Hunter Biden says Fox News trying to 'dehumanize' him
Hunter Biden, the president's controversial son who has been a magnet for scandal and GOP scrutiny, says Fox News has taken things too far and tried to "dehumanize" him over his drug addiction.
“I’m not saying my addiction is an excuse for my bad behavior. What I’m saying is that my addiction is not an excuse for them to dehumanize me — and in doing so dehumanize everybody from the addict that you pass it on the street, to the one that you live with,” Biden said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast published Monday.
Biden, 54, has sent a legal letter to Fox threatening to sue the network for allegedly conspiring with former President Trump's allies and pro-Russia foreign nationals to defame him. He also claims his image was exploited for profit.
Biden said Fox has tried to use him to hurt his father's political career. The letter asked the network to issue written retractions and on-air apologies and corrections for stories related to the younger Biden. His lawyers told The Daily Beast they will file a formal lawsuit “shortly.”
A Fox News spokesperson directed The Hill to a previous statement on the network's "constitutionally protected" coverage of Biden as a "public figure."
“Hunter Biden’s lawyers have belatedly chosen to publicly attack Fox News’ constitutionally protected coverage regarding their client," the statement said. "Mr. Biden is a public figure who has been the subject of investigations by both the Department of Justice and Congress, has been indicted by two different US Attorney’s Offices in California and Delaware, and has admitted to multiple incidents of wrongdoing."
"Consistent with the First Amendment, Fox News has accurately covered these highly publicized events as well as the subsequent indictment of an FBI informant who was the source of certain claims made about Mr. Biden," it added.
Biden, who detailed his struggles with addition in his 2021 memoir, told The Daily Beast he's not discouraged by what could possibly come up in a lawsuit.
“Everybody that has ever thought about bringing a defamation suit is always told they’re just going to spend any legal proceeding defaming you all over again,” he said. “It’s not like I’m going to reignite some controversy over whether or not I ever smoked crack.”
The Biden family has made no secret of its long-standing feud with Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
President Biden reportedly called Murdoch the “most dangerous man in the world,” according to New York Times reporters' sources.
Naomi Biden, Hunter Biden's daughter and the president's granddaughter, blasted Fox News opinion host Jesse Watters over a monologue he delivered in January attacking the president as a father because of Hunter Biden's struggles.
“I have heard so many lies about my family, it takes a lot to make me upset. This crosses the line,” Naomi Biden, 30, wrote on the social platform X. “I hope [Watters] never has a son or daughter who struggles with anything."
Fox News removed a docuseries on Hunter Biden from its streaming service last month after he threatened to sue over the use of images he said were private and illegally obtained. Hunter Biden said the removal of the film, which depicted a staged mock trial, “doesn’t absolve them from any liability.”
In his far-ranging interview with the Beast, Hunter Biden said he feels he has been subjected to "five years of a systemic f---ing campaign to vilify and dehumanize me" and attempts to portray him as a "degenerate crack addict.”
Hunter Biden, who says he's currently clean and sober, is facing federal criminal trials in two states — one in Delaware on gun-related charges and another in California on tax charges.
Other highlights from Hunter Biden's rare interview with the Beast include his explanation for an infamous and scandalous photo of him, as well as details from the alleged harassment he endured after the salacious contents of his old laptop became public in 2020.
In a photo critics often have used to shame Hunter Biden, he appears to be asleep in a bed with a glass pipe dangling from his lips. “Clearly someone took that picture,” he told the Beast, adding “that’s actually a meth pipe,” not one used for crack. He said he never used meth and claimed the photo must have been staged.
After an old email address was made public through the laptop, Hunter Biden reportedly became the target of a campaign from imposters and pranksters who have contacted his associates and family members using spoofing methods to make it appear as if texts and calls were coming from him.
“People call from an old email of mine, using internet service, and it will register like as if I called,” he told the Beast. “They could text you an SMS text from that email, and it will pop up as a valid email. It’ll look like it’s actually from me.”
The Daily Beast reported that he briefly stepped away from his interview with the outlet to take a call from his uncle. He came back and claimed a family friend received a call at 2 a.m. from someone who claimed to be him.
According to Hunter Biden's account, the late-night caller pretending to be him falsely told the friend the president had fallen and broken his hip, and that he’d been drinking and needed help to cover up the incident.
Hunter Biden estimated that, for a time, he heard about similar incidents “about once at least every 10 days.