Politics
Hunter Biden: Sobriety key to blocking Trump comeback
By Jake Beardslee · February 26, 2024
In brief…
- Hunter Biden said maintaining his sobriety is important to prevent Trump from returning to office.
- Republicans plan to scrutinize Biden's past addiction issues and foreign business dealings when he testifies before Congress this week.
- Biden has been sober since 2019 and says he is committed to staying that way despite the challenges.
Hunter Biden believes staying sober is crucial not just for himself, but for ensuring Donald Trump doesn’t return to the White House, according to a new interview with Axios.
Biden has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction in the past. His actions during this period, along with his foreign business dealings, will be scrutinized when he testifies before GOP-led House committees this week.
Last July, Biden swore he had been sober since June 1, 2019, and has continued testing negative since then according to his legal team.
Biden told Axios, “I feel a responsibility to everyone struggling through their own recovery to succeed.”
When President Biden entered the 2020 race in April 2019, Hunter was still deep in addiction after a failed intervention. He fled to California and burrowed “back into oblivion” for a time, he wrote in his memoir. But with the help of his now-wife Melissa Cohen, he achieved sobriety the day before Biden’s campaign kickoff in May 2019.
Biden hopes he can offer advice to others pursuing sobriety, saying they must “embrace the state in which you came into recovery” and understand that “what is required is that you basically have to change everything.”
He told Axios his first duty is getting through this fight “clean and sober” because “I have something much bigger than even myself at stake. We are in the middle of a fight for the future of democracy.”