuestador republicano Frank Luntz dijo que era “una pérdida de tiempo” que los activistas se enfocaran en atacar a la familia del presidente porque a los votantes no les importa Hunter Biden tanto como otros temas, como Ucrania y la inflación.“Tienen la responsabilidad de pedir cuentas a la gente, pero quiero ser claro: no cambiará ni un solo voto”, dijo sobre los problemas legales y personales de Hunter Biden.Si la familia Roberts está siguiendo consejos políticos —aparte de los que pueda dar el abogado de la familia—, no lo dicen. En Batesville, la abuela materna de la niña, Kimberly Roberts, dijo en una breve entrevista telefónica que no haría comentarios sobre el caso.Pero sí tenía algo que decir.“Mi nieta es feliz, sana y muy querida”, dijo Roberts, antes de colgar.Kenneth P. Vogel More

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      Hunter Biden’s Daughter and a Tale of Two Families

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      The story surrounding the president’s grandchild in Arkansas, who has not yet met her father or her grandfather, is about money, corrosive politics and what it means to have the Biden birthright.There is a 4-year-old girl in rural Arkansas who is learning to ride a camouflage-patterned four-wheeler alongside her cousins. Some days, she wears a bow in her hair, and on other days, she threads her long blond ponytail through the back of a baseball cap. When she is old enough, she will learn to hunt, just like her mother did when she was young.The girl is aware that her father is Hunter Biden and that her paternal grandfather is the president of the United States. She speaks about both of them often, but she has not met them. Her maternal grandfather, Rob Roberts, described her as whip-smart and funny.“I may not be the POTUS,” Mr. Roberts said in a text message, using an acronym for the president, but he said he would do anything for his granddaughter. He said she “needs for nothing and never will.”The story surrounding the president’s grandchild in Arkansas, who is not named in court papers, is a tale of two families, one of them powerful, one of them not. But at its core, the story is about money, corrosive politics and what it means to have the Biden birthright.Her parents ended a yearslong court battle over child support on Thursday, agreeing that Mr. Biden, who has embarked on a second career as a painter whose pieces have been offered for as much as $500,000 each, would turn over a number of his paintings to his daughter in addition to providing a monthly support payment. The little girl will select the paintings from Mr. Biden, according to court documents.“We worked it out amongst ourselves,” Lunden Roberts, the girl’s mother, said in an interview with The New York Times. “It was settled” in a discussion with Mr. Biden, she said.Hunter Biden did not respond to a request for comment for this article.Hunter Biden remains close to his father and often appears at White House events.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesMs. Roberts said she dropped a request to have the girl’s last name changed from Roberts to Biden. (Mr. Biden had fought against giving their daughter the Biden surname.) Ms. Roberts would only say that the decision to drop the request was mutual. “We both want what is best for our daughter, and that is our only focus,” she said.Though a trial planned for mid-July has been averted, people on both sides fear that the political toxicity surrounding the case will remain. Already, it has been extensively covered in conservative media, from Breitbart to Fox News, and conservative commentators assailed the Biden family after news of the settlement.Both Hunter Biden, the privileged and troubled son of a president, and Ms. Roberts, the daughter of a rural gun maker, have allies whose actions have made the situation more politicized. There is no evidence the White House is involved in those actions.Clint Lancaster, Ms. Roberts’s attorney, has represented the Trump campaign. He also called Garrett Ziegler, an activist and former Trump White House aide who has cataloged and published messages from a cache of Hunter Biden’s files that appear to have come from a laptop he left at a repair shop, to serve as an expert witness in the child support case. In the other corner, allies of Democratic groups dedicated to helping the Biden family have disseminated information about Mr. Ziegler and the Roberts family, seeking to highlight their Trump ties.And then there is President Biden.His public image is centered around his devotion to his family — including to Hunter, his only surviving son. In strategy meetings in recent years, aides have been told that the Bidens have six, not seven, grandchildren, according to two people familiar with the discussions.The White House did not respond to questions about the case, in keeping with how officials have answered questions about the Biden family before.Several of the president’s allies fear that the case could damage his re-election prospects by bringing more attention to a son whom some Democrats see as a liability. Others say the far right has focused on Hunter Biden, a private citizen, but ignored any moral and ethical failings of the former president, Donald J. Trump.“He’s under more indictments than two Super Bowl teams’ worth of players,” the author and political strategist Stuart Stevens, who left the Republican Party in 2016, said of Mr. Trump. “But that doesn’t matter: You have Hunter Biden. It’s just anger in search of an argument.”‘People Have an Image of Me’Lunden Roberts, 32, comes from a clan as tight-knit as the Bidens. Her father is a red-state gun manufacturer whose hunting buddies have included Donald Trump Jr., and who taught her at a young age how to hunt turkeys and alligators. She works for the family business, which sits on a winding country road dotted with pastures on the outskirts of Batesville.The pride of her family, the 5-foot-8 Ms. Roberts graduated with honors from Southside High School in Batesville and played basketball for Arkansas State University, where a team biography said she enjoyed hunting and skeet shooting. After graduating, she moved to Washington to study forensic investigation at George Washington University. She never completed the program. Photos from that time show her attending baseball games at Nationals Park and attending Drake and Kanye West concerts.Lunden Roberts arriving for a hearing in the paternity case in Batesville, Ark., in May. Ms. Roberts and Mr. Biden settled the case on Thursday.Karen Pulfer Focht/ReutersAlong the way, she met the son of a future president who was sliding into addiction and visiting Washington strip clubs.In mid-2018, Ms. Roberts was working as a personal assistant to Mr. Biden, according to a person close to her and messages from a cache of Mr. Biden’s files. Their daughter was born later that year, but by then, Mr. Biden had stopped responding to Ms. Roberts’s messages, including one informing him of the child’s birth date. Shortly after their daughter was born in November 2018, he removed Ms. Roberts and the child from his health insurance, which led Ms. Roberts to contact Mr. Lancaster.She filed a lawsuit in May 2019, and DNA testing that year established that Mr. Biden was the father of the child. In a motion for custody filing in December 2019, Ms. Roberts said that he had never met their child and “could not identify the child out of a photo lineup.”Ms. Roberts said in an interview that she had grown used to the onslaught of scrutiny around the case: “I read things about myself that I have no clue about,” she said. But one thing she said she can’t stand is being called a bad mother. “People can call me whatever they want, but they can’t call me that,” she said.Her public Instagram account tells its own story: “I hope one day when you look back you find yourself proud of who you are, where you come from, and most importantly, who raised you,” she captioned a photo of the two of them at the beach earlier this year. In another photo, shared to her account in April 2022, her daughter wore an Air Force One baseball cap and stood in front of the Jefferson Memorial.