Hunter Biden sat down for a three hour podcast interview with Channel 5\u2019s Andrew Callaghan<\/a> and got rave reviews from king podcast bro Joe Rogan<\/a>. <\/p>\n Rogan said of Hunter Biden, \u201cHe could be president. No bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n Rogan also said \u201cHe\u2019s a lot smarter than people give him credit for,\u201d Rogan added. \u201cHe\u2019s talking, and one of the things he was talking about was why smoking things are so addictive, why smoking cigarettes are so addictive, and the psychology behind it. He\u2019s not dumb.\u201d<\/p>\n And, \u201cIt\u2019s the greatest crack advertisement of all time. No. If crack wasn\u2019t terrible for you, this guy makes me want to try crack. I\u2019m not going to. Don\u2019t do it. I\u2019m not giving any advice, but I\u2019m saying this guy, like legitimately, this might be the best advertisement for crack of all-time.\u201d<\/p>\n Heady praise. <\/p>\n FWIW, Helen Lewis at The Atlantic<\/a> was similarly enraptured (although she kept any personal curiosity about crack cocaine to herself):<\/p>\n About two hours into the Gen Z influencer Andrew Callaghan\u2019s interview with Hunter Biden, I had a moment of piercing clarity: Here is a Democrat you could put on Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I\u2019ll come back to Hunter Biden at the end of this piece but first, let\u2019s look at the bigger picture facing Democrats.<\/p>\n This came at the same time as The Wall Street Journal released a poll with terrible news for Democrats<\/a>. <\/p>\n pic.twitter.com\/zmjpdR0mBT<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) July 28, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n From the WSJ article on the poll:<\/p>\n Democrats have been hoping that a voter backlash against the president will be powerful enough to restore their majority in the House in next year\u2019s midterm elections, much as it did during Trump\u2019s first term. But the Journal poll shows that the party hasn\u2019t yet accomplished a needed first step in that plan: persuading voters they can do a better job than Trump\u2019s party.<\/p>\n On the whole, voters disapprove of the president\u2019s handling of the economy, inflation, tariffs and foreign policy. And yet in each case, the new Journal poll found, voters nonetheless say they trust Republicans rather than Democrats to handle those same issues in Congress.<\/p>\n In some cases, the disparities are striking. Disapproval of Trump\u2019s handling of inflation outweighs approval by 11 points, and yet the GOP is trusted more than Democrats to handle inflation by 10 points. By 17 points, voters disapprove rather than approve of Trump\u2019s handling of tariffs, and yet Republicans are trusted more than Democrats on the issue by 7 points.<\/p>\n Voters have significant concerns about the centerpiece of Trump\u2019s agenda\u2014his immigration policies\u2014opposing some of his deportation tactics by double-digit numbers. And yet they trust congressional Republicans more than Democrats on immigration by 17 points and on handling illegal immigration by 24 points.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Last week also saw reports emerge that the Democratic National Committee is conducting an \u201cexamination of what went wrong in the 2024 election.<\/a>\u201d <\/p>\n From the NYT article on the audit: <\/p>\n The audit, which the committee is calling an \u201cafter-action review,\u201d is expected to avoid the questions of whether former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. should have run for re-election in the first place, whether he should have exited the race earlier than he did and whether former Vice President Kamala Harris was the right choice to replace him, according to the people briefed on the process so far.<\/p>\n Nor is the review expected to revisit key decisions by the Harris campaign \u2014 like framing the election as a choice between democracy and fascism, and refraining from hitting back after an ad by Donald J. Trump memorably attacked Ms. Harris on transgender rights by suggesting that she was for \u201cthey\/them\u201d while Mr. Trump was \u201cfor you\u201d \u2014 that have roiled Democrats in the months since Mr. Trump took back the White House.<\/p>\n Party officials described the draft document as focusing on the 2024 election as a whole, but not on the presidential campaign \u2014 which is something like eating at a steakhouse and then reviewing the salad.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Ironically, the NYT piece trashing the Dems for avoiding the obvious explanations never mentions the word \u201cGaza,\u201d possibly the heaviest albatross around the neck of Kamala Harris in last year\u2019s presidential election.<\/p>\n pic.twitter.com\/QTdzJj4vI0<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) July 3, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Post-election polling was clear as Ryan Grim reported in January<\/a>:<\/p>\n From 2020 to 2024, Democrats saw a staggering dropoff in support at the presidential level, with some 19 million people who voted for Joe Biden staying home (or not mailing in their ballots) in 2024. Now, a new survey conducted by YouGov suggests Biden\u2019s support for Israel\u2019s unrelenting assault on Gaza played a surprisingly large role in the choice of those previous Biden supporters not to vote. (Read the full poll here.)