President Joe Biden has finally admitted that he has a seventh grandchild, the four-year-old daughter of his son, Hunter, after years of refusing to acknowledge the girl’s existence.
In a statement provided to People magazine late Friday, the president said that he and First Lady Jill Biden "only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy," the daughter of Hunter Biden and Lunden Alexis Roberts.
"Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward," the president wrote in his statement, adding that "this is not a political issue, it’s a family matter."
Biden’s statement comes as Biden faced increasing pressure to acknowledge his seventh grandchild. The New York Times earlier this month published a profile of Roberts and Navy, who was determined to be Hunter Biden’s biological daughter following a lengthy battle in an Arkansas court. Days later, Times columnist Maureen Dowd took Biden to task in a scathing column titled "It’s Seven Grandkids, Mr. President."
Mounting liberal backlash may have turned the tide for Biden, who throughout his presidency has pointedly omitted Navy from frequent statements about his grandchildren. White House staffers and Biden aides had been repeatedly instructed to deny the existence of the president’s youngest grandchild, the Times reported.
Hunter Biden has fought to keep his youngest daughter out of his life, repeatedly rebuffing Roberts’ requests to let Navy use Biden’s last name, and claiming he was too poor to afford child support payments.
Roberts and Hunter Biden in June reached an agreement that would reduce the troubled first son’s monthly child support payments from $20,000 to just $5,000. Roberts dropped her request to give her daughter Biden’s name as part of the agreement, which also stipulated that Hunter Biden would give his daughter some of his paintings in lieu of cash payments.