Hunter Biden Says 'Sick' Critics Are Being Driven by Trauma

Hunter Biden said his critics are "very, very sick people who have most likely just faced traumas in their lives" in a rare interview released Friday.

Biden addressed the relentless attacks that Republicans have waged against him over the last year in an two-part podcast interview with musician Moby, saying that he doesn't believe that the criticisms are about him and instead fueled by efforts to destroy his family name.

"These people are just sad, very, very sick people that have most likely just faced traumas in their lives that they've decided that they are going to turn into an evil, that they decide that they're going to inflict on the rest of the world," Biden said.

Friday's episode on Moby Pod, which is the first of the series, comes on the heels of a federal indictment that leveled nine charges against Biden, accusing him of failing to pay his taxes, understating his income and exaggerating expenses on tax returns. Prosecutors allege the president's son spent money "on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes."

The in-depth interview also comes as House Republicans have vigorously probed his business dealings and have sought to tie his father to those affairs as part of an impeachment inquiry. The GOP-led investigation has not produced any evidence that President Joe Biden benefitted financially from his son's activities.

The younger Biden said that even though his father's longtime Senate run launched when Hunter was just 2 years old, he has "never experienced anything like this."

"I've never witnessed anything like it," Biden said. "I've never witnessed the level of invasion of privacy on any individual that I can possibly think of. I've never witnessed a sustained attack on a person like this."

Biden criticized House Republicans for trying to "destroy a presidency" by taking direct aim at the Biden family, accusing them of trying to "kill" him because "it will be a pain greater than my father could be able to handle."

He also talked about the death of his brother Beau, saying that his father's political opponents have tried to undermine his confidence and ability to campaign by making the president feel as though he could lose another son, one that Biden said his father had "just had regained from an almost-death, through addiction." Biden has been vocal about his struggle with addiction, thoroughly detailing his history of drug and alcohol abuse in his memoir. He said he's been sober since 2019.

In the interview, Biden said that Republicans were attacking him in hopes that he'd relapse, saying, "There is no doubt in my mind, and this might sound like some crazy hyperbole, is that they're trying to kill me through other means. And I just won't let them."

He said that while he doesn't expect the attacks to stop as long as his father is president, he is committed to surviving the criticisms because "the fire couldn't be any hotter than it literally [is] at this moment" and because of his refusal to let people use him "as just another example of why people in recovery are never gonna be OK, never to be trusted."

"I'm just not gonna let that happen," he said.

The second part of the interview will be released on December 15.