“People have an image of me, but few get the picture,” Ms. Roberts wrote on another photo in July 2022.Ms. Roberts posted a photo of herself and her daughter in Washington last year. Seen through one prism, the photos are a powerful public testament of love from a mother to her daughter. Seen through another, they are exploitative, certainly from the perspective of Biden allies, who fear the images — and the child — are being weaponized against the Biden family.For her part, Ms. Roberts said she did not bring her daughter to Washington to punish the Bidens. She said she brought her to Washington because not many little girls get to say that their grandfather is the president.“She’s very proud of who her grandfather is and who her dad is,” Ms. Roberts said. “That is something that I would never allow her to think otherwise.”A Troubled SonHunter Biden, 53, is recovering from crack cocaine addiction and is the last surviving son of the president, who lost his eldest, Beau, to brain cancer in 2015. The younger Mr. Biden has five children, and has said that he fathered his fourth at a low point in his life.“I had no recollection of our encounter,” Mr. Biden wrote in his 2021 memoir. “That’s how little connection I had with anyone. I was a mess, but a mess I’ve taken responsibility for.”Before Thursday’s settlement, Mr. Biden had paid Ms. Roberts upward of $750,000, according to his attorneys, and had sought to reduce his $20,000-a-month child support payment on the grounds that he did not have the money. The new amount is lower than what had been originally ordered by the court, according to a person familiar with the case.“I’m very proud of my son,” President Biden told reporters recently.Al Drago for The New York TimesTrial or no trial, Mr. Biden will remain one of his father’s political vulnerabilities. Since his addiction spiraled out of control and his dealings with foreign governments caught the attention of conservatives, the younger Mr. Biden’s choices have become grist for memes, conservative cable news panels and Republican fund-raising. The most recent round kicked off after he struck a deal with the Justice Department to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and accept terms that would allow him to avoid prosecution on a separate gun charge.On top of that, Mr. Biden has been the subject of multiple congressional investigations, and the contents of the laptop he left at a repair shop have been pored over and disseminated by activists, who say his private communications show criminal wrongdoing.In the White House, matters involving Hunter are so sensitive that only the president’s most senior advisers talk to him about his son, according to people familiar with the arrangement.Through it all, the president has been staunchly supportive. Rather than distance himself, Mr. Biden has included Hunter on official trips, traveled with him aboard Marine One, and ensured that he is on the guest list at state dinners.“I’m very proud of my son,” the president told reporters recently.‘Life’s Greatest Blessing’President Biden has worked over the past half-century to make his last name synonymous with family values and loyalty. The strength of his political persona, which emphasizes decency, family and duty, was enough to defeat Mr. Trump the first time around, and he would need to keep it intact if Mr. Trump is the Republican nominee in 2024.On a proclamation issued on Father’s Day, Mr. Biden said that his father had “taught me that, above all, family is the beginning, middle and end — a lesson I have passed down to my children and grandchildren.” He added that “family is life’s greatest blessing and responsibility.”President Biden; Jill Biden, the first lady; and their children and grandchildren watching fireworks from the White House after Mr. Biden’s inauguration in 2021.Doug Mills/The New York TimesSince they entered the White House, President Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, have centered their family lives around their grandchildren, and have given them the benefits that come with living in close contact with the White House.Naomi Biden, 29, is Hunter’s eldest child, from his first marriage, to Kathleen Buhle, which ended in 2017. Ms. Biden was married on the South Lawn of the White House last year in a Ralph Lauren dress that she called the product of her “American(a) dreams.” She and her sisters have taken trips around the world with the president and first lady. Hunter married Melissa Cohen in 2019. His youngest child, who is named for Beau and was born in 2020, is photographed frequently with his grandparents.In April, President Biden told a group of children that he had “six grandchildren. And I’m crazy about them. And I speak to them every single day. Not a joke.”Hunter Biden’s youngest son, Beau, is frequently seen traveling and attending events with his grandparents.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesBut the president has not yet met or publicly mentioned his other grandchild. His White House has not answered questions about whether he will publicly acknowledge her now that the child support case is settled.Still, Mr. Stevens, the political strategist, said that Mr. Biden’s support of his son, even against an onslaught of Republican criticism and ugly scandals, has only emphasized his unconditional love for his family.“The net positive of this has gone to Biden, by the way,” Mr. Stevens said of the president. “He stuck by him.”Political ConcernsFew involved think the particulars of this case, even though it has been settled, will stay at a simmer, especially given its ubiquity in right-wing media.“In yet another sweetheart deal, Hunter Biden got off easy in his child support case,” wrote the editorial board of The New York Post, which has followed the proceedings closely.Aside from the news coverage and commentary, allies of the Biden family are privately worried that the involvement of right-wing operatives in the matter has made any engagement harder for the family.Mr. Ziegler, who was named as an expert witness in the case, had a footnote role in Mr. Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results: In December 2020, Mr. Ziegler escorted Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, and the attorney Sidney Powell into the Oval Office, where a group discussed with Mr. Trump a plan to seize control of voting machines in key states. Mr. Ziegler’s White House guest privileges were later revoked.Mr. Ziegler declined to confirm his involvement in the child support case.Ms. Roberts’s attorney, Mr. Lancaster, also has a background in conservative activism. He is vocal on social media about his support for Mr. Trump, often retweeting criticism from conservative outlets and Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter. He also worked as an attorney for the Trump campaign during an electoral vote recount in Wisconsin after the 2020 election.Supporters of former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in 2020. Allies of the Biden family are concerned that the paternity case will be used against President Biden in the 2024 campaign.Al Drago for The New York TimesOn the other side, people affiliated with left-leaning organizations, including Facts First USA, an advocacy group run by David Brock, are wary of what the team surrounding Ms. Roberts may do as the 2024 campaign gets underway.Members of the group, which operates independently of the White House and has taken a more adversarial approach to critics than the Biden administration does, have circulated a photo of Ms. Roberts’s father posing with Donald Trump Jr. Mr. Roberts said in a text message that he has gone hunting with Mr. Trump but that he did not recall when they had first met.The Republican pollster Frank Luntz said it was “a waste of time” for activists to focus on attacking the president’s family because voters do not care about Hunter Biden as much as they care about other issues, including Ukraine and inflation.“You have the responsibility to hold people accountable, but I want to be clear: It will not change a single vote,” he said of Hunter Biden’s legal and personal problems.If the Roberts family is taking political advice — outside of any that might come from the family attorney — they aren’t saying. In Batesville, the girl’s maternal grandmother, Kimberly Roberts, said in a brief telephone interview that she would not comment on the case.She did have one thing to say, though.“My granddaughter is happy, healthy, and very loved,” Ms. Roberts said, before hanging up.Kenneth P. Vogel More

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      Hunter Biden Isn’t Hiding. Even Some Democrats Are Uncomfortable.

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      Hunter Biden’s public appearances came across as a message of defiance by the president, who is determined to show that he stands by his son.During last week’s state dinner at the White House, Hunter Biden seemed to be everywhere. Upbeat and gregarious, he worked the pavilion with grins and gusto, shaking hands and hugging other guests.One guest who surely did not want to chitchat with him, though, was Merrick B. Garland, the attorney general whose Justice Department just two days earlier reached a plea agreement in which the president’s son will likely avoid prison time.The presence of the younger Biden at such a high-profile event so soon after the plea deal proved to be the buzz of the evening. It was all the more attention-grabbing given the risk of an accidental encounter with the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, who would rather cut off a thumb than be caught looking chummy with the target of an investigation that he had guaranteed would be conducted by the book.It did not go unnoticed either when, just days later, there was Hunter Biden getting on and off Marine One with the president heading to and from Camp David for the weekend.In the nation’s capital, where such things are rarely accidental and always noticed, the oh-so-public appearances came across as an in-your-face message of defiance by a president determined to show that he stands by his son in the face of relentlessly toxic attacks. Yet some Democrats, including current and former Biden administration officials, privately saw it as an unnecessary poke-the-bear gesture.“He knew exactly what he was doing, and he was willing to sustain the appearance issues to send a message to his son that he loves him,” said Norman Eisen, who was the ethics czar in President Barack Obama’s White House when Mr. Biden was vice president.Had he been advising Mr. Biden, Mr. Eisen said, he would have warned him about “the flak they were going to take” but added that it would be a matter of optics, rather than rules. “That’s probably more of a question for an etiquette czar than an ethics czar,” he said. “Certainly, there’s no violation of any ethics rule as long as they didn’t talk about the case.”The White House said Mr. Biden was simply being a father.“In all administrations, regardless of party, it’s common for presidential family members to attend state dinners and to accompany presidents to Camp David,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said on Tuesday. “The president and first lady love and support their son.”The visuals at the White House in the week since Hunter Biden’s plea deal was announced highlight the thorny situation for a president with a 53-year-old son traumatized by family tragedy and a devastating history of addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine. While Democrats scorn the conspiratorial fixation of the hard right on Hunter’s troubles, some of the president’s allies privately complain that, however understandably, he has a blind eye when it comes to his son. They lament that he did not step in more assertively to stop the younger man from trading on the family name in business dealings.It is not a subject that advisers raise with Mr. Biden easily, if at all, and so many of them are left to watch how he handles it and react accordingly. They take solace in the belief that many Americans understand a father’s love for his son, even one who makes mistakes, and in the assumption that it will not significantly hurt Mr. Biden’s bid for re-election next year any more than it did his victory over President Donald J. Trump in 2020. And they recognize that no matter what the family does, Hunter will be a target for the next 16 months.The plea deal last week was fraught for many reasons. It meant that the president’s son was admitting to criminal behavior by failing to file his taxes on time and would be subject to a diversion program on a felony charge of illegal gun possession, but would be spared time behind bars if a judge approves. Republicans immediately denounced it as a “sweetheart deal” by the Biden team.In fact, the decision was announced by a Trump appointee, David C. Weiss, a U.S. attorney who was kept on by the Biden Justice Department so as not to appear to interfere in his inquiry into Hunter Biden. Mr. Garland and Mr. Weiss have both insisted that Mr. Weiss had what he called “ultimate authority” over the case.There is no evidence that the president or the White House has played any role — unlike Mr. Trump, who while in office openly and repeatedly pressured the Justice Department to prosecute his perceived enemies and drop cases