5 key quotes from Hunter Biden's first post-election interviews

Why it matters: The debate was a watershed moment for the 2024 presidential election, leading to the former president's withdrawal from the race and an unsuccessful late-bid from former Vice President Kamala Harris.

• Joe Biden's performance against then-Republican nominee Donald Trump confirmed Democrats' worst fears about his age and capacity to lead.
• Hunter Biden, who was pardoned by his father for criminal charges in California and Delaware, denounced criticism of the former president in episodes of "At Our Table with Jaime Harrison" and "Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan."

Here are the key quotes:

Jake Tapper

Hunter Biden responded to CNN anchor Jake Tapper's comments earlier this year that Hunter Biden had outsize influence in his father's White House.

Flashback: "I think Hunter was driving the decision making for the family in a way," Tapper had said in May while promoting a book he co-wrote with Axios' Alex Thompson. "He was almost like a chief of staff of the family."

What he's saying: "You think Jake Tapper was telling the truth when he said I was the acting chief of staff," Hunter Biden told Harrison.

• "I was in that White House 12 days over the course of the last two years of the administration. Clearly because I had other things going on…. I stayed as far away as I possibly could — which, by the way, broke my heart."

Joe Biden had repeatedly offered to testify in Hunter's trial on federal gun charges in Delaware last June, Tapper and Thompson reported in their book, "Original Sin."

George Clooney

Hunter Biden criticized actor George Clooney, one of the first major voices to call for Joe Biden to step aside from his re-election campaign following the presidential debate.

• "Do you think in middle America, that voter in Green Bay, Wisconsin, gives a s--t what George Clooney thinks about who she should vote for?" Hunter Biden told Harrison.
• "He didn't do the right thing. And to say something that is so patently untrue in order to justify what you did afterwards… is cowardly, is weak."
• Hunter Biden said of Clooney in his interview with Callaghan, a YouTube personality: "F‑‑k him and everybody around him."

The Democratic Party's reaction to the debate

Hunter Biden said that the Democratic Party "elite" overreacted to his father's debate performance.

• "That debate was awful," Hunter Biden told Harrison. "But we could have survived if it weren't for the fact that people in the Democratic Party — the inside elite Beltway group of people — were not going to allow it to happen.
• "We watched Joe Biden turn 80 and 81 and then 82. We watched him get old in front of our eyes... That does not mean that you're incapacitated."

He blasted Democratic media personalities, including David Axelrod, James Carville and the hosts of Pod Save America, for their comments on Joe Biden's viability as a candidate during his interview with Callaghan.

Ambien

Hunter Biden blamed Ambien for his father's debate performance.

• "He flew around the world, basically the mileage he could have flown around the world three times. He's 81 years old. He's tired as sh--t," he told Callaghan.
• "They give him Ambien to be able to sleep," he said of the prescription sedative used to treat insomnia. "He gets up on the stage, and he looks like he's a deer in the headlights."

Trump's cocaine in the White House probe

Hunter Biden denied that a bag of cocaine found in the White House in 2023 was his.

• "I have been clean and sober since June of 2019. I have not touched a drop of alcohol or a drug, and I'm incredibly proud of that," he told Callaghan.
• "Why would I bring cocaine into the White House and stick it into a cubby outside of the situation room in the West Wing?"

Catch up quick: The FBI announced in May that it was stepping up efforts to investigate the case.

• Trump speculated, without providing evidence, in a February interview with The Spectator World that the cocaine could "either" belong to President Biden or Hunter Biden.

Go deeper: Hunter Biden pardon deepens Democratic identity crisis

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include more of Jake Tapper's quote about the Biden family.