Hunter Biden, the convicted felon pardoned by his own father on the way out of the White House, has reinvented himself as a social media provocateur, and the political press is treating it like a redemption tour.
In just a few weeks on X, the younger Biden has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers by posting crude attacks on Republican officials, cracking jokes about his crack cocaine addiction, and positioning himself as an unlikely voice of "authenticity" in American politics. The Hill reported on the social media spree, framing it as a charm offensive that is winning over Democrats and even some figures on the right.
The coverage is revealing, not for what it says about Hunter Biden, but for what it says about a media class eager to rehabilitate a man who pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion, was convicted on federal gun charges, and walked free only because his father issued him a full and unconditional pardon before leaving office.
Biden launched his X account on May 19, writing, "I'm Hunter Biden. You've never actually heard from me." He had just appeared on podcasts with right-wing influencer Candace Owens and independent journalist Andrew Callaghan.
What followed was a mix of addiction recovery messaging and political trolling. Biden posted about his sobriety, telling followers, "To anyone in the fight right now: it gets quieter. Not easier. Quieter. In the quiet, you find out who you actually are." He said "thousands" wrote to him about their own recovery journeys.
Then came the jokes. Biden quipped that the bag of cocaine found in the White House in 2023 was "most definitely not his," adding, "I would have never forgotten my drugs." When one user encouraged him to use cocaine, Biden responded that he "smoked crack" and "would never have wasted cocaine by putting up my nose."
He also went after Republicans directly. In one post, Biden called White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller a "sadistic, infantile ugly f,." That language came just a week after the Democratic National Committee's own account told Miller to "shut up you ugly f,." The apple, it seems, does not fall far from the party tree.
The media's willingness to treat Biden's social media act as charming requires ignoring a fair amount of recent history. For years, Biden was a political lightning rod. President Trump's efforts to examine Biden's work for a Ukrainian gas company and potential impropriety by his father led to Trump's first impeachment in 2019. Leaks from Biden's laptop hard drive became an October surprise in the 2020 campaign, a story that major platforms and media outlets worked aggressively to suppress at the time.
Biden himself addressed the laptop over the weekend, saying on X "it was never just a laptop" and that someone had hacked into his cloud data and stolen his devices. That framing conveniently sidesteps the contents that fueled congressional investigations and public scrutiny for years.
Republican congressional investigations examined the Biden family's alleged business dealings and accusations of influence peddling. Biden was eventually interviewed by Congress as part of his father's impeachment hearings. He faced federal gun charges and a guilty plea for federal tax evasion. Then, shortly before leaving office, former President Biden issued a sweeping pardon that wiped his son's convictions clean.
Now, months later, the same man is posting jokes about crack pipes and calling senior White House officials obscene names, and the press calls it "charming."
The enthusiasm from the left has been swift. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told TMZ on Tuesday that Biden is "a very compelling advocate on addiction and recovery."
"He's able to really speak to people's hearts and their experiences. I think destigmatizing and showing the country that someone, in the prominent position that he's already been in as the son of a president, can be publicly vulnerable about what it means to recover from addiction."
Rachel Murphy Azzara, executive director of the grassroots movement Democrats Work For America, added on X, "You are showing the world how to recover with grace, strength and accountability."
Grace, strength, and accountability. This about a man who evaded his federal taxes, lied on a federal firearms form, and avoided prison only through a presidential pardon issued by his own father. The word "accountability" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Democratic strategist Cooper Teboe, based in California, offered a more revealing explanation for Biden's appeal. He suggested part of Biden's charm is that users "have such a small expectation that Hunter is going to run for office someday."
"He's essentially a private citizen on Twitter, like you should do whatever you want. I think it's a different thing when you expect trolling to propel you to whatever elected office you're running for."
That distinction matters, because Biden has already flirted with a 2028 White House run on social media. When one account suggested he run for president, Biden joked about finding the real owner of the White House cocaine bag "and return it to them." He also seized on AI-generated "Biden 2028" imagery, responding with another crack pipe joke.
Biden's act fits neatly into a broader Democratic strategy of matching President Trump's combative social media style. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 contender, has been at the center of this approach, often writing in all caps or borrowing Trump's signature phrases.
Biden appears to be following the same playbook. He mocked an advertisement for Donald Trump Jr., writing, "This is SNL material or even better #smokefleet material." He went after the Trump administration over the Epstein files and attacked the "Oligarch class."
Even some on the right have taken notice. Influencer Ian Miles Cheong, who has 1.2 million followers on X, wrote, "Believe it or not, Hunter Biden is far more human and likeable than anyone could've imagined."
"It's easy to picture some out of his mind nepo-baby when stolen videos of a man in his worst hours are your only exposure to him."
Biden has leaned into the cross-partisan attention, saying he will "gladly take the title" of being "the MAGA whisperer."
In a five-minute video explaining his sudden appearance on the platform, Biden said he no longer has to worry about being a distraction to his family in the White House. "It was never really about me. It was about power, it was about the presidency, and it wasn't my place to be even more of a distraction that obviously my addiction and troubles created the administration or for anybody else," he said.
That framing, Biden as a selfless figure who stayed quiet to protect his father's presidency, requires a generous reading of the timeline. He published a memoir in 2021. He was at the center of congressional investigations. His legal troubles dominated headlines for months. The pardon itself became a political liability for his father, who had previously promised not to issue one.
Meanwhile, the broader Biden family continues to navigate its own complicated public image. Former first lady Jill Biden's new memoir drew criticism from fellow Democrats who worried it could reignite conversations the party wants to leave behind after the 2024 loss.
When asked about a possible Biden 2028 run, President Trump pointed to embattled Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Planter: "If the guy from Maine can do well, I guess Hunter can do well too."
Some users questioned whether Biden's social media act is financially motivated. His response was characteristically blunt: "Regardless, yes I'm broke AF, but how do you make money on here. Real question if you can help let me know."
Addiction is a serious struggle, and anyone who finds sobriety deserves respect for that fight. That is not the issue here. The issue is a political and media class that treats a pardoned felon's crude social media posts as a feel-good story while ignoring the conduct that made him a felon in the first place.
Hunter Biden did not serve a day in prison. He did not pay the price that any other American convicted of the same crimes would have paid. He walked free because his father held the most powerful office on earth and used it on his behalf. Now he posts jokes about crack pipes, calls administration officials obscene names, and collects praise from Democratic politicians and media figures for his "authenticity."
One X user's repost of Biden's introductory video had 10 million views as of Tuesday morning. Teboe, the Democratic strategist, called Biden's appeal "a testament to how much folks are just craving authenticity right now."
Authenticity is one word for it. A country that treats a pardoned man's trolling as a redemption arc while millions of Americans face real consequences for far lesser offenses might want to find a different one.