against his allies.But congressional Republicans have been promoting two I.R.S. “whistle-blowers” who assert that the Justice Department restrained Mr. Weiss, despite his own denial. Republicans plan to call Mr. Weiss to testify in coming days and are threatening to impeach Mr. Garland.One of the I.R.S. agents produced a message sent by Hunter Biden in 2017 invoking his father, who was then out of office, in pressuring a potential Chinese business partner to agree to a deal. While repeating that the president “was not in business with his son,” the White House has not disputed the authenticity of the message nor commented on the impression that Mr. Biden, as a former vice president, may have been used to secure business.Asked by a reporter on Monday whether he had lied when he previously said he did not discuss Hunter’s business dealings with him, the president said simply, “No.”Hunter Biden has appeared with his father since the start of his presidency, including previous trips to Camp David or the family home in Delaware. Hunter attended the first state dinner of the Biden presidency in December and accompanied his father on a trip to Ireland this spring.So in that sense, it might not have been all that surprising that he showed up last Thursday for the state dinner for Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. But it quickly set off Republicans and conservative media.“Hunter and Merrick hanging out at Joe’s place?” Representative Andy Ogles, Republican of Tennessee, wrote on Twitter. “Classic Biden Crime Family.”Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri, said on Fox Business: “We saw a fancy state dinner at the White House, and you have the person who’s accused of these criminal allegations and also the department that has slow-walked these allegations, the leader of that department, seated and dining at the same table. All of this smells bad.”The tuxedo-clad Hunter Biden appeared in high spirits at the dinner, making his way around the pavilion set up on the South Lawn. He put his arm around Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator and former senator from Florida, and gave a friendly shoulder grip to Andy Moffit, the husband of Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary. Contrary to Mr. Smith, Mr. Garland was not at the same table and stayed resolutely on the other side of the pavilion, at least while reporters and photographers were there to watch.While Mr. Garland was invited weeks beforehand, some who know him suspected he must not have known that Hunter Biden would be there and likely would have been upset to be put in such an awkward position. One person familiar with the dinner said those not on the White House staff were not given the guest list in advance. Representatives for the White House and Justice Department would not say whether the president’s staff gave the attorney general a heads up.Still, even Democrats who would have preferred that Mr. Biden had not made such a public display of his son in the immediate aftermath of the plea deal bristle at criticism from Republicans who have shown little interest in nepotism involving Mr. Trump, who put his daughter and son-in-law on the White House staff and whose children have profited off his name for years.David M. Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, said the state dinner made clear what Mr. Biden wanted to make clear — that he would not walk away from his son. “That may cause him problems, but it also reinforces a truth about a guy who has suffered great loss in his life and loves his kids,” he said.Richard W. Painter, who was the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, later ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Democrat and has been critical at times of ethical decisions by the Biden team, said the president is forced to balance his personal and campaign imperatives.“These are the political calls that are made by the president,” said Mr. Painter, who according to media reports has been consulted by Hunter Biden’s lawyers about setting up a legal defense fund. “He wants to protect his political position running for re-election. He also wants to be a good father. That was his decision. You’re going to get heat. But I understand why he made the decision.”Glenn Thrush More

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      Biden’s Classified Documents Scandal Is Really Bad for 2024

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      Remember the iconic image of a smiling Joe Biden in his 1967 Corvette Stingray? It conjured charming Uncle Joe, a retro-cool guy who’d been around the track and knew how to handle it.Four months after President Biden called Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents “irresponsible,” that vintage car — parked at the president’s home in Delaware next to his own boxes containing classified material — has been transformed into a shiny symbol of hypocrisy. If you went into a G.O.P. whataboutism lab and asked for a perfect gaffe, you’d come out with the president snapping last week to a Fox News reporter, “My Corvette is in a locked garage.”Well, the storage room at Mar-a-Lago is locked, too.Just two weeks ago, Democrats were chortling over chaos in the G.O.P., convinced that far-right Republican control of the House would help them in 2024. Then they experienced the exquisite torture that comes with the slow release of politically damaging information, in this case the acknowledgment of classified documents found in Mr. Biden’s former offices and Wilmington home. Now he’s fully in the barrel — targeted by powerful congressional committees, aggressive reporters looking for scoops and a methodical new special counsel, Robert Hur, to match Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating Mr. Trump.The optical equivalence between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden is phony, of course. Mr. Trump is a grifter who appears to have intentionally taken hundreds of classified documents, bragging that he kept the folders marked “classified” or “confidential” as “‘cool’ keepsakes.” He said of his stash of classified documents, according to several advisers, “It’s not theirs; it’s mine,” and seemingly defied a subpoena to return the documents, thereby exposing him to possible prosecution for obstruction of justice. Mr. Biden, by contrast, was sloppy and slow to search for and disclose the existence of about 20 stray classified documents but is fully cooperating with authorities.Unfortunately for Mr. Biden, this distinction cannot easily survive the miasma of congressional and special counsel subpoenas, relentless questions from reporters and fresh allegations of impropriety that signal the arrival of a new episodic political drama. Many voters with better things to do with their time than parse the nuances of presidential record keeping may casually conclude that both men are careless, lying politicians.On one level, the classified documents imbroglio is just an acrimonious prelude to the 2024 campaign, a story that will surface, disappear, then surface again with tiresome predictability. But Mr. Biden’s new problems run deeper than that. They represent