Lunden Roberts, the mother of Hunter Biden's child, Navy Joan Roberts, said during an interview on Friday that she didn't understand why her daughter wasn't embraced by the Biden family, who she described as being very "tight-knit."
"Now you're sober," she said after detailing Hunter's lack of involvement throughout her pregnancy and noting his issues with addiction. "So what's the excuse now? And then there were the stockings hung in the White House. And my child being excluded. Our child being excluded. Their grandchild being excluded. Why?"
President Biden refused to acknowledge Navy, his seventh grandchild, until July 2023. He told Fox News Digital in a statement that Roberts and Hunter were working "together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter," and added they "only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy."
"I don't see how it can be defended. I mean, it's a child," she said.
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Roberts spoke about her new book, "Out of the Shadows: My Life Inside the Wild World of Hunter Biden," on Meghan McCain's podcast, "Citizen McCain,"
Roberts referenced a story she detailed in her book about a time a children's book written by First Lady Jill Biden titled "Joey" was sent to her house. She said she had planned to read it to Navy and told her it was a book about her grandfather.
"I open the book, and the first page is the dedication page, and it's dedicated to my grandchildren, and she goes on to list them, name by name, excluding one," she said. "It's hard when your heart breaks, like it's hard to get through it, but it's harder when your heart's breaking for your child."
According to Roberts, Navy understands her grandfather is the President of the United States.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Roberts said her daughter has spoken to Hunter over Zoom calls, but has not met him in person.
She said Hunter was surprised to find out during their first call that Navy knew about all of his kids and his family.
"It's not my responsibility to have to make excuses for why they're not in her life," Roberts told McCain. "That's not something that I'm going to hide from her."
"She's going to need answers, and she needs, she's going to progressively have to go through this. I've even thought, therapy like, what do you do for something like this? Because it's also something, it's not something where it's just unacknowledged. It's so publicly unacknowledged from a family that embraces family and loves family. I don't understand," Roberts said.
The New York Times' Maureen Dowd called out Biden in a column for the outlet in July 2023, as the president received some backlash for failing to acknowledge Roberts' existence.
Dowd’s column claimed that Biden’s callous treatment of this grandchild "undercuts" the "empathy" that "has been his stock in trade" while in political office.
"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.
