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      Biden Dons Kansas City Helmet to Celebrate Its Super Bowl Victory

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      Taylor Swift was not at the White House to celebrate with her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, but kicker Harrison Butker, who recently drew controversy for a commencement speech, attended.On Friday, President Biden urgently called for an end to the war in Gaza. He solemnly discussed the rule of law after former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal conviction. And he donned a shiny red helmet to the whoops and cheers of a pack of football players and fans.The visit to the White House by the Kansas City Chiefs to celebrate their second straight Super Bowl win gave the president a few moments of frivolity in a week replete with sobering events.“Winning back-to-back — I kind of like that,” Mr. Biden said, hinting at the tough re-election bid he faces in his rematch with Mr. Trump. He added, “When the doubters question if you can pull it off again, believe me, I know what that feels like.”The South Lawn celebration was a blip on the president’s schedule, squeezed between a meeting with the prime minister of Belgium and his weekend plans in Rehoboth Beach, Del., during a month with an endless string of campaign events. Yet, with some of the National Football League’s most famous names, it carried a certain celebrity wattage.Still, the spotlight was far dimmer than it could have been. Taylor Swift did not make the trip with her boyfriend, the star tight end Travis Kelce, as she was touring in Europe and had performed in Madrid on Thursday night.The White House had previously said it was up to the Chiefs whether to extend an invitation to the star musician, who has largely avoided embroiling herself in politics. She endorsed Mr. Biden in 2020, leading to speculation about whether she would do so again.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Obama Is a Surprise Guest Among Allies at Biden’s State Dinner for Kenya

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      The state dinner was held in honor of the African nation, but it was clear that the night was about keeping Democratic allies close as President Biden heads into the heat of the 2024 campaign season.Yes, Barack Obama was there.State dinners are best known as bear hugs for overseas allies, and Thursday’s honoree was Kenya. But the sixth state dinner of President Biden’s term was designed to clutch domestic allies — not the least of them Mr. Obama, whose father was Kenyan — even tighter as the president makes the long slog toward November.The 500-person event, held on the South Lawn of the White House on a humid May evening, was attended by dozens of influential Kenyans, of course. The list included President William Ruto of Kenya and his wife, Rachel, along with three of his daughters. It also included some of the country’s wealthiest figures, like James Mwangi, the chief executive of the global banking conglomerate Equity Group Holdings Limited.“We share a strong respect for the history that connects us together,” Mr. Biden said to his guests during a toast. He quoted from a speech given by President Jimmy Carter, who honored Kenya with a state dinner in 1980: “Neighbors do not share a border but share beliefs.”But the evening, along with the guest list, was just as notable for what it said about Mr. Biden’s current political obstacles. Aside from Mr. Obama — the former president was not on the initial guest list published by the White House, and he departed before Mr. Biden’s speech — the list name-checked the people Mr. Biden will want to bring closer into the fold in the months ahead. The lineup included elected officials in several battleground states, influential Black political operatives, and powerful philanthropists, like Melinda French Gates.Choosing their guests, the president and Jill Biden, the first lady, mixed supporters of the president’s re-election effort with several Biden family members — granddaughters and Mr. Biden’s son Hunter, who is scheduled to stand trial on gun charges next month. (Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, walked the red carpet alone.) There were few Hollywood types, though one notable attendee was the actor Sean Penn. Mr. Penn was photographed by the gossip website TMZ as he spent time with Hunter Biden, who has been working on a documentary about his life, in California earlier this month.Hunter Biden and the actor Sean Penn listened to President William Ruto of Kenya as he spoke at the dinner.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jill Biden Hosts Teachers at Awards Dinner, With a Bit of Pomp