both a challenge to his core political brand of honor and decency and the start of a more intense, potentially combative period of scrutiny for a president poised to seek re-election. All of which suggests that we may look back on January of 2023 as the end of a relatively brief era in American political life — a period, for all its turmoil, when two Democratic presidents avoided being enmeshed in the grinding machinery of scandal that has otherwise characterized Washington for half a century.All 10 American presidencies since 1973 have faced investigation by a special counsel or independent prosecutor, except one: Barack Obama’s. For eight years, Mr. Obama and his vice president and other high-ranking officials were seen as figures of unusual rectitude, and the impression of integrity returned when Mr. Biden took office after four years of wall-to-wall corruption. But now this sharp ethical contrast with Mr. Trump has been dulled. That complicates the president’s expected re-election campaign — and could even short-circuit it.Most Democrats still think Mr. Biden is honest, and they view his accomplishments on the economy, climate, infrastructure and defending democracy as far more significant than this lapse. But it’s hard to exaggerate the level of Democratic exasperation with him for squandering a huge political advantage on the Mar-a-Lago story and for muddying what may have been the best chance to convict Mr. Trump on federal charges. Mr. Biden’s more serious problem may be with independents, whom he carried by nine points in 2020. Unforced errors can take a toll with them. Even as the classified documents story eventually fades — it will most likely not be a first-tier issue next year — swing voters may see him in a harsher light.To understand why, it’s necessary to look back more than a dozen years. From the first moments of Mr. Obama’s presidency, Republicans attacked him for everything from having been born in Kenya (a racist lie pushed by Mr. Trump, among others) to wearing tan suits. Even when it distracted Mr. Obama, he brushed it all off his shoulders.That’s because the Obama-Biden administration set an exceptionally high ethical standard and usually met it. Mr. Obama’s scandal-less White House liked to keep things “tight,” as he put it — sometimes too tight. If any appointee stepped out of line, the response was often to fire first and ask questions later, as Shirley Sherrod, a Black official at the Agriculture Department, learned in 2010 after Fox News aired a highly edited tape taken from a right-wing website that made it seem she had delivered a racist speech to the N.A.A.C.P. Ms. Sherrod’s remarks were in fact taken badly out of context, but by the time this was recognized, she had already been dismissed. (The agency subsequently offered to rehire her.)Essentially all Obama-era “scandals” collapsed under scrutiny or never touched his White House. Oceans of ink were spilled chronicling the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar panel company that received loan guarantees from the Energy Department. But no improper conduct was ever established, and the overall loan guarantee program actually turned a profit for the government. Likewise, a poorly planned and ill-fated sting at the U.S.-Mexico border called Operation Fast and Furious brought inconclusive congressional hearings and a contempt citation for Attorney General Eric Holder but did not tarnish Mr. Obama.Mr. Biden’s vulnerabilities are closer to home. His allies are reportedly claiming the story will blow over because it’s just D.C. noise, but that was not Hillary Clinton’s experience with her emails and server. In the same way that the grueling Benghazi hearings from 2014 through 2016 softened Mrs. Clinton up for later attacks, the Biden documents story may give new life to unproven allegations about his connections to unsavory Chinese executives in business with members of his family. Did foreign nationals have access to the mishandled classified documents? That’s highly unlikely. But Republican lawmakers will use Democratic charges about security breaches at Mar-a-Lago as an excuse to open outlandish lines of inquiry.And the G.O.P. now has subpoena power to delve into red-meat targets like the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop and any communications on it that involved the current president. James Comer, the new chair of the House Oversight Committee, will almost certainly haul Hunter Biden and his uncle James Biden, the president’s brother, before the committee to testify about their suspiciously lucrative deals with foreign firms and the way their business intersected disastrously with Hunter Biden’s squalid personal life.To navigate the coming storm, Joe Biden needs to up his political game — no small feat for a man of his age — and avoid becoming his own worst enemy. First, he will have to keep his famous temper out of public view. If Uncle Joe morphs into Testy Joe, over his son or his handling of classified documents or anything else, his problems will worsen. Beyond an improving economy and a successful conclusion to the war in Ukraine, the best medicine for his political ailments would be a surprising legislative victory. In the new Congress, 18 House Republicans represent districts that Mr. Biden carried in 2020. If Mr. Biden can persuade just a handful of them to vote against defaulting on the national debt and sending the global economy into a depression — a harder task than it sounds because of all-but-inevitable right-wing primary challenges — he’ll get credit for averting a major economic crisis.But even if Mr. Biden puts wins on the board, survives venomous Republican lawmakers and gets off with a slap on the wrist in the special counsel’s report, the classified documents story has likely stripped him of a precious political asset with some independents and Democrats: the benefit of the doubt. The general feeling that Mr. Biden — like Mr. Obama — is clean and scandal-free has been replaced by the normal Washington assumption of some level of guilt.Republicans are ferocious attack dogs, especially when they have something to chew on. And Mr. Biden, a better president than candidate, has never had the nimbleness necessary for good defense. When he first ran for president in 1988, he was forced to withdraw amid minor charges of plagiarism that a more dexterous politician might have survived. Over the years, his skills on the stump deteriorated. He performed poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire in 2020 and recovered in South Carolina and won the nomination only because Democrats concluded en masse that he was the best candidate to beat Mr. Trump.That remains the prevailing assumption inside the Democratic Party: He did it before and can do it again. But it’s not clear that rank-and-file voters agree. Last year a New York Times/Siena College poll showed nearly two-thirds of Democrats didn’t want Mr. Biden to run. While his standing improved after the midterms, he’s down in the first polls released since the documents story broke.The president is now an elderly swimmer in a sea of sharks. And some of them may even be Democrats. It’s not hard to envision an ambitious primary challenger arguing, more in sorrow than in anger, that he or she supports most of the Biden record but elections are about the future and the party needs a more vigorous candidate. (Mr. Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term.) Democratic leaders will be shocked and appalled by the upstart’s temerity in spoiling the party’s impressive unity. But New Hampshire is full of anti-establishment independents, and basically the entire state is furious with Mr. Biden for proposing to bump its primary to the second week of the schedule. He could easily lose or be weakened there, opening the door for other Democrats. Which ones? That’s what primaries are for.In the meantime, the president isn’t looking good in polls pitting him against Republicans in hypothetical 2024 matchups. Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have been running about even, a depressing finding for Democrats. And if the G.O.P. nominates a younger candidate like Ron DeSantis, Mr. Biden could be the octogenarian underdog in the general election.Imagine instead that the president takes a leaf from Nancy Pelosi and decides not to run. Mr. Comer and the clownish members of his committee would probably end up training most of their fire on Democrats not named Biden. Democrats would “turn the page,” as Mr. Obama recommended in 2008, to a crop of fresher candidates, probably governors, who contrast better with Mr. Trump and would have good odds of beating a younger Republican. And the smiling old gentleman in the Corvette — his shortcomings forgotten and his family protected — would assume his proper place as a bridge between political generations and arguably the most accomplished one-term president in American history.Jonathan Alter, a longtime political journalist, writes the newsletter Old Goats and has written books on Franklin D. Roosevelt, Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Meet Kyrsten Sinema, Former Democrat of Arizona

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I hope I’ve succeeded in turning you into a World Cup fan. In the meantime, any choice words about, or for, Kyrsten Sinema, former Democrat of Arizona?Gail Collins: Well, Bret, you’ve at least turned me into a fan of the Times coverage of World Cup … activities. I also sorta like times like this when there are a billion different games on TV — not just soccer — and for a while every day, people don’t feel obliged to think about the rest of the world.Bret: Such as …Gail: Such as Kyrsten Sinema. Not a fan of hers from the get-go. Always seemed as if her compulsive effort to prove she wasn’t really a loyal Democrat was less about political independence and more about making wealthy donors happy.Bret: And this is on the theory that other politicians don’t care for what their wealthy donors think?Gail: But her official spin is that the two-party system is broken, and virtue lies in standing outside as an independent. I hate that kind of thinking.Bret: Whereas I love it. To me, the choice these days between Republicans and Democrats is about as appealing as a dinner invitation from Hannibal Lecter: Either you get your heart cut out or your brain removed, and both get served with a side of fava beans and a nice Chianti.Seriously, you don’t see any virtue to wanting to break this awful political duopoly?Gail: Virtue, for me, lies in fighting to make the two parties better. Pick the one that’s closest to your beliefs and get busy. Fight for the good local leaders and nominees.It’s way easier to just announce you’re superior to both of them and start your own group. The new gang probably won’t last long, and even if it does, its big achievement will most likely be to draw votes away from the major party candidates you most agree with.Never recovered from Ralph Nader’s Green Party candidacy for president in 2000 — a noble quest on the issues front that wound up costing Al Gore the job.Bret: A few years ago I would have agreed with you. But the Republican Party is pretty much irredeemable, while the Democrats are … just not the team I’m ever going to bat for.Gail: Come on in. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are waiting with open arms …Bret: Not so sure the Dems would ever want me in the first place: I heart Texas not taxes.As for Sinema, having her join someone like Maine’s Angus King as an independent shows it’s at least possible to have an alternative. I realize she has some very self-interested political reasons for doing so, since the move will spare her a primary challenge from the left if she runs for re-election in 2024. But it also reminds the party establishments that they shouldn’t take their centrist voters for granted. Now I wish a few sane-minded Republicans might go ahead and join her. Lisa Murkowski, hello?Gail: Hey, weird that of the two of us, I’m the one who thinks somebody should try to save the Republican Party.Bret: Raising the dead is beyond our powers, Gail.Gail: You know I don’t do foreign affairs, but I do feel obliged to ask you about Brittney Griner. Do you think Joe Biden did the right thing in making the trade that got her out of prison in Russia?Bret: Well, obviously I’m happy for Griner and her family that she’s back after her 10-month ordeal. And it says everything about the moral difference between the United States and Russia that they will take a harmless person hostage so they can trade her for one of their most notorious gangsters.On the other hand, I don’t understand why we didn’t prioritize the release of Paul Whelan, an American who has been wrongfully detained in a Russian prison for four years but doesn’t have the benefit of Griner’s celebrity. Nor should we forget Marc Fogel, a 61-year-old American teacher trapped in one of Putin’s prisons. My advice to the Biden administration is to tell Russia that $1 billion of its foreign reserves will be seized for every additional day these two stay in prison.Gail: Hope they’re listening.Bret: Oh, and speaking of dealing with gangsters — your thoughts on the current crop of legal cases against the former guy?Gail: I’ve never thought — and still don’t — that a former president is going to go to jail, even for stealing federal documents or rousing violent crowds to march on the Capitol.Bret: Agree. Alas.Gail: But I’ve always had a yearning that he might wind up bankrupt and, say, living in a Motel 6. Knew that was impossible — told myself to remember all the money he can make just on speaking tours or hosting parties at Mar-a-Lago.Bret: Pretty depressing how American culture has descended from “My Dinner With Andre” to that dinner with Kanye.Gail: Now, though, I’m sort of wondering. Is there going to be a market for this guy — chooser of terrible Senate candidates and breaker of bread with neo-Nazis — even just as a celebrity?Bret: I had nearly lost hope that the day would ever come, but I think we are finally watching Trump self-destruct before our eyes even faster than anyone else can destroy him. The midterm results seem to have persuaded a critical mass of Republican voters and politicians that he’s toxic for their chances. Dinner with his antisemitic pals seems to have been the icing