A recent report that the official White House line is that President Joe Biden has only six grandchildren has stirred criticism of the president.
On July 1, The New York Times reported, “In strategy meetings in recent years, aides have been told that the Bidens have six, not seven, grandchildren,” citing “two people familiar with the discussions.”
The president has said he speaks to his grandchildren every day — but is only referring to six of them.
Left out of that total is Navy Roberts, Hunter Biden’s daughter by Lunden Roberts. The Times report said, the story of a 4-year-old “who has not yet met her father or her grandfather, is about money, corrosive politics and what it means to have the Biden birthright.”
Remarkable that Joe Biden hangs a Christmas stocking for his dog but won’t acknowledge his granddaughter.
Not an ounce of decency. https://t.co/F1uaAhOPhp
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) July 3, 2023
Columnist Kirsten Fleming reacted in the New York Post by fuming that “this 4-year-old is, apparently, a political inconvenience. And at the end of the day, Biden is a slick politician wrapped in the costume of a cute grandpa.
“It’s grand hypocrisy and a cruel omission for a devout Catholic man who has built his entire persona and career on being a doting paterfamilias,” she wrote.
The Biden’s claim to be all about family and their grandchildren, yet they won’t recognize this innocent little girl!!! Absolutely classless. #TheFive pic.twitter.com/x5WONxn8gU
— Jeanine Pirro (@JudgeJeanine) July 7, 2023
Columnist Maureen Dowd of The New York Times shared a scolding her sister was writing in a letter to the president.
Should Biden acknowledge his 7th grandchild?
Yes: 100% (4 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
“I watched as you told the nation that you had six grandchildren and you loved each one of them. I believe that. What I cannot believe and what I find unconscionable is that you refuse to admit or accept the fact that there is a beautiful little 4-year-old girl living in Arkansas by the name of Navy Joan who is your seventh grandchild,” Dowd said her sister wrote.
“As she grows up, knowing that her father and paternal grandparents wanted nothing to do with her,” the letter continued, “she will probably be able to see a video or two showing her half sister Naomi getting married on the South Lawn and you watching the fireworks on the balcony with little Beau. And if she misses that, there will be plenty of schoolmates to remind her that she wasn’t wanted. Kids can be mean that way.”
Dowd shared her disappointment with the president as a person.
“Joe Biden’s mantra has always been that ‘the absolute most important thing is your family.’ It is the heart of his political narrative. Empathy, born of family tragedies, has been his stock in trade. Callously scarring Navy’s life, just as it gets started, undercuts that,” she wrote.
Some of us have been saying this for awhile: there’s been no more clear measurement of Biden’s odious character than the fact that, in the twilight of his life, he spent 4 years publicly denying one of his grandchildren for pure political expedience https://t.co/ZHWUjDnbYA
— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) July 2, 2023
She wrote that the president “can’t defend Hunter on all his other messes and draw the line at accepting one little girl.”
“You can’t punish her for something she had no choice about. The Bidens should embrace the life Hunter brought into the world, even if he didn’t consider her mother ‘the dating type,’” Dowd continued.
“The president’s cold shoulder — and heart — is counter to every message he has sent for decades, and it’s out of sync with the America he wants to continue to lead.”