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      The first lady commended the winner of the National Teacher of the Year award during an event evoking formal state dinners.The hallmarks of a state dinner were there: lavish floral displays festooning the White House, the first lady arriving in a floor-length sequined gown, and members of Congress and cabinet secretaries mingling with attendees. But the honored guest was not the president of France or the prime minister of Japan.It was Missy Testerman of Rogersville City School in rural Tennessee.Jill Biden, the first lady, kicked off a new format for delivering the National Teacher of the Year award on Thursday by hosting this year’s winner, Ms. Testerman, and dozens of other teachers from across the country at the White House with a ceremony emulating the pomp normally reserved for foreign dignitaries.Dr. Biden, who has kept her day job as an English professor while serving as first lady and has worked to support community colleges from the White House, spoke in support of teachers’ unions in her opening remarks and stressed the need of helping educators after the Covid-19 pandemic.“Tonight we celebrate you because teaching isn’t just a job, it’s a calling,” Dr. Biden said, adding, “To answer this call of service is in itself an act of hope.”Ms. Testerman, an English as a second language teacher who had worked as a first and second grade teacher for 30 years, also spoke, discussing the importance of her profession.“As an English as a second language teacher, my students are all either immigrants to our country, or first-generation Americans having been born to immigrant parents,” Ms. Testerman said. “Hearing the experiences of my students and their families reminds me daily what a privilege it is to be an American and what a privilege it is to attend a public school in this country.”The Council of Chief State School Officers, which oversees the award program, has honored finalists and a winner at the White House nearly every year since 1952, according to the council’s website. Dr. Biden has presided over the award ceremony every year of President Biden’s term. (Mr. Biden, who was returning from a trip to North Carolina, dropped in briefly, reflecting on his days teaching law classes and telling the teachers, “You are the kite strings that lift our national ambitions aloft.”)The evolution of the ceremony this year came complete with floral arrangements incorporating irises — the Tennessee state flower — and classroom-themed décor. The guests dined on a menu including lobster ravioli and honey-poached apple mousse, and were entertained by the U.S. Army Chorus with the Army and Air Force Strings.Miguel A. Cardona, the secretary of education, told attendees that the event was meant to bestow “our teachers with a level of national respect that is long overdue.”In all, 57 teachers, including past winners of the award, attended on Thursday, according to a guest list released by the White House. Apart from the honor, selected teachers are also invited into a yearlong professional development program.Before the event, the White House announced new measures aimed at encouraging higher pay for teachers and highlighted changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, a centerpiece of Mr. Biden’s effort to slash student debt, which allows public servants such as teachers to have their federal student loan debt forgiven after 10 years.Dr. Biden, a teacher for over 30 years and a member of the National Education Association, has often waded into education policy, particularly during the transition back to in-person learning as the Covid crisis waned. She also led a push to make community colleges tuition free, though legislation she helped draft did not survive in Congress.Mr. Biden renewed the call for free community college as a policy priority in his budget for next fiscal year, but the proposal has little chance of becoming law with Republicans in control of the House. More

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      Biden’s State Dinner for Japan to Feature Paul Simon and Celebrate Spring

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      An elevated California roll and steak with sesame sabayon will be among the dishes presented to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan at the state dinner on Wednesday.The “bounty of spring” will be the theme of President Biden’s state dinner for Japan on Wednesday evening, an event that will feature decorations of cherry blossoms and peonies and conclude with a performance by Paul Simon.Jill Biden, the first lady, and the White House social secretary, Carlos Elizondo, previewed the menu and the décor ahead of the dinner for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and his wife. It will be the fifth state dinner of Mr. Biden’s term.The guests will enter the East Wing to a wall of oversized fans that spill onto the floor, a piece of art and a metaphor with “the small end representing the beginning of life, and each pleat the many paths our lives can take,” Mr. Elizondo said.The meal will include house-cured salmon with shiso leaf tempura (evoking a California roll) and dry-aged rib-eye beef with morel mushrooms from Oregon and shishito pepper butter. Salted caramel pistachio cake and cherry ice cream will be served for dessert.The White House executive chef Cris Comerford and the White House executive pastry chef Susie Morrison.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesSalted caramel pistachio cake, matcha ganache with cherry ice cream and raspberry drizzle will be served for dessert.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesThe state dinner on Wednesday night will be the fifth of the Biden presidency.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesDr. Biden said the dinner had been designed with springtime in Washington in mind, and the decorations would evoke a garden of her favorite flowers, including sweet pea, roses and peonies.“As guests sit among the field of flowers, glass and silk butterflies from both our countries will dance over the tables,” Dr. Biden told reporters on Tuesday.The dinner will also spotlight Washington’s cherry trees, a present from Japan in 1912, which stand as “reminders of the gift Japan gave our nation’s capital and the bright future ahead for our partnership,” Mr. Elizondo said.The executive chef at the White House, Cris Comerford, said the dinner included ingredients sourced from across the country.Mr. Simon will perform after the dinner. Mr. Biden will also present Mr. Kishida with a two-volume LP set autographed by Billy Joel and a vintage vinyl record collection showcasing other American musicians, the White House announced on Tuesday.As the evening concludes, guests will leave through a path of hydrangeas, a selection of flowers common in both the United States and Japan.The guest list is typically released by the White House just before arrivals begin, but the Biden administration tends to invite prominent members of the visiting country, donors, administration officials and members of the Biden family. More