on the cake — or whatever the exact opposite of “icing on the cake” is. Toxic algae in the cesspool?Gail: Rotting rutabaga in the refuse? Sorry, that doesn’t actually make much sense. I was seduced by all the R’s.Bret: Gail, would you mind if I rant for a minute?Gail: Bret, I love it when you rant. Even when I hate it.Bret: There’s a special place in hell for the Paul Ryan Republicans — let’s call them PRR’s. What I mean is a certain type of well-heeled, intellectually minded conservative who never liked Trump’s person or politics and who occasionally tut-tutted at his vilest excesses, but who consistently made excuses for him and his presidency while heaping scorn on Never Trumpers as a bunch of virtue-signaling prigs. These Trump-appeasing PRR’s were prepared to defend and vote for him again until the day after the midterms, when they finally realized that he was a titanic political liability.Gail: Well, I truly do love this rant. Go on.Bret: To adapt something Winston Churchill purportedly said to Neville Chamberlain after Munich in 1938: In 2016 conservatives were given the choice between electoral defeat and personal dishonor. They chose dishonor. In the end, they still got defeated.Gail: You know I’m going to ask who’s a Churchillian pick in the Republican world. For instance, Ron DeSantis was never a huge Trump pal, but I think that was only because he was eyeing his job.Bret: So, weirdly, I have much less of a moral objection to those Republicans like DeSantis who liked Trump to begin with, whether because they agreed with most of his policies or appreciated his thumb-in-the-eye personality, or both. At least they came about their support for Trump honestly, without convoluted rationalizations and self-exculpations and various suspensions of disbelief. Of course I don’t agree with them, but I long ago stopped disdaining them.Speaking of disdain, any views on all of these disclosures about Twitter’s speech policies?Gail: Is there any way we can make it illegal for the richest man in the world to own one of the largest social networks? Guess not, huh?Bret: Probably not, though I doubt Musk will profit from the acquisition.Gail: Definitely felt sorry for the Twitter workers who discovered that Musk was putting beds in their work space. And his wild political seesawing would ruin the influence of anybody who wasn’t closing in on a quarter of a trillion dollars.But here we are, and I don’t have any great strategy for making him behave in a more responsible way when it comes to things like … keeping violent hatemongers off his platform. Do you have one?Bret: Violent hatemongers aside, I thought it was pretty appalling to see the lengths to which pre-Musk Twitter went to ban legitimate news stories, like The New York Post’s scoop about Hunter Biden’s laptop, and to downplay views that went against conventional wisdom, like the Stanford professor of medicine who warned about the ill-effects of lockdowns, and to coordinate its decisions with the Biden team — and then mislead the public about what it was doing. Even progressives like Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley in Congress, warned Twitter about its anti-free speech attitude, which is entirely to his credit and not at all to theirs.Gail: Bret scores …Bret: I guess the point is, we don’t want giant corporations banning political speech, whether it comes from the left or the right, and that goes especially for companies whose entire business model relies on the principle of free speech. For exposing this, I have to give Musk credit.Gail: We’ll pick this up again, Bret. Somehow I suspect Elon Musk will follow us into the new year.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      in Elections

      What Are the Politics of Elon Musk? It’s Complicated.

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      Elon Musk has tweeted about political topics regularly since taking over Twitter, often belittling some liberal causes. But what he stands for remains largely unclear.He has called himself an independent and a centrist, yet “economically right of center, maybe.” He has said he was until recently a supporter of only Democrats and voted for President Biden. He’s encouraged people to vote Republican, which he said he did for the first time this year. Last year, he once even declared himself indifferent about politics, saying he’d rather stay out of it altogether.Elon Musk, ever a bundle of contradictions and inconsistencies, has long made his politics tricky to pin down. To many of his critics, though, his relentless flurry of tweets in the six weeks since he took over Twitter has exposed his true conservative bent, and intensified their fears that he would make the social network more susceptible to right-wing misinformation.And at times, he’s made it hard to argue with that. He has said he’d welcome former President Donald J. Trump back on Twitter; suggested that Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was lying about the attack at their home that left him hospitalized; and reinstated accounts that have trafficked in offensive ethnic stereotypes and bigotry, including for the artist formerly known as Kanye West. (Mr. Musk later suspended Mr. West’s account again after the rapper-entrepreneur posted an image of a swastika.)His copious tweeting has generated huge amounts of attention. In a 24-hour period late this week, he tweeted more than 40 times, often with little rhyme or reason. He criticized the Biden administration’s deal with Russia that freed Brittney Griner, the Women’s National Basketball Association star. He asked Elton John to clarify his complaint about misinformation flourishing unchecked on Twitter. At times, Mr. Musk was acting like Twitter’s in-house customer service representative, boasting about new features and improved functions.And maybe that is a big part of the point — improving the image of his new $44 billion property, which he has said repeatedly is in dire financial straits.Yet Mr. Musk, who did not respond to a request for comment, continues to defy easy political categorization. His views have been described as libertarian, though these days his politics seem more contrarian than anything else. He is more clear about what he is against than what he is for.It’s true Mr. Musk certainly sounds a lot like a Republican — and, sometimes, a lot like Mr. Trump — with his missives on Twitter against “woke” politics and Covid restrictions, his attacks on “elite” media and his efforts to draw attention to allegations that Hunter Biden profited from his father’s political clout.More on Elon Musk’s Twitter TakeoverAn Established Pattern: Firing people. Talking of bankruptcy. Telling workers to be “hard core.” Twitter isn’t the first company that witnessed Elon Musk use those tactics.Rivals Emerge: Sensing an opportunity, new start-ups and other social platforms are racing to dethrone Twitter and capitalize on the chaos of its new ownership under Mr. Musk.The ‘Twitter Files’: Mr. Musk and Matt Taibbi, an independent journalist, set off an intense debate with a release of internal Twitter documents regarding a 2020 decision to restrict posts linking to a report in the New York Post about Hunter Biden.Hard Fork: The Times podcast looks at Mr. Musk’s two-day clash with Apple, which he had accused of trying to sabotage Twitter before saying the “misunderstanding” had been resolved.But where Mr. Musk has seemed most in line with the G.O.P. of Mr. Trump is in the tenor of his political commentary, which if anything seems more spiritedly anti-left than ideologically pro-right. While he has not been shy about sharing his disdain for many Democrats, his enthusiasm for Republicans has been more muted. He has stressed repeatedly that his problems are with extremists on both ends of the political spectrum.