Former first son Hunter Biden blamed his father Joe Biden’s poor June 2024 debate performance against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on the former president’s use of the sleeping drug Ambien.
“I know exactly what happened in that debate,” Hunter Biden told Andrew Callaghan, host of the YouTube show Channel 5, which aired on Monday.
“He flew around the world — basically the mileage that he could have flown around the world three times. He’s 81 years old. He’s tired as s**t. They give him Ambien to be able to sleep. He gets up on the stage, and he looks like he’s a deer in the headlights, and it feeds into every f***ing story that anybody wants to tell,” Hunter said.
USA Today reported that in the weeks leading up to the June 27 debate, then-President Biden had traveled to Europe for the 80th anniversary of D-Day commemoration on June 6.
He then returned to the U.S. and traveled back to Europe the following week for the G-7 Summit, which took place in Italy from June 13 to June 14.
After the summit ended, Biden flew through the night across the Atlantic and the North American continent, landing in Los Angeles the morning of June 15 to take part in a fundraiser hosted by actor George Clooney and Julia Roberts later in the day.
At that event, the 46th president appeared to not know when to leave the stage, prompting former President Barack Obama to grab him by the arm and lead him off.
Biden freezes before Obama grabs his arm and leads him off stage. Yikes! ???? pic.twitter.com/nCgAGitoQ6
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 16, 2024
Biden then flew back to the East Coast and to Camp David, where he spent six days preparing for his debate with Trump, according to USA Today.
One of the more stand-out moments of the June 27 debate was when Biden appeared to lose his train of thought answering a question about Medicare.
He ended his response by saying, “We finally beat Medicare.”
“Well, he’s right, he did beat Medicare. He beat it to death and he’s destroying Medicare,” Trump shot back.
Biden loses train of thought, stumbles on words for 30 seconds during debate with Trump.
Follow: @AFpost pic.twitter.com/KGo96yupzM
— AF Post (@AFpost) June 28, 2024
At another point in the debate, Biden gave a convoluted answer about his border policy.
Trump replied, “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said, either.”
President Trump: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said, either.” pic.twitter.com/sG1snSy7CW
— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) June 28, 2024
Hunter acknowledged during his Channel 5 interview that after the debate, the push began in earnest to have his father removed as the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate.
Hunter had some strong things to say about Clooney, who penned a New York Times op-ed that was published weeks after the debate, calling on Joe Biden to step aside.
In it, Clooney wrote, “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
“F*** you,” Hunter said in response. “What do you have to do with f***ing anything?” Why do I have to f***ing listen to you? What right do you have to step on a man who’s given 52 years of his f***ing life to the service of this country?”
Hunter also criticized CNN’s Jake Tapper for the book he co-authored called “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.”
“What is the conspiracy? That Joe Biden got old? Yeah, he got old. He got old before our eyes,” Hunter said.
The former first son particularly took aim at a section in the book which claims that his father did not even recognize Clooney at the Los Angeles fundraiser.
Hunter argued that the aide accompanying his father was merely following the receiving line protocol by introducing the actor to then-President Biden.
“I can tell you, I was there. I watched George Clooney be introduced to my dad with 30 other people in line. And the guy said, ‘Mr. President, George Clooney and Julia Roberts.’ That’s it. That’s the story. There’s dozens of witnesses.”
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