Axios’ Alex Thompson: Hunter Biden ‘Sees His Sobriety as Related to the Fate of the Country’

BRZEZINSKI: “This week — which is I’ll just not get another [indecipherable] — Hunter Biden will go before the Republican-led Oversight and Judiciary committees for a deposition as part of the GOP’s ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Biden, focused on Hunter and his past business dealings for years in an attempt to find cause to remove the president. They have so far been unsuccessful. Now, in a new interview with ‘Axios’ Hunter says those relentless attacks have tested his resolve, among many things, to remain sober. Joining us now with more on his rare interview with President Biden’s son, National Political Correspondent for ‘Axios’ Alex Thompson. Alex, thanks for coming on to — to share this with us. So how did he actually put that into words? What did he say about his sobriety as it pertains to the attacks on him, which have been relentless, many of them unfounded, some of them incredibly humiliating, pictures of him on the House floor. I mean, I don’t understand how anybody could do this to another human being, no matter what they have or have not done. And yet he moves forward. How does he stay strong?”
Thompson: “Absolutely. You know, the reason I was interested in talking to him about this is it’s really an extraordinary story —“
BRZEZINSKI: “Yeah.”
Thompson: “— of result. Think about this. Hunter Biden was in a spiral of a crack cocaine addiction, alcohol addiction, he basically got sober the day before Joe Biden’s first campaign kickoff in 2019, the day before. Since then, he has essentially been completely sober. He testified to that in court. A court — another judge basically said that he has been tested since August, his lawyer so that he has continued to be tested. And so part of the reason that he has stayed sober beyond I think the love of his family, he got married, he had a little boy that he named after his — you know, his late brother, Beau.”
BRZEZINSKI: “Yeah.”
Thompson: “But other — the other thing is he sees his sobriety as related to the fate of the country. Basically, what he said is that, you know, he thinks about the consequences of failure here.”
BRZEZINSKI: “Right.”
Thompson: “That maybe that’s the ultimate test for a recovering addict. Because he knows if he relapses it would be devastating for his dad while his dad is running for reelection and trying to keep Trump out of the Oval Office.”
BRZEZINSKI: “Wow, it’s a lot of pressure.”
DANIELS: “It’s super rare interview, but also part of a shift in his team’s thinking about how they should operate. Me and Betsy Woodruff Swan wrote about this last — at the end of last year, where they started to say, ‘You know what? We don’t have to sit back and take it. We should go out. He should tell his story in ways like this.’ But there’s a split in Biden world about how it’s landing, right? Some people think he should be doing that, punch when you’re punched. Others are saying don’t be a distraction. Did you guys get into that and more importantly, how do you think this is landing in the Biden world?”
Thompson: “I remember that story, because I was very jealous about it. And — and — and you know, I think the fact that he even talked to me is sort of representative of this thing. And you I think there’s a view within some in the Biden’s circle that basically any day that Hunter’s in the headlines is a bad day for Joe Biden. But I think Hunter Biden basically says, ‘There’s no way that you can sort of drag me down and not drag my father down too. That there are some things — and we’re seeing it now with some of this reckoning with the $5 million bribe that apparently seems to have been, you know, just a complete, you know, fabricated thing and with this impeachment inquiry sort of going off the rails, that, you know, in some ways this could end up be rebounding to his father’s benefit, if they can land this plane.”