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      Secret Service Had to Adjust Tactics to Avoid Bites From Biden’s Dog

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      Newly released documents recorded at least 24 biting episodes before Commander, the president’s German shepherd, was banished from the White House last fall.The Secret Service had to “adjust our operational tactics” to protect President Biden because the first family’s dog kept biting agents, including one who required six stitches and another whose blood spilled onto the floor of the White House, according to newly released internal emails posted online.The agency recorded at least 24 biting episodes between October 2022 and July 2023 involving Commander, a German shepherd who became the terror of the West Wing, Camp David and the president’s homes in Delaware, about half of which required medical attention, according to the documents. Commander was banished from the White House last fall to an undisclosed location.“The recent dog bites have challenged us to adjust our operational tactics when Commander is present — please give lots of room (staying a terrain feature away if possible),” an assistant special agent in charge of the Presidential Protection Division wrote to the team. “We will continue to keep” a protected person whose code name was blacked out in the document but was clearly Mr. Biden “in our sight but must be creative to ensure our own personal safety.” The agent reported that they were seeking “a better solution soon.”The documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by John Greenewald, a longtime California-based researcher who specializes in unearthing government secrets on everything from U.F.O.s to C.I.A. and military activities, and posted on his website, called The Black Vault. The Secret Service confirmed the documents were authentic.The 273 pages of emails and documents, with names redacted, shed new light on a period that generated great stress inside the White House before Commander, then age 2, was removed from the mansion. A previous presidential dog, Major, was moved out of the White House two years earlier for similar reasons.The cache of emails not only documented various episodes in sometimes graphic detail, but also captured the trauma and concern among Secret Service agents and officers, who shared techniques for the best ways to avoid getting hurt. Secret Service personnel were bitten on the wrist, forearm, elbow, waist, chest, thigh and shoulder. One was saved from injury by his ammunition pouch. Among the documents was a photo of a torn shirt.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Older Americans React to Special Counsel Report on Biden

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      President Biden’s age has once again become a talking point in national politics. Many older Americans agree that it’s an issue; others feel it’s insulting. Bill Murphy, an 80-year-old retired veterinarian in suburban Phoenix, sometimes blanks on names he could once summon with ease, so he has empathy for 81-year-old President Biden. But he winced when he watched Mr. Biden defend his mental sharpness at a news conference, only to mix up the presidents of Egypt and Mexico. Mr. Murphy, a Republican, believes Mr. Biden is not up to another term.Mary Meyer, an 83-year-old avid hiker and traveler who lives in the high desert north of Phoenix, took issue with a special counsel’s report that characterized him as elderly and forgetful — a similar assumption that strangers at the supermarket sometimes make about her capabilities. “I look at him as a peer,” said Ms. Meyer, who plans to vote for Mr. Biden. “I know what he’s capable of. I know it’s not as bad as everybody thinks.”To voters in their 70s and 80s, the renewed questions swirling around Mr. Biden’s age and fitness resonated in deeply personal ways. The special counsel report cleared him of criminal charges in his handling of classified documents but described him as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”Some of Mr. Biden’s generational peers and supporters insisted the characterization was nothing more than a calculated political ploy to undercut his campaign, and play on perceived weakness. Many noted their own vibrant and busy lives, filled with mental and physical activity.The criticism of Mr. Biden as forgetful and incapable of serving echoed slights and discrimination they had felt. Others thought of their own struggles as they hit their 80s, and questioned any 80-year-old’s ability to lead the nation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Formidable Rosalynn Carter

