President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden acknowledged their four-year-old granddaughter, Navy Joan Roberts, for the first time in a statement to People on Friday afternoon.
Summary
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden acknowledged their four-year-old granddaughter, Navy Joan Roberts, for the first time in a statement to People on Friday afternoon.
- “Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward,” President Biden said in a statement to People.
- “Jill and I only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy,” Biden continued. An unnamed source told the New York Times that Biden told his son Hunter Biden he wants to meet his granddaughter “when the time was right.”
- Hunter Biden and Navy’s mother, Lunden Roberts, recently resolved a child support lawsuit after Roberts accused Biden of falling behind on payments to support his daughter, who he has never met.
- The president has come under criticism in recent weeks and the White House has received questions at press briefings about Biden’s insistence on claiming he had “six grandchildren” despite a 2019 DNA test proving Hunter was her father.
- The New York Times covered another detrimental political development for the president: Rep. Dean Phillips says he’s considering challenging Biden in the 2024 primaries. Phillips is one of the few Democrats to say that octogenarian Biden should not seek reelection because of his age.
- NBC News pointed out Biden’s statement “comes as Republican presidential hopefuls have increasingly taken jabs at the president for not counting Navy among his grandchildren in public remarks.” They quoted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who stated at a Tennessee event in June, “Why don’t you spend some time with your granddaughter in Arkansas, or at least recognize her existence before you start worrying about our kids?”
- NPR linked their statement to when, “in early July, the New York Times profiled Navy, her mother, and some of the details of their child support settlement. The story drew attention to the fact that the president had never recognized his 4-year-old granddaughter.”
- The Wall Street Journal reported the president’s decision to keep Hunter close “worries some presidential allies who privately say that parading Hunter Biden around serves as a reminder of the younger Biden’s poor judgment and past attempts to monetize his political connections as House Republicans step up their investigation into whether son and father inappropriately profited from the family’s power.”
- Breitbart looked back at the repeated instances where the Bidens ignored their seventh grandchild before they released their statement on Friday. As recently as earlier this year, Biden continued to say he only had six grandchildren.
- National Review traced this statement back to late April when Biden “set off a firestorm” when he said he had “six grandchildren.” The comment sparked an op-ed from liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd chiding Biden titled “It’s Seven Grandkids, Mr. President.”
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© Dominic Moore, 2023
