The Democrat Party’s 2028 field just got a lot more interesting.
Hunter Biden went on the radio and said something nobody saw coming.
And what he told one billionaire host about running for president is going to leave you shaking your head.
What Hunter Actually Said on WABC
Hunter Biden, 56, made the remarks during an interview with billionaire businessman and radio host John Catsimatidis on WABC’s “Cats Roundtable.”
Catsimatidis asked whether Hunter had any plans to seek the presidency. The answer was not a firm no.
“If I get your [Catsimatidis’] endorsement, I may have to [run for president]. The things I care most about is the 50 million Americans that are still suffering with their addictions,” Biden said.
He then laid out what he considers his core qualification for the nation’s highest office.
“Here is my qualification for becoming president, if you believe in the Constitution of the United States of America that you swear to uphold and protect. I want the next president to commit to one thing: to adhering to the rule of law.”
The rule of law. From Hunter Biden. Let that sink in for a moment.
Catsimatidis is a billionaire who owns the supermarket chains Gristedes and D’Agostino. He’s a fixture in New York media and business circles, the kind of figure whose endorsement carries weight in certain rooms. Whether Hunter was joking or floating a trial balloon, the clip spread fast.
Hunter did not commit to seeking the nomination and said the party has several potential candidates. He even offered a kind word for someone else in the mix.
“I love Gavin Newsom, personally,” he said.
The Legal Baggage Nobody Is Pretending Doesn’t Exist
If Hunter Biden does decide to pursue the presidency, the first campaign stop would have to be explaining his own criminal record to voters.
A federal jury in Delaware convicted him in June 2024 on three felony gun charges stemming from his purchase and possession of a firearm while he was using illegal drugs.
Three months later, Biden pleaded guilty in California to three felony and six misdemeanor federal tax offenses. Prosecutors said the case involved at least $1.4 million in unpaid federal taxes for tax years 2016 through 2019.
That’s six felony convictions across two separate cases before he ever got near a sentencing hearing.
Before Biden could be sentenced in either case, then-President Joe Biden issued his son a full and unconditional pardon on December 1, 2024. The pardon covered federal offenses Hunter Biden “has committed or may have committed or taken part in” from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024, including the gun and tax cases.
So the man who just told a radio host that his chief qualification for the presidency is “adhering to the rule of law” was convicted of six felonies and then had those convictions wiped away by his own father in one of the most brazen acts of presidential favoritism in modern history.
Joe Biden spent years looking the American people in the eye and swearing he would never pardon his son. He told ABC News anchor David Muir exactly that. Then he did it anyway, on his way out the door, before anyone could stop him. The cover-up of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline that Democrats ran for years extended all the way to that pardon — it was the final act of an administration that prioritized protecting the Biden family over respecting the institutions they claimed to champion.
And now the beneficiary of that pardon wants to talk about the rule of law from a campaign stage.
Hunter Biden also briefly served in the Navy Reserve. His military career ended after he tested positive for cocaine.
That episode was years before the federal cases, but it’s part of the same long public record that any presidential campaign would drag back into the light within the first 48 hours.
The Flip-Flop Nobody Should Be Surprised By
This wasn’t Hunter’s first answer on the subject of a presidential run, and it wasn’t consistent with what he said just weeks earlier.
On *Real Time with Bill Maher*, he said that if he ever launches a campaign, it’s probably because he relapsed, having previously been open about his struggles with addiction. “No, I haven’t (thought of running),” Biden told Maher. “Here’s my thing: if I announce for president, then somebody should check and see if I relapsed.”
So in one interview he said a presidential run would signal a relapse. In the next he’s floating an endorsement-contingent bid. That’s quite a pivot in a short stretch of time.
Speculation has grown over a potential bid as Biden has gone on a media blitz this year, appearing on several shows and podcasts. But he explained that he is simply taking advantage of the platform he has.
Right. A media blitz featuring podcast appearances, radio interviews, and casual presidential trial balloons is just a man enjoying his platform. Nothing to see here.
The Democrat bench for 2028 is genuinely unsettled. California Governor Gavin Newsom is widely seen as a frontrunner among the party establishment, but the base is restless and the party is still trying to figure out who it is after the 2024 wipeout. Into that vacuum walks Hunter Biden with a radio quip and a pardon in his back pocket.
Whether the comment was a joke, a genuine flirtation with a run, or just a man who enjoys the attention he spent years complaining about, it landed. Sean Spicer noticed. Social media noticed. And the clip is going to follow Hunter Biden around for a while now, whether he wants it to or not.
The deeper problem for Democrats is what this moment reveals about the state of their party. When a man with six felony convictions, a presidential pardon issued by his own father, a Navy discharge tied to a positive cocaine test, and a years-long public struggle with addiction can casually float a presidential run on a Sunday morning radio show — and it generates genuine buzz rather than immediate dismissal — something has gone sideways in the party’s sense of what it takes to lead the country.
The rule of law, Hunter said. That’s his qualification.
The same rule of law that produced six felony counts. The same rule of law that his father bypassed with a sweeping pardon that covered a decade’s worth of federal offenses. The same rule of law that Democrats spent years insisting was sacred whenever they were pointing it at Donald Trump.
But when it applied to the Biden family, the rule of law turned out to be a suggestion.
Voters who watched that pardon happen — who watched Joe Biden promise repeatedly that he wouldn’t do it and then do it anyway — are not going to forget. And if Hunter Biden does decide to make a serious run at the presidency, that pardon will be the first question at every debate, every press conference, and every town hall from Iowa to New Hampshire.
He said he wants the next president to commit to adhering to the rule of law. That’s a fine thing to want. It would have been a finer thing to model.
Sources: WABC Cats Roundtable interview with John Catsimatidis; RSB Network; Irish Star; UNILAD; Truth Press; Meaww.com; Fox News