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      I saw Rosalynn Carter angry only twice. Both occasions involved Ronald Reagan, who had crushed Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election, and both reflected her passion and decency.The first concerned a free public swimming pool in the Carters’ hometown, Plains, Ga., that they built in the 1950s. She recounted to me during an interview that when Mr. Reagan was president, local conservatives turned it into a whites-only private club. Mr. Reagan made people “comfortable with their prejudices,” she snapped.The second related to the landmark Mental Health Systems Act of 1980, a major investment in community mental health centers that Mrs. Carter spearheaded with the help of her husband’s other archrival, Senator Edward Kennedy. Sitting in her office at the Carter Center in 2015, she grew upset as she described how Mr. Reagan had defunded the ambitious program, leaving tens of thousands of people untreated. It took 30 years — until Obamacare — before ​​federal funding for community mental health treatment centers was fully resurrected with her help.Perhaps in death Mrs. Carter will finally be properly appreciated for her role as this country’s premier champion of mental health. It’s only one of the many unheralded accomplishments of a formidable and gracious woman who belongs in the first rank of influential first ladies.Over nearly 80 years, the Carters forged the longest, closest and arguably most productive high-level political partnership in American history — more seamless than those between Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt or Bill and Hillary Clinton because it lacked the personal drama of those marriages.Although each agreed that the secret to a long, happy marriage was to spend some time apart, they did almost everything together — from learning to read the Bible in Spanish before bed to dodging gunfire in Africa after the presidency and fly-fishing in Siberia when he was 90 and she was 88.The Carters were married for 77 years, a distinction enjoyed by an estimated 1,000 or so American couples. But they knew each other for an astonishing 96 years, first meeting a few days after Rosalynn Smith was born in 1927 when Jimmy’s mother, the nurse who delivered Rosalynn, brought her toddler over to see the new baby.On their first date in 1945, when Jimmy was a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, they went to a movie neither remembered. Nearly half a century later, Jimmy wrote a poem entitled “Rosalynn”:I’d pay to sit behind her, blind to whatwas on the screen, and watch the image flickerupon her hair.I’d glow when her diminished voice would clearmy muddled thoughts, like lightning flashing ina gloomy sky.Mr. Carter said he would not have won his long-shot 1976 bid for the presidency without her charm, hard work and smart advice. Spending an astonishing 75 days campaigning in Florida, she proved instrumental in helping him prevail in a historic primary there. His victory in Florida over George Wallace all but assured his nomination and marked the end of the racist wing of the Democratic Party.Inside the White House, Mrs. Carter was the first presidential spouse with her own professional policy staff. In 1977 she assumed an unprecedented role as her husband’s personal envoy and forcefully confronted authoritarian heads of state in Latin America on their human rights abuses. She took action to combat age discrimination by working closely with the congressman Claude Pepper to loosen rules on mandatory retirement, which affected the careers of millions. And touched by the plight of the Vietnamese “boat people” fleeing Communist Vietnam, she helped persuade her husband to more than double the number of refugees admitted from Southeast Asia.Mr. Carter described their relationship as “like one person acting in concert.” Asked about his decision-making on foreign policy, he said that he confirmed his judgment with “Rosalynn, Cy” (Cyrus Vance, his secretary of state), “Zbig” (Zbigniew Brzezinski, his national security adviser) “and Ham” (Hamilton Jordan, his chief of staff). As the Time correspondent Hugh Sidey wrote in 1979, “Note the order.” On the domestic side, Mrs. Carter pushed her husband hard to appoint more women to important positions, and he did, naming five times as many women to the federal bench as all of his predecessors combined.Known as the Steel Magnolia, a nickname she liked, Mrs. Carter set off controversy when she sat in (silently) on cabinet meetings. But she was enthusiastically welcomed there as a critical part of the policy process. While most presidential aides view first ladies warily, the senior staff in the Carter White House often wished the stubborn president listened even more to his impressive wife, especially on politics, where, as Mr. Carter acknowledged, her instincts were better than his.One achievement with contemporary resonance: Mrs. Carter, along with Betty Bumpers, the wife of Senator Dale Bumpers, traveled around the country and persuaded 33 state legislatures to change their laws to require proof of vaccination for children to enter school. This led to a joke in the late 1970s: Everywhere the first lady goes, kids cry — for fear of getting a shot.In 1980, Mrs. Carter thought her husband was “seemingly pompous” in explaining why he wouldn’t make politically expedient decisions. As she recounted in her memoirs, he would say something like, “I’ll never do anything to hurt my country.” And she’d reply, “The thing you can do to hurt your country most is not get re-elected.”When Mr. Carter lost, Mrs. Carter grew depressed and wanted her husband to run for president again against Mr. Reagan. When Mr. Carter rejected that idea out of hand, she helped him reinvent the post-presidency by establishing the Carter Center. They traveled the globe together, “waging peace,” as they put it, supervising elections, starting impressive global health initiatives and building houses for the poor. On the road, Mrs. Carter served as note-taker in important peace talks; at home, she established fellowships for journalists covering mental health issues and, as the founder of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers, did as much as anyone to popularize a concept that barely had a name until the 1980s.The Carters’ eight-decade love affair was one for the ages. When I was at work on my biography, Mrs. Carter shared with me her husband’s letters from sea. One of them from 1949 read:When I have been away from you this long … I feel lonely and lost, and it seems that I am not really living but just waiting to live again when you are with me.Rosalynn Carter kept those letters in a drawer close by until the day she died.Jonathan Alter is a journalist and the author of “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life.”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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      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