Dowd to Biden: Show Some Heart, Accept Your Grandchild

President Biden often talks about how much he loves his six grandchildren. In her latest New York Times column, Maureen Dowd reminds the president that he has seven grandkids—and calls the first family's refusal to accept the seventh child as an awful decision. The 4-year-old girl is named Navy Joan and she lives in rural Arkansas, as a previous Times article detailed. She is the daughter of Hunter Biden, who had a tryst with her mother, Lunden Roberts, during a downward spiral into addiction. A recent paternity settlement awarded the girl some paintings Hunter created during recovery, but she cannot use Biden as her last name, and the Biden family wants no part of her.

The "president can't defend Hunter on all his other messes and draw the line at accepting one little girl," writes Dowd. "You can't punish her for something she had no choice about. The Bidens should embrace the life Hunter brought into the world, even if he didn't consider her mother 'the dating type.'" (He used that term in his memoir.) The Bidens seem to be clinging to an antiquated view of family, one in which children born "out-of-wedlock" are ignored as if they never existed. "The president's cold shoulder—and heart—is counter to every message he has sent for decades, and it's out of sync with the America he wants to continue to lead," writes Dowd. Read the full column. (More Hunter Biden stories.)