Hunter Biden’s nepo baby origin story
When Hunter decided to be in the Biden business.
In 1995, 25-year-old Hunter Biden was looking to strike out on his own: He planned to move to Chicago with his then-wife and young daughter. But a meeting that winter set him on a different path — one that would eventually lead him to the scandals he faces today.
In Wilmington, Delaware, a young Biden met with Charles Cawley, the now-deceased CEO of the most powerful bank in the state — and a close political ally of Biden’s father. After the meeting, Biden’s plans changed. Chicago was out. A cushy new job was in. In her memoir, Biden’s ex-wife, Kathleen, writes that he returned home and produced a slip of paper with a “dollar amount greater than anything I’d ever imagined someone our age earning.”
In this week’s Friday Read, writer Jasper Craven reveals how Biden began a “pattern that would last the rest of his life, taking opportunities and putting himself in positions marked by good money and terrible political optics.”
“Henry, I’ll take a drug test when you take an IQ test.”
Can you guess who said this about then-Senate candidate Henry McMaster, now the Republican governor of South Carolina, during the 1986 election campaign? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**
The #Resistance Isn’t Coming Back … When Donald Trump won the presidency in the biggest political upset of our time, everyone to his left went to war. Protests, political donations, traffic to political media soared. But if he wins again, don’t expect a repeat of that mass mobilization, writes Michael Schaffer in this week’s Capital City column. “The civil society, pro-democracy, grassroots movement, I worry, if he prevails, will feel incredibly defeated and deflated,” said Ian Bassin, founder of Protect Democracy. “That could lead to a total reversal of the dynamics from the beginning of 2017.”
Donald Trump won the Republican primary in New Hampshire this week, which means everyone in Washington is speculating about whether he’s locked up the Republican nomination for good. But if you want to avoid sounding like every other armchair pundit, use these talking points to suggest that you were on the ground in New Hampshire, witnessing the action up close. (From POLITICO’s Ian Ward)
- Talk about how it was cold — but not as cold as Iowa. For good measure, mention how many delayed flights and cancellations you had to endure on your epic journey out of Iowa.
- Namedrop Ted Johnson. What? You don’t know the now-famous New Hampshire everyman whose shifting attitudes toward Trump provide a penetrating window in the soul of the Republican electorate? Have you been living under a rock the past week?
- Everyone knows how Trump and Haley fared in New Hampshire, but if you really want to impress your friends, rattle off some figures from New Hampshire’s also-rans: Doug Burgum? 168 votes. Ryan Binkley? A respectable 304. And don’t forget New Hampshire’s infamous Vermin Supreme, who raked in a whopping 729 votes.
- If you find yourself among the Never Trump crowd, mention how Trump’s victories actually contained all sorts of red flags for his viability in November’s general election. Do you know that he failed to pick up voters in the highly educated areas where he struggled in 2016? Or that 64 percent of undeclared voters backed Haley? Or that 63 percent of Trump voters in New Hampshire did not firmly identify as members of the MAGA Movement?
No, You Don’t Need to ‘Observe’ a Trump Rally … The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins recently made the case that, with Trump’s rallies largely out of the news, it’s important to pay attention to them, lest you fall out of touch with the maybe future president. But there’s a big problem with that, writes Ian Ward, who recently attended a rally himself: They’re a total snooze. “His rallies aren’t fundamentally different than they have been in past elections, but therein lies the problem: There’s little new substance or material in this year’s revival of the Trump Show.”
Thomas Jefferson Would Have Struck the Houthis, Too … Progressive and conservative lawmakers criticized President Biden’s authorization of military force against Houthi rebels in Yemen, questioning whether he had the authority to make that decision, given that the power to declare war belongs to Congress, not the commander-in-chief. But it’s not quite that simple, writes historian Joshua Zeitz. In fact, the president’s defensive — as opposed to offensive — powers have been tested before, in another episode involving pirates: Thomas Jefferson’s response to the Barbary wars of the early 19th century.
Could Steve Garvey Hit a Republican Home Run? … Add another star to the ever-expanding firmament of celebrities who’ve sought political office in California: Baseball legend Steve Garvey is running for Dianne Feinstein’s old senate seat, and while he’s up against three of the state’s most prominent Democrats — Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and frontrunner Adam Schiff — a recent a POLITICO | Morning Consult put him in a statistical dead heat for second place. “Garvey appears to be running his race like a cameo, popping up in campaign stops just like he did on Arli$$, Baywatch and The Young and the Restless back in the day,” writes Lara Korte in this profile of Garvey. But is he headed for a home run, or about to strike out?
**Who Dissed answer: It was his Democratic opponent, Fritz Hollings, who won reelection after McMaster, apparently taking a tough-on-crime stance, challenged him to take a drug test.
