Donald Trump is a powerful apex predator bulldozer. At least that’s the merged verdict of various right-wing pundits who spent the evening trying to come up with a phrase that wasn’t “mindless bullying jackass.” But it’s really CNN pundit Dana Bash who came the closest to capturing the essence of Trump’s performance on Tuesday night when she called it a “shitshow.” In the wake of Category 5 fecal hurricane Donald, Republicans seem to be spending the morning decidedly not looking at all the heaps of crap left in his wake—especially when it comes to addressing Trump’s call for white supremacists to “stand by,” and Trump’s pre-declaration of a fraudulent election.
Honestly, coming off an hour and a half that Bash so aptly described, it’s difficult to even say what was Trump’s worst moment of the evening. But it’s far easier to name Joe Biden’s best moment. It was the one when Biden took what Trump thought was his best weapon, and reminded everyone this was a human being that he loved.
Biden: “My son like a lot of people at home had a drug problem. He’s overtaking it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it. And I’m proud of him, I’m proud of my son.”
That moment came after one of Trump’s most disgusting attacks. Trump had already flung Hunter Biden into the conversation repeatedly making ludicrous claims like “the mayor of Moscow’s wife gave your son three and a half million dollars” and asserting that Hunter Biden “takes out billions of dollars from China.”
Then, as Joe Biden talked about Trump’s disdain for the military, he mentioned his son Beau, who died in 2015 after a five year fight with brain cancer.
Biden: “My son was in Iraq. He spent a year there. He got the Brown Star. He got the Conspicuous Service Medal. He was not a loser. He was a Patriot and the people left behind there were heroes.”
But Trump never stopped sneering through this whole segment, and as he did so many times during the night, Trump interrupted before Biden could finish his statement.
Trump: “Really?”
Biden: “And I resent—“
Trump: “You talking Hunter? Are you talking about Hunter?”
Biden: “I’m talking about my son, Beau Biden. You’re talking about Hunter.”
That that point, Trump leveled two specific charges at Hunter Biden, beyond his already disproven claims about money from Moscow or China.
Trump: “I don’t know Beau. I know Hunter. Hunter got thrown out of the military. He was thrown out. Dishonorably discharged.”
Biden: “That’s not true he was not dishonorably discharged.”
Not surprisingly, Biden is correct. Hunter Biden did leave the Naval Reserve in 2014, shortly after being sworn in as an officer, when he tested positive for cocaine. However, he left after agreeing to an ordinary administrative separation rather than a dishonorable discharge. But Trump continued …
Trump: “… for cocaine use. And he didn’t have a job until you became vice president.”
Biden: “None of that is true.”
Trump then repeated the claim that Hunter “didn’t have a job” and “made a fortune” without working.
In fact, Hunter Biden is a graduate of Yale Law School. After leaving school, he took a position at a bank, rising to executive vice president before accepting a role in the Commerce Department during the Clinton administration. When George W. Bush came in, Hunter Biden left the Commerce Department to become a lobbyist, specializing in economic policy. He was then named to the board of Amtrak—by Bush. He spent three years as the vice chairman of Amtrak, but left both that position and decided not to return to lobbying because he thought that was appropriate with his father coming in as part of the administration. By the time Hunter Biden was offered a role on the board of Burisma, he had over a decade of experience in finance, lobbying, and corporate administration—in short, it would be hard to think of a better resume for an ambitious firm looking to expand their business internationally.
But yes, during the period, Hunter Biden also struggled with addiction. As he told Delaware Online, “Look, everybody faces pain,” Biden said in the story. “Everybody has trauma. There’s addiction in every family. I was in that darkness. I was in that tunnel—it’s a never-ending tunnel. You don’t get rid of it. You figure out how to deal with it.” Hunter explained how he was taken to his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting by his brother, Beau.
Biden: “My son like a lot of people at home had a drug problem. He’s overtaking it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it. And I’m proud of him, I’m proud of my son.”
That statement was human. It was deeply empathetic. It was honest, hopeful, and raw. It was the best of Joe Biden, and it came in response to the worst of Donald Trump.
When Beau Biden died in 2015, it didn’t just leave his father shattered. Hunter slipped back into alcoholism, leaving his apartment only to “buy bottles of vodka.” Then his father showed up at his door. “I need you,” Joe Biden said to his son. “What do we have to do?" It wasn’t the end of Hunter Biden’s struggle with addiction … as Hunter himself said, that struggle is “a never-ending tunnel.” But it was a signal that, no matter what, his father was not giving up on him.
Donald Trump doesn’t think of Hunter Biden as a person. He thinks of Hunter as a weapon; something he can hurl at Joe Biden with an unlimited number of ridiculous claims. But the truth is that Hunter Biden is Joe Biden’s son, and the clear struggle that he has faced in his life is familiar to millions of American families that aren’t populated by … apex predator bulldozer shitstorms.