On Politics

Tue Jul 25 2023

Marina Pitofsky | NOW reporter

Hi OnPolitics readers. President Joe Biden hasn't publicly acknowledged his youngest granddaughter, a move that makes even some of his supporters uncomfortable, USA TODAY's Joey Garrison and Michael Collins report.

Catch up: The 4-year-old girl is the only child of Hunter Biden and Lunden Roberts of Arkansas, a woman he met in the peak of his battle with drug addiction.

The president and White House aides haven't answered questions about the girl, but Joe Biden has regularly touted his close relationship to his six other grandchildren, including Hunter Biden's three older daughters and his son, as well as the daughter and son of Beau Biden, who died from brain cancer in 2015.

What voters are saying: It's not sitting well, even among supporters in Philly, where Biden kicked off his 2020 campaign and later carried more than 80% of the vote.

💬 David Basenow, 71, a former writer and publisher in medicine from Philadelphia, told USA TODAY he supports Biden, but called the president's unwillingness to recognize the girl "hypocritical."

"It happens in every family," Basenow said, "and makes him more like the people who will probably vote for him. … He's somebody who's not on a pedestal. He does have problems in his family, and they've come to terms with it."

Republican officials have also ramped up their attacks against Joe Biden over the girl, defying the informal rule in Washington that lawmakers' families are off limits to conflict.