<\/p>\n The top reason those non-voters cited, above the economy at 24 percent and immigration at 11 percent, was Gaza: a full 29 percent cited the ongoing onslaught as the top reason they didn\u2019t cast a vote in 2024.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s grimly ironic that the DNC can\u2019t even bring itself to look at the root causes of Kamala Harris\u2019 spectacular 2024 failure, much less the role of her support for genocide in Gaza in that failure even as many party stalwarts have finally found their tongues to condemn the deliberate starvation of millions of Gazan civilians by the Israelis. <\/p>\n Politico reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n A growing number of Democrats from across the party\u2019s ideological spectrum are speaking out about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, calling for the Trump administration to intervene in the Israel-Hamas war amid warnings from global leaders and international relief groups that the situation in the war-torn strip has reached a breaking point.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s wild to suddenly see Barack Obama<\/a>, Hillary Clinton<\/a>, Amy Klobuchar<\/a>, and Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> speaking out, but don\u2019t get carried away, the Centrist script still blames Hamas:<\/p>\n Reps. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), two Democrats who have remained staunch supporters of Israel, joined the outcry of concern for those in Gaza \u2014 while still keeping the onus on Hamas.<\/p>\n \u201cThe humanitarian situation in Gaza is a full-blown crisis, with innocent women and children who are starving,\u201d Scholten wrote in a press release Saturday, adding that \u201cwe must remain clear-eyed about one thing: Hamas started this war and can end it today. But they choose not to.\u201d<\/p>\n Goldman gave a similar response, expressing concern for the amount of starving Palestinians, while keeping the blame on Hamas: \u201cAnd let\u2019s be clear: Hamas could end it today if they wanted to. Israel has agreed to a ceasefire proposal, Hamas has rejected it. Release the hostages and end this travesty.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Gaza isn\u2019t the only intra-party split Democrats are facing. Matt Stoller wrote about<\/a> two competing economic proposals put forward by Congressional Democrats last week:<\/p>\n I want to start by focusing on two policy roll-outs that got very little attention, but represent tensions within the out-of-power Democrats.<\/p>\n For context, a record 63% of voters have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, versus 33% with a favorable view. That\u2019s really quite bad, and as you might think, there are deep disagreements within the party about what to do about this gap. Two different visions were quietly released this week, in deep tension with each other.<\/p>\n The first is a new Senate package of bills designed to lower the cost of capital for building and owning housing. It\u2019s led on the Democratic side by Senator Elizabeth Warren, though every Senator on the Banking Committee has authored provisions. The second is a proposal from a caucus of Silicon Valley friendly Congressional Democrats on how to foster technology and innovation. Both are about how to channel capital, and who should channel it.<\/p>\n \u2026the bill is quite modest. It\u2019s a bipartisan bill in a Republican Congress. The Chair, Republican Tim Scott, has his own priorities, so a lot of the useful programs are limited. But in this legislation one can see the thinking of how to address some of the challenges put forward. It is what good faith parts of the Abundance movement are seeking, and yet led by the populist Senator Elizabeth Warren.<\/p>\n The second, and in many ways opposite proposal, is an \u201cInnovation Agenda\u201d put forward by the New Democrat caucus, which generally skews more Wall Street and Silicon Valley friendly. There are 110 House members of the New Democrats, which is more than half of House Democrats. Their document too is long and complicated, so I don\u2019t want to go over every detail, but it\u2019s essentially just an autopen of 1990s Clinton-style policymaking, with subsidies for generative AI thrown in there. \u2026fundamentally, this agenda is about lowering financing costs for powerful firms and subsidizing Wall Street-style financialization and offshoring. So who is behind it? Well, it was spearheaded by Silicon Valley Rep. Sam Liccardo, NC Rep. Valerie Foushee, and Colorado Rep. Brittany Pettersen, though it\u2019s really just the Clinton-Obama Wall Street-Silicon Valley lobbying world on autopilot.<\/p>\n And there we go. Those are the two factions of Democrats. One group is trying to figure out how to bring down the cost of capital for normal people, the other is seeking a trickle-down approach. If you vote for a Democrat, there\u2019s no telling which faction you\u2019ll get. And that might be why the party polls so terribly.