Hunter Biden has burst back onto the political scene with a social media spree marked by crude responses to Republican critics and self-deprecating humor about his troubled personal life.
As the son of former President Biden, his return to the public eye has quickly drawn the attention of hundreds of thousands of followers on the social platform X in a matter of weeks.
After spending most of his father’s presidential term under a cloud of controversy, social media users are flocking to Hunter Biden’s posts about a myriad of subjects — from resources for addicts to cryptocurrency to attacks on the Trump administration.
His sudden virality underscores the political world’s embrace of social media trolling and the growing public appetite for unfiltered takes and crass commentary. Cooper Teboe, a Democratic strategist based in California, said his clout, even if temporary, is “a testament to how much folks are just craving authenticity right now.”
“At least as far as it looks, he’s very much, you get what you see, which I think folks have really desired in our political discourse, given that so many, not all, but so many are so manufactured,” Teboe said.
Shortly after appearing on podcasts with right-wing influencer Candace Owens and independent journalist Andrew Callaghan, the younger Biden launched his X page on May 19, writing, “I’m Hunter Biden. You’ve never actually heard from me.”
Biden quickly began posting about his recovery journey, a topic Republicans zeroed in on while his father was in office, telling users, “To anyone in the fight right now: it gets quieter. Not easier. Quieter. In the quiet, you find out who you actually are.”
Biden said “thousands” wrote to him about their own recovery journeys since he started posting.
He also started poking fun at himself about his addiction, quipping 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 social media account suggested he run for president in 2028, Biden said he would find the real owner of the bag “and return it to them.”
Responding to a post encouraging him to use cocaine, Biden said, “Why does everyone keep saying this? I smoked crack. I would never have wasted cocaine by putting up my nose.”
After publishing a memoir in 2021, Biden rarely spoke publicly while his father was president. He was a political lightning rod for years, with President Trump’s aggressive attempts to link Biden’s work for a Ukrainian gas company to impropriety by his father leading to Trump’s first impeachment in 2019. Leaks of his laptop hard drive were an October surprise in the 2020 campaign.
Biden said on X over the weekend that “it was never just a laptop” and that someone had hacked into his cloud data and stole his devices.
Later, he became a key figure in Republican congressional investigations over the family’s alleged business dealings and accusations over influence peddling, and he was eventually interviewed by Congress as part of the former president’s impeachment hearings.
Republicans often took aim at Biden over his history of drug abuse and eventual criminal convictions on federal gun charges and a guilty plea for federal tax evasion. The former president issued a full and unconditional pardon to his son shortly before leaving the White House, wiping him of the convictions.
When his account abruptly popped up last month, dozens of users questioned whether it was even really Biden behind it. In a five-minute video explaining, he said he no longer has to take into consideration the complications of 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.
For once casting a shadow on his father’s presidency, Biden’s story seems to be charming people online, including some Democrats.
In one repost of Biden’s video, a user wrote, “hunter biden could be one of the best follows here at the moment.” That post had 10 million views as of Tuesday morning.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told TMZ on Tuesday that while she does not know what Biden’s plans are in the political arena, she thinks he is “a very compelling advocate on addiction and recovery.”
“He’s able to really speak to people’s hearts and their experiences,” she said. “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.”
Biden has engaged with dozens of these comments, responding within minutes of each other.
Biden said, “We don’t have to be this way. We don’t have to be hateful and vengeful and so mean all the time,” but that hasn’t stopped him from trolling his critics.
In one post, he called White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller a “sadistic, infantile ugly f—,” just a week after the account for the Democratic National Committee told Miller to “shut up you ugly f—.”
Trolling has become increasingly common on the left as the party tries to hit back on Trump’s combative social media posts. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), a potential contender for the 2028 Democratic ticket, has been at the center of this strategy, often writing in all caps just like the president or using his key phrases.
Biden is following in his footsteps, using one of Trump’s signature lines to respond to an AI-generated poster for a “Biden 2028” run.
“I know this may sound petty, but I can’t stand it when people … photoshop a meth pipe in my mouth. A crack pipe doesn’t have that little bowl at the end,” he wrote. “Thank you for your attention to this matter..”
In another, he mocked an advertisement for Donald Trump Jr., writing, “This is SNL material or even better #smokefleet material.”
The material may also be winning over some unlikely figures on the right, including influencer Ian Miles Cheong, who wrote on X, “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,” Cheong wrote to his 1.2 million followers.
Biden has seized on this attention, saying he will “gladly take the title” of being “the MAGA whisperer,” and he went after the Trump administration’s Epstein files scandal and the “Oligarch class.”
Some questioned whether Biden is doing it for money, to which he responded, “Regardless, yes I’m broke AF, but how do you make money on here. Real question if you can help let me know.”
His charm comes as his mother, former first lady Jill Biden, has been less welcomed in her return to the public eye. The former first lady’s new memoir drew criticism from Democrats that it could unnecessarily ignite a conversation the Democratic Party wants to move on from following the 2024 loss.
Teboe suggested part of Hunter Biden’s charm is because 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,” Teboe told The Hill. “I think it’s a different thing when you expect trolling to propel you to whatever elected office you’re running for.”
Trump, asked last week about the prospect of a Biden run in 2028, pointed to embattled Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Planter: “If the guy from Maine can do well, I guess Hunter can do well too.”
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