Hunter Biden’s highly anticipated conversation with far-right political commentator and influencer Nick Fuentes was a clash over issues such as race, antisemitism and each person's credibility, even if it didn't quite deliver the heightened collision that viewers might expect.
“I’m not asking you to retract everything that you’ve ever said or anything. I would love to talk to you because, number one, I told you this, is that I think you’re really smart,” Biden said to Fuentes at the beginning of the chat, which was published on Channel 5 News' YouTube channel on Friday, July 24. “And I think that with that comes a real responsibility, and you have an audience.”
The eagerly-awaited conversation, promoted by a trailer released on July 21 and moderated
by channel creator Andrew Callaghan, has accumulated more than three million views in its first few days. Channel 5 is is known for its viral, off-kilter political coverage and for hosting controversial interviews with actor Shia LaBeouf and fitness influencer Clavicular.
Fuentes, 27, has spent years building a following around a platform of white nationalism and Holocaust denial, while Biden, 56, has spent the past year on what's widely been described as an image rehabilitation tour. The former president Joe Biden's son has already sat down with both conservative commentator Candace Owens and democrat California Governor Gavin Newsom.
To say Biden has been leaning into his past transgressions and addressing them head-on would be an understatement. He launched a Substack, where he wrote about the highly-discussed contents of his laptop, and has used X to divulge information about his former drug use. This interview with Fuentes took place on a set that was designed to resemble a rundown motel room, nodding to Biden detailing that he smoked crack cocaine in a Super 8 motel off of Interstate 95 in Connecticut.
Fuentes didn’t waste any time lamenting about his frustrations about how “everybody thinks of him as a white supremacist Nazi.”
“You make these historical connections that don’t exist,” Biden countered to Fuentes when the right-winger said “liberals celebrated all over social media” after Charlie Kirk was shot and killed.
Despite the friction between the two, “by the end of the interview, Nick and Hunter weren't fighting," a Channel 5 spokesperson argued in a statement to The Wrap before the episode's release, adding that audiences would be surprised both by how Fuentes' views have evolved and by where the three men — Fuentes, Biden and Callaghan, who also participated in the conversation — found agreement.
One instance was when Biden and Fuentes said they’ve both been “pigeon-holed” by the public based on peoples’ perceptions of them.
“I’m a crackhead,” Biden quipped.
“But I’m racist, right?” Fuentes responded.
Fuentes and Biden also agreed on issues related to health care. Bringing up New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Biden said, “I look at somebody like Mamdani, I think, well, he’s just talking about good government. What do you think about health care? Don’t you think that there should be a single-payer system? Don’t you think that there should be some guarantee as a right?”
Biden continued, “I don’t know how you make it in this country and aspire to a middle-class life and be able to afford a catastrophic event as it relates to your health.”
Fuentes said, “I don’t support single-payer, but I do believe that everybody should be entitled to some minimum level of coverage, catastrophic insurance.”
Callaghan interviewed Biden last year, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, the two have discussed teaming up on a full-time podcast that would give Biden a regular platform to talk about recovery, politics or “whatever he likes.”
After his 2024 conviction on federal gun-possession and tax-evasion charges, Biden was issued a full and unconditional pardon by his father for any federal crimes “he committed or may have committed" between Jan. 1, 2014 and the end of 2024.
“I still believe in America, and I truly believe in these conversations,” Biden said at the end of their interview. “I think everyone that’s watching would think that I would not want to sit down with Nick, and I guess what I’m getting at with you is that I hope you see the humanity of me … the way that you talk in the future, take that into consideration, and what I’ll do is I’ll see the humanity in you.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hunter Biden’s combative interview with Nick Fuentes: What to know
