Hunter Biden on Monday blamed former President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance last year at least partially on his undisclosed use of the sleep drug Ambien.
He made the comments during a three-hour interview on Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan, a YouTube series with over 3 million subscribers known for its political commentary. During the wide-ranging conversation, Hunter Biden spoke about his struggle with addiction, provided insight on the former president’s mental state and delivered an angry tirade against a number of Democratic Party operatives he felt had wronged his father in the waning days of his 2024 campaign.
“I know exactly what happened in that debate,” Biden told Callaghan. “He’s 81 years old. He’s tired as shit. You give him Ambien to be able to sleep. He gets up on the stage, and he looks like he’s a deer in headlights, and it feeds into every story.”
The podcast was released on the one-year anniversary of Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race. He later endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, as his successor.
Hunter Biden on Joe Biden's nightmare debate performance, which ultimately led to him dropping out of the presidential race pic.twitter.com/GaTYmDoQL3
— Channel 5 (@Channel5iveNews) July 21, 2025
The decision to drop out came a few weeks after a widely panned debate performance against Donald Trump in late July 2024 that left Democrats struggling to defend Biden’s mental fitness.
Biden repeatedly lost his train of thought during the debate, rambling and ending one answer with a mumbled comment about having “beat Medicare.”
“Biden had a very low bar going into the debate and failed to clear even that bar,” former housing secretary under Barack Obama, Julian Castro, wrote on X following the debate. “He seemed unprepared, lost, and not strong enough to parry effectively with Trump, who lies constantly.”
Prior to the debate the then-president had traveled to several campaign stops, and has blamed the weak performance on inadequate sleep and a lingering cold he was battling.
In the days following, Biden’s physician issued a letter describing his health regimen, which contained no mention of Ambien or other sleep-related medications.
In recent months, Republicans have accused top aides in the Biden White House of hiding the truth about the former president’s mental capabilities from the public.
A panel on the GOP-led House Oversight Committee is currently investigating the former president’s mental fitness and his use of a mechanical signature, or autopen.
“I made every decision,” Biden said in a phone interview with The New York Times, asserting that he had his staff use an autopen replicating his signature on the clemency warrants because “we’re talking about a whole lot of people.”
During the lengthy interview Monday, Hunter Biden also addressed how his father was treated after the debate, criticizing Democrats in Hollywood, specifically George Clooney, for failing to support his father.
“George Clooney is not a fucking actor — he’s a brand and by the way, God bless him, he supposedly treats his friends really well,” Hunter Biden ranted. “He’s got a really great place in Lake Como and he’s great friends with Barack Obama. Fuck you, what do you have to do with fucking anything? Why do I have to fucking listen to you? What right do you have to step on a man who’s given 52 years of his fucking life to the service of this country?”