“To be clear, my historical party affiliation has been Independent, with an actual voting history of entirely Democrat until this year,” he wrote on Twitter the day before the midterm election. “And I’m open to the idea of voting Democrat again in the future.”As with many people who describe themselves as politically independent now, the hostility Mr. Musk harbors toward Democrats appears to have drawn him closer to the Republican Party over the last few years. He considers himself as part of the “center 80% of people, who wish to learn, laugh & engage in reasoned debate.”He has eagerly encouraged his followers to weigh in with their views on the country’s culture wars and traded tweets with some of the right’s favorite punching bags, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. When she criticized his plan to charge Twitter users $8 a month to have a verified account with one of the social media service’s signature blue check marks — “Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that ‘free speech’ is actually a $8/mo subscription plan,” she wrote — he dismissed her.“Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8,” Mr. Musk shot back.Many of his recent tweets have had that kind of “own the libs” tone, the shorthand on the right for when conservatives think they’ve deftly, often sarcastically, swatted down a liberal. A couple of weeks ago, he posted video on Twitter of a closet full of T-shirts with the slogan “#stay woke” that he said he had found at the social media company’s headquarters. Then he followed up with a tweet that linked to a Justice Department report that undercut one of the central narratives of the mass protests against police brutality: that Michael Brown, a Black teenager killed by the police in Ferguson, Mo., had his hands raised when a white officer shot him.On occasion, his remarks have raised concerns that he has planted himself firmly among right-wing conspiracy theorists. When he tweeted about the attack on Ms. Pelosi’s husband, he shared the unfounded claim that there was “a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.” He later deleted the tweet, which linked to an article from a fringe website.He also said he would support Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for president in 2024, though his endorsement was not especially resounding. He merely replied “Yes” when someone on Twitter asked him. Mr. DeSantis, a hard-line conservative, would be an odd choice for someone who professes to want centrist governance in Washington.Mr. Musk has always claimed his concerns with Twitter’s previous management were about the ability of a small group of the company’s employees whom he described as “far left” to censor content. And over the past week, he has cheered on tweets about internal communications before he took over. The communications, which were given to two writers who have posted their findings on Twitter, calling them the Twitter Files, showed how the company went about deciding what information got suppressed.It’s been a mixed bag of revelations. Some showed how Twitter employees made it harder to see tweets from a Stanford University professor who warned about how Covid lockdowns could harm children — a view many public health experts have come around to accept well after the fact. Other documents show how more conventional, conspiracy-theory-embracing conservatives were shut down, like Dan Bongino, the radio host who was one of the biggest amplifiers of lies about the 2020 election.Mr. Musk has not professed to have any profound attachment to Republican policies, though, which is consistent with his posture before taking over Twitter.He has been highly critical of climate change deniers and said he’s proud of how Tesla forced the rest of the automobile industry to embrace electric vehicles. In 2020, he revealed that he’d spoken to Mr. Trump numerous times about the importance of developing sustainable energy, which the former president dismissed in favor of traditional fossil fuel-based sources. And Mr. Musk quit Mr. Trump’s business councils after the administration pulled out of the Paris climate accord.In an interview with The New York Times in 2020, he described his politics as “middle-of-the-road.” “I’m socially very liberal. And then economically right of center, maybe, or center. I don’t know. I’m obviously not a communist.”His political giving supports that claim. According to the Federal Election Commission, which reports spending in federal but not state races, he has donated just shy of $1 million since 2003 to candidates as conservative as former President George W. Bush and as liberal as Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat. More recently, in 2020, he donated to senators of both political parties — including Chris Coons and Gary Peters, both Democrats, and Susan Collins and John Cornyn, both Republicans.Often, it seems, his posts are motivated by personal pique, not political philosophy. He’s criticized the Biden administration, for instance, as “not the friendliest” and for excluding Tesla, the world’s largest electric vehicle maker, from a White House summit on zero-emission vehicles in August 2021. His speculation on the reason for the exclusion: General Motors and the other car companies invited are union companies; Tesla is not. “Seems to be controlled by unions,” he complained at the time.Many of the views he has espoused on Twitter over the last two years have become popular in today’s Republican Party but are hardly exclusive to card-carrying Republicans. His criticism of progressives he views as overly censorious and sanctimonious is a sentiment many on the left have expressed. And his public condemnation of strict Covid containment measures in 2020 channeled what would become a growing skepticism of widespread public health restrictions. Though he was more exercised about them than most. “Fascist,” he once declared.Often, his tweets can seem to imply he leans in one direction when it’s just as likely that he is trying to court controversy. How to interpret, for instance, a post last week of what he said was an image of his bedside table? It had a revolver on it and a musket in a wooden case decorated with an image of George Washington crossing the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War.“Greetings, I’m Musket, Elon Musket,” he wrote.A few days later, he sounded pleased with himself as he remarked on the way Twitter had changed since his purchase was completed in October. “So many interesting posts on Twitter these days!” More