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But let\u2019s get back to Hunter Biden. I\u2019ll skip the rhapsodic passages about crack cocaine that so enthralled Joe Rogan and get straight to his surprisingly cogent criticisms of some major Democratic Party influencers:<\/p>\n \u2026the Pod Save America saviors of the Democratic Party with what four white millionaires that are dining out on their association with Barack Obama from 16 years ago. Living in Beverly fucking Hills telling the rest of the world what Black voters in South Carolina really want or what the waitress living outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin really believes. <\/p>\n I mean, I can\u2019t believe that we did we do this over and over again. Or I hear Rahm Emanuel is going to run for president. What a fucking\u2026 like I David Axelrod\u2019s going to run his campaign for him. Oh boy. There\u2019s the answer. There\u2019s the fucking answer. Genius.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I\u2019ve covered Rahm Emanuel\u2019s 2028 presidential aspirations<\/a> previously and feel obligated to include his patronizing reply to Hunter Biden, delivered in an interview with former Fox News star Megyn Kelly<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re giving this more time than it\u2019s due. That\u2019s my own view. A little empathetic, you have a son who\u2019s blinded by his own love for, in effect, and loyalty for his father, and I get that, but not the first phone call I\u2019m going to make for a strategery.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s our Rahm, eloquently chopping the baby right down the middle.<\/p>\n And before I wrap this up I want to return to Helen Lewis\u2019 take on Hunter Biden and his publicity tour because she does such an elegant job of conflating the narcissism and crass language of Hunter Biden with populism:<\/p>\n Joe Biden\u2019s surviving son became MAGA world\u2019s favorite punching bag because of his suspect business dealings in Ukraine, his infamous laptop, and his presidential pardon for tax and gun offenses. But in temperament and vocabulary, Hunter is MAGA to the core.<\/p>\n During last year\u2019s presidential campaign, Donald Trump\u2019s interviews with Rogan, Theo Von, and Logan Paul resonated with many young men. I can imagine that same audience watching Hunter Biden tell Callaghan about his crack addiction and thinking: Give this guy a break. One of the most upvoted comments on the YouTube video is from a poster saying that the interview prompted him to go to rehab.<\/p>\n Since their crushing loss in November, Democrats have wondered how they can win the battle for attention and reach voters who find them weak, remote, and passive. Their elected officials have been tiptoeing toward using the occasional cuss word in their public appearances, like teenagers cautiously puffing a joint for the first time and hoping not to cough. Hunter Biden, by contrast, went straight for line after line of the hard stuff. Donald Trump is a \u201cfucking dictator thug,\u201d and Democrats should fight against his deportation agenda because \u201cwe fought a fucking revolution against a king, based on two things in particular: habeas corpus and due process. And we\u2019re so willing to give them up?\u201d<\/p>\n Hunter\u2019s cadences and mannerisms are eerily reminiscent of his father\u2019s, except where Joe would say \u201cmalarkey,\u201d Hunter Biden says: \u201cI don\u2019t have to be fucking nice.\u201d At times, he sounds like his father\u2019s id, saying the things the ex-president would like to say but cannot.<\/p>\n Clearly, Republicans have not cornered the market in gossipy aggression, although in both their and Hunter\u2019s cases, most of that aggression is directed toward the Democrats and the media. In the Callaghan interview, which was released on Monday, the younger Biden has no time for James Carville (\u201chasn\u2019t run a race in 40 fucking years\u201d), George Clooney (\u201cnot a fucking actor\u201d), or CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper (\u201ccompletely irrelevant\u201d). His greatest animus is reserved for his party\u2019s anti\u2013Joe Biden faction, such as the men behind Pod Save America, who are \u201cfour white millionaires that are dining out on their association with Barack Obama from 16 years ago, living in Beverly fucking Hills.\u201d <\/p>\n If you grew up in the pre-Trump media era, your response to this might be: Hunter, you have also made money off of your association with a president. But America has long since passed the point where allegations of hypocrisy are a useful political attack. Most voters now think that all politicians are hypocrites, but at least some of them are open about it. That portrait is hard to square with the available facts. Many people manage to grieve for their brother without starting an affair with his widow, or introducing that widow to crack. Many presidents\u2019 children have wrestled with the inevitable allegations of nepotism that their careers have created; few have so obviously traded on their father\u2019s power as Hunter did with the Ukrainian company Burisma, for which he lobbied when his father was vice president. (His defense for this is that Burisma wasn\u2019t a big deal, that he also worked for many charitable organizations, and that in any case the Trump sons and Jared Kushner are worse.) Lewis\u2019 enthusiastic insistence on labeling Hunter Biden a \u201cpopulist\u201d based on his narcissism, cursing, and other purely superficial factors brings to mind the MSM\u2019s love affair with Dark Woke\u201d or their knack for focusing solely on the most superficial aspects of Zohran Mamdani\u2019s campaign<\/a> such that they can claim his \u201cmovement\u201d \u201clost momentum\u201d in an Arizona Senate primary he had nothing to do with.