How Hunter Biden won the Internet

After Callahan’s interview was published, producers of two other shows – the South Africa-focused show “Wide Awake” and Sean Ryan’s podcast – reached out. Biden said yes. Beyond helping other addicts, he says he didn’t necessarily have a plan or understand exactly who he was talking to, but he felt ready to talk. Sean Ryan, the podcast host, former Navy SEAL, and former CIA security official, has spent many hours over the years attacking Biden’s father and boosting the claims from the laptop. “People told me that before I went on,” Biden says. “I’d say, ‘Look. Let him ask me anything he wants, anything, and I’ll give my best answer.'” “Thank God I didn’t watch everything he did.”

By January of this year, Biden says he began to see these manifestations as a way to reinvent and achieve purpose. Doing so through independent media with huge audiences is an obvious strategy for anyone who cares. (“No one cares what anyone says on CNN,” he says.) It is also an unmistakably Trumpian shift.

“People have confused boldness with authenticity,” Biden says of the comparison. “I don’t think Trump has ever had an authentic day in his life.” “I think everything he does is calculated and he’s bold. He’s bold in the same way a malignant narcissist is. He’ll lie about anything.”

Meanwhile, Biden knows the whole world has seen him at rock bottom, which means authenticity isn’t really an option. He sees value in an audience like Channel 5, which attracts more than 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube and attracts the kind of people who don’t trust anything. The most powerful figure for Biden, who he mentioned early in our conversations, is Candace Owens. Her reach has only gotten bigger – with 35 million followers across social media platforms.

“I’ve been trying to think about it and see where there might be an opportunity to get people next to MAGA or even MAGA to open their hearts a little bit,” he says. “I don’t think this country is actually nearly as divided as we’re constantly told. I think we’re all being manipulated by algorithms where a handful of oligarchs are making trillions of dollars and we have to start addressing that before we can get back to Thanksgiving dinner together.”

Biden created the “Despite my feelings about

By the time Owens was interviewed, he had already amassed tens of thousands of followers (and eventually hired a PR person). During the interview, Owens apologized to Biden, calling her past behavior “horrible” and her previous viewpoint “warped.” He won over not only Owens, but many of her deranged sycophants, who just a year ago swore he was the liberal antichrist. In an email to WIRED, the podcast host says she’s not surprised: “In the midst of the political cycle where we’re always on fire, Hunter’s admission of his mistakes and past addictions came as a breath of fresh air,” Owens says. “I felt confident that the interview would end as it did, because you can’t fool the audience; Hunter was honest, so the audience was receptive.”