For years, his name was inextricably linked to addiction, legal investigations, and relentless attacks from the American right. Hunter Biden, the youngest son of the former Democratic president, became one of the most caricatured figures in U.S. political life. But now, it is precisely this notorious reputation that he seems to have decided to weaponize to his advantage.
In recent days, Joe Biden’s son has reactivated his account on the social media platform X and begun posting prolifically. Rather than attempting to rehabilitate his image or seriously engage with his detractors, he has chosen a radically different strategy: joking about the most embarrassing moments of his past. And it appears to be working.
The Art of the Viral Clapback
The catalyst came after he posted a video celebrating seven years of sobriety. An internet user immediately dredged up one of the most infamous controversies of recent years, accusing him of being responsible for the bag of cocaine discovered at the White House in 2023. His response went viral: “Certainly not. I would never have forgotten my drugs.”
Rather than denying or expressing outrage, Hunter Biden has adopted a tactic long used by comedians and certain celebrities facing scandal: getting ahead of the criticism by turning it into a joke himself. He is effectively disarming his opponents by demonstrating that their attacks no longer hold power over him.
“Thank You for Your Attention to This Matter
Another example showcases this same strategy with surgical precision. When a user circulated a doctored image depicting him with a pipe in his mouth, he responded by correcting the poor editing. “A crack pipe doesn’t have that little bowl at the end,” he wrote, before adding a reason not to trust artificial intelligence. In a masterful twist, he then adopted the signature phrase of another social media sensation, President Donald Trump: “That’s why you can’t trust AI. Please make the correct edits. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Hunter Biden is not merely joking about his past. Since his return to X, he is also using the platform to defend his father and attack Donald Trump or certain members of his entourage. This freedom of tone is all the more surprising given that Hunter Biden was long considered an extremely sensitive subject for Democrats.
His addictions to alcohol and cocaine, his legal troubles, and his overseas business dealings fueled attacks from political opponents for years. During Joe Biden’s presidency, conservatives regularly presented him as the White House’s Achilles’ heel.
Turning a Liability into a Weapon
Today, he chooses to mock these criticisms rather than ignore them. To those who continue to associate him with cocaine, he retorts, for example: “Why does everyone keep saying? I smoked crack. I would never have wasted cocaine by putting it up my nose.”
Several of these responses have accumulated millions of views and are now circulating far beyond the usual circles of American politics. The phenomenon has generated such buzz that some internet users are now jokingly speculating about a potential Hunter Biden presidential run in 2028. The hypothesis has been sufficiently amplified on social media to reach Donald Trump himself, who was asked the prospect on Fox News. The current president derided the idea, opining that Hunter Biden’s past did not exactly work in his favor, before joking about other Democratic figures he deemed even less credible.