<\/p>\n At The New Republic, Greg Sargent points out<\/a> how centrists like Ezra Klein misunderstand Mamdani\u2019s approach:<\/p>\n (Ezra) Klein recently suggested that Democrats can project authenticity and appeal by talking like an \u201cangry moderate.\u201d Contra that, Mamdani\u2014who is also campaigning on tax hikes for the rich and making bus service free\u2014offers what you might call \u201ccheerful populism.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2026not every Democrat can emulate Mamdani\u2019s charisma and political talents, which drive his digital success. But Mamdani\u2019s real innovation isn\u2019t just personal. It lies in the deliberate fusion of personal appeals with substantive ones. He has figured out how to make talk about community boards and city council bills go viral by being a dude you want to hang out with and get to know better on social media. As Epstein told me, what\u2019s critical is the combination of \u201cdemonstrating a positive agenda that improves people\u2019s lives\u201d while putting \u201cthis full person front and center.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n A number<\/a> of outlets<\/a> have breathlessly covered \u201cdark woke\u201d but no one has done it with \u201c>the heft and staggering cluelessness of The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n The NYT piece is subtitled \u201cDemocrats are trying out a new attitude. It\u2019s provocative, edgy and perilously toeing the line of not being too offensive\u201d and it platforms \u201cRepresentative Jasmine Crockett, Democrat of Texas, has on more than one occasion directed name-calling and insults at her political opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n Interestingly, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has been promoting its poll<\/a> claiming that Rep. Crockett is way ahead in the Texas Democratic Senatorial primary, although she hasn\u2019t actually announced her candidacy. <\/p>\n Do I really need to say that Democrats should run screaming from any tactic encouraged by both The New York Times and the Republican Party?<\/p>\n Must I also add that the fundamental split in the party is between servants of oligarchy and economic populists and no amount of crassness or vulgarity (or as Pete Buttigieg calls it \u201cmessage discipline\u201d<\/a>) can turn a cynical centrist into the next Zohran Mamdani?<\/p>\n Also, we should never forget that Hunter Biden has already had his shot, there was a brief post-debate, pre-drop out period when some claimed Hunter was acting POTUS<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thanks Hunter, that will be all. <\/p>\n\n
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\u2026
If you cobbled together the wish lists of crypto lobbyists, defense contractors, big tech firms, and pharmaceutical interests, you\u2019d get this document. In fact, it\u2019s almost identical to what you\u2019d find with a Republican economic advocacy group, except this group also wants to finance universities, and seeks to have \u201cdiverse perspectives\u201d and \u201cdiverse representation in AI ethics boards and decision-making bodies.\u201d They don\u2019t even mention the interests of labor, not even in a perfunctory way.<\/p>\n\n
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\u2026
You don\u2019t have to like it, but this is the media world now\u2014podcast chats like this are where elections are won and lost, just as much as at the televised town hall, on the front page of the New York Post, or in the stately sitdown with 60 Minutes. The minimum bar for the next Democratic candidate for president should be the ability to react, live on camera, in a plausibly normal fashion, to the existence of adult baby-diaper lovers.
\u2026
I now wonder whether Hunter\u2019s instincts were correct for once. He shows Callaghan the bullish charm of the narcissist. Bad things happen to him. Bad things might also happen to those around him, but, in his telling, he isn\u2019t really their cause.<\/p>\n
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Hunter\u2019s perpetual refusal to be held accountable is clearly a character trait that many people are prepared to overlook. But then, when did a populist ever accept responsibility for anything? <\/strong>He has understood that to succeed in the modern media environment, you should throw out intimate details about your life in a way that looks like total, raw, unfiltered honesty while glossing over the raw, unfiltered details that reflect poorly on you. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
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