What sort of longshot candidate do we reckon is going to run for US president in 2028? The Rock? Kim Kardashian? Kermit the Frog? US politics has become so debased that being rich, famous and a natural-born citizen (sorry, Zohran Mamdani) now seem to be the only qualifications required for a job in the White House.
Which is why you shouldn’t entirely write off murmurings that Hunter Biden might be interested in following in his daddy’s presidential footsteps. When asked by a Fox News reporter about Hunter’s 2028 odds last month, Donald Trump suggested Joe Biden’s prodigal son might “do well”. If other “basket case[s]” in the Democratic party could do well, Trump added, then Hunter probably had a shot. Various analysts appear to agree. “Could Hunter Biden run for office? Don’t rule it out,” a recent Times headline blared. The article quotes a Biden biographer saying: “With a character like Hunter Biden in a populist, social media-driven political environment, you have to never say never.”
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You would definitely have said “never” a couple of years ago: Hunter wasn’t exactly the US’s favourite person during his dad’s presidency. His various scandals made him a target for Maga and a headache for Democrats. But in recent months, Hunter has reinvented himself as a social-media star. Since reactivating his X account in May, the former first son has posted an average of 23 times a day – Elon Musk-levels of posting. Except while Elon is tweeting about how “whites are a rapidly dying minority”, Hunter is cracking self-deprecating jokes about drugs and gaining fans across the political spectrum, with some calling him the “Maga whisperer”. Writing on X in June, Biden said he’d gladly take the title. “Left, right, D or R we all want the same things,” Hunter added. “We’re being divided on purpose by the Epstein Elite Oligarch class because as long as we’re at each other’s throats, they get fat and rich off of our misery.”
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Amen to that. Still, despite his refreshing political commentary, I’m not sure we should be treating the man as a folk hero or a Maga whisperer quite yet. It seems to me Hunter’s comeback isn’t so much motivated by political ambitions as by his millions of dollars of debt. He’s always been good at capitalising on his last name, and I suspect he’s realised he can parlay being provocative online into monetisable opportunities. To that end, Hunter has been going on every podcast that will have him, including sitting down with the far-right conspiracy theorist Candace Owens and the white nationalist Nick Fuentes. He’s also launched a paid Substack called Where’s Hunter? (a reference to one of Trump’s favourite catchphrases) and joked about starting an OnlyFans.
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Look, if you’re going to milk your famous name, at least make sure you’re not boring. (Trump’s spawn have failed spectacularly in this regard.) And Hunter’s new Extremely Online persona may be occasionally unhinged, but it’s not boring. On Saturday, for example, Hunter went on the progressive commentator Jennifer Welch’s podcast and joked that America’s biggest problem wasn’t “oligarchy”, but “closetocracy”, or the angry “closeted gay mafia” of Republicans in DC. This is relevant, Hunter said, because he believes the “internal conflict creates so much vitriol inside a person that they take it out on the rest of the world”. Hunter added that while he didn’t get a “gaydar ping” from Senator Ted Cruz, the man definitely gave him a “really kinky weird” vibe. I don’t know that this particular conversation was big or clever, but I’m sure it annoyed Cruz, so there’s that.
Speaking of things that aren’t big or clever, Hunter’s also been trolling JD Vance following the vice-president’s creepy comments about Biden’s “suggestive” ice-cream licking. (I’ll spare you JD’s thoughts on corn dogs.) On Sunday, which was National Ice Cream Day for those who celebrate, Hunter posted a photo of himself licking an ice-cream with the caption: “Hey @JDVance. I wish I knew how to quit you.” And Hunter hasn’t minced his words when it comes to Vance’s boss. In a recent interview, he said that if he were sitting next to Trump, he’d tell him to “go fuck his fucking self”. He then noted that he’d challenged Donald Trump Jr to a UFC fight “three times” but hadn’t heard back. He added: “That’s how I’m going to pay all my debt.”
Good luck with that, mate. Hunter has zero chance of ever winning a presidential nomination, but I’d bet good money he’d beat Don Jr in a cage fight. The US may be divided, but that’s a Biden-Trump rematch I think everyone in the country could get behind.
