Donald Trump Jr. ridiculed Hunter Biden on Tuesday for conceding that nepotism played an outsize role in his financial success, calling a TV interview with former vice president Joe Biden’s son a ‘dumpster fire.’
The younger Biden had branded Don Jr. ‘Prince Humperdinck,’ a nod to the cowardly, feckless and buffoonish character in the 1987 cult-classic film ‘The Princess Bride.’
The Biden scion acknowledged in an ABC News interview that ‘a lot of things’ in his life would not have happened without his family name.
And he said it would have been ‘impossible for me’ to sit on boards of directors of companies and nonprofits if his father hadn’t been a powerful elected official.
Hunter has also reaped unlikely windfalls at a Ukraine energy company and as a beneficiary of a $1.5 billion Chinese capital investment in a fund he partly owns.
Don Jr., the president’s eldest son, smelled blood.
‘The Bidens got rich leeching off American taxpayers while my family was building an amazing business. The difference between Hunter and me is that I’ve never made a living selling access to my politician father,’ he told DailyMail.com in a lengthy statement.
Hunter Biden acknowledged in a TV interview Tuesday that without his famous last name he wouldn’t have had access to the lucrative jobs that put him in the center of political scandal
Donald Trump Jr. mocked the admission as a ‘dumpster fire,’ ignoring the jabs about nepotism that opponents have thrown at all President Trump’s adult children
‘My first job at the Trump Organization was working as a dock attendant, then on construction sites in high school. I’ve never been appointed to Amtrak boards based solely on the fact that my father was a prominent Senator at the time,’ he said.
‘I never have and never would sell access to a foreign country while my father sat in the White House like Hunter did with China and Ukraine. My family gave up pursuing all new international business deals when our father was elected, while Hunter specifically used his father’s office to magically become a wealthy “international businessman”.’
Hunter told ABC that political slams on his route to wealth are a meaningless dance compared to ‘real stuff’ – likely a reference to his struggles with drug addiction and his brother Beau’s 2015 death from an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Calling the Trumps’ verbal fisticuffs a relative ‘Barnum and Bailey’ circus, he insisted he doesn’t spend time thinking about the Republican family that now vilifies him and his father at every turn.
‘I mean, like, you know, Donald “Prince Humperdinck” Trump Jr. is not somebody that I really care about,’ he said.
‘Dumpster fire at Biden HQ!’ Trump Jr. tweeted after the interview ran on ‘Good Morning America.’
He, his brother Eric and their sister Ivanka have themselves been accused of taking advantage of their family name.
Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner are senior White House aides. Don Jr. and Eric are running the Trump Organization in their father’s absence, managing the preisdent’s real estate empire.
Hunter Biden boasted his own résumé on Tuesday before agreeing that his famous name positioned him for a life of elite privilege.
Hunter Biden insisted he never suffered any ethical lapses but conceded he made mistakes in his overseas business dealings while his father was a heartbeat away from the U.S. presidency
‘I was vice chairman of the board of Amtrak for five years,’ he said. ‘I was the chairman of the board of the U.N. World Food Program. I was a lawyer for Boies Schiller Flexner, one of the most prestigious law firms in the world.’
‘I think that it is impossible for me to be on any of the boards I just mentioned without saying I’m the son of the Vice President of the United States,’ he said.
That influence may have helped Hunter from the earliest days of his career. His first job after graduating from Yale Law School in 1996 was
After graduating from law school, Biden took a job at MBNA America, a banking conglomerate later swallowed up by Bank of America. At the time, MBNA was a significant contributor to Joe Biden’s U.S. Senate campaigns.
In less than three years, Hunter Biden was promoted to executive vice president of the company.
A source close to Donald Trump Jr. told DailyMail.com on Tuesday that Hunter’s pride in later working for Boies Schiller Flexner is misplaced.
‘Hunter Biden? You mean the guy that was on TV bragging about having worked for the law firm that hired thugs to terrorize and silence Harvey Weinstein’s victims?’ the source mocked.
DONALD TRUMP JR.’S STATEMENT ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN
‘The Bidens got rich leeching off American taxpayers while my family was building an amazing business. The difference between Hunter and me is that I’ve never made a living selling access to my politician father.
‘My first job at the Trump Organization was working as a dock attendant, then on construction sites in high school. I’ve never been appointed to Amtrak boards based solely on the fact that my father was a prominent Senator at the time.
‘I never have and never would sell access to a foreign country while my father sat in the White House like Hunter did with China and Ukraine. My family gave up pursuing all new international business deals when our father was elected, while Hunter specifically used his father’s office to magically become a wealthy “international businessman”.’
The firm has long represented Weinstein, the disgraced movie mogul who faces criminal charges including rape amid sexual misconduct allegations from dozens of women.
In 2017 The New Yorker reported that as part of its legal services, Boies Schiller Flexner had hired private intelligence firms to spy on Weinstein’s alleged victims and reporters who were chasing their stories. In some cases the law firm’s contractors started and managed smear campaigns against the women.
President Donald Trump also criticized Hunter Biden’s interview on Tuesday, comparing him to ‘Crooked’ Hillary Clinton and arguing Joe Biden now ‘has real problems’ in his presidential campaign.
‘Hunter Biden was really bad on @GMA. Now Sleepy Joe has real problems! Reminds me of Crooked Hillary and her 33,000 deleted Emails, not recoverable!,’ the president tweeted.
President Trump weighed in on Hunter Biden’s interview, comparing him to ‘Crooked’ Hillary Clinton
The younger Biden said he exercised poor judgement in his business deals with Ukraine and China, but insisted he did nothing wrong. The resulting scandal has engulfed his father’s presidential campaign and made their family a convenient political target for Trumpworld.
‘In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part. Is that I think that it was poor judgment because I don’t believe now, when I look back on it – I know that there was – [I] did nothing wrong at all,’ he told ABC News.
‘However, was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is … a swamp in many ways? Yeah.’
‘I gave a hook to some very unethical people to act in illegal ways to try to do some harm to my father. That’s where I made the mistake,’ Hunter said.
‘So I take full responsibility for that. Did I do anything improper? No, not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever.’