PF1 Monday Mini: Hunter Biden's Comeback

Summary

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Pod Force One: Monday Mini – "Hunter Biden’s Comeback"

Host: Miranda Devine (New York Post columnist)
Date: July 13, 2026
Episode Focus: Hunter Biden’s Media Blitz and the Controversy Surrounding His Comeback

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Episode Overview

In this sharp, topical “Monday Mini” episode, Miranda Devine takes a close look at Hunter Biden’s orchestrated return to the public spotlight. With a recent high-profile defamation victory and a sudden surge across multiple media channels, Hunter is attempting to rebrand himself. Miranda examines the authenticity, strategy, and motivations behind this campaign, particularly in light of ongoing legal battles, unresolved scandals, and a persistent narrative from conservative investigators.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Hunter Biden’s Media Surge

• Hunter’s Activities:
  • Public appearances (including a Phoenix live event)
  • Launches a Substack, "Where’s Hunter?"
  • Becomes active on X (formerly Twitter), podcasts, and long-form posts
• Miranda’s Take:
  • “It is a little like reading his laptop without the homemade porn.” [00:54]
  • Hunter’s new persona is “polished, calculated and utterly inauthentic—a skillfully manufactured product.” [00:57]
• Purpose: Professional PR operatives have orchestrated this blitz, confirmed by Hunter in a Wired interview, to coincide with the release of a documentary by director Rob Bindler.

2. The Documentary and PR Machine

• Filmmaker Involvement:
  • Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris finances the project.
  • Rob Bindler is directing an upcoming documentary, confirmed on his website.
• Garrett Ziegler’s Commentary:
  • “Hunter lies every time he opens his mouth.” [02:10]
  • Bindler is finishing a “verite feature documentary featuring Hunter Biden.” [02:03]

3. Hunter’s Narrative vs. Known Facts

• Tweet Analysis:
  • Hunter’s first tweet in a decade claims “you’ve never actually heard from me.” Miranda and others point out he published a memoir in 2021. [02:24]
• Addiction as a Distraction:
  • “Leaning into his crack addiction and associated debauchery to try to divert attention from the lucrative national influence peddling operation he and his uncle Jim Biden ran during Joe’s vice presidency.” [02:52–03:01]
• Financial Entanglements:
  • Kevin Morris (dubbed “sugar brother”) funded Hunter’s lifestyle and paid off debts.
  • Legal and financial troubles continue:
    • Sued by lawyer Abbey Lowell for unpaid fees
    • Sued by London Roberts over child support
    • Parents’ lack of acknowledgment of his child Navy [03:16–03:40]

4. Laptop and Legal Proceedings

• Revisionist History:
  • Morris and Hunter push a conspiracy narrative about the laptop (suggesting Giuliani, Russians, Roger Stone, and others were involved in fabricating its contents).
• Counterevidence:
  • The MacBook was introduced as evidence in Hunter’s gun trial, confirmed as authentic by FBI forensics.
  • IRS investigators Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler geolocated Hunter to the shop where the laptop was dropped. [04:10–05:15]
  • John Paul Mac Isaac, the repairman, detailed events in his 2022 book.

5. New Book, “Plot Against Me” & Allegations of Inauthenticity

• Serializing on Substack:
  • Miranda notes that Hunter’s Substack posts tested as “100% AI” generated, or are at least PR-written. [06:00]
• Legal Actions:
  • All major lawsuits led by Hunter’s team to challenge the laptop’s authenticity have failed—except for a recent $1.7m defamation win. [06:30–07:00]

6. Investigative Responses & Forthcoming Documentaries

• "Shielded by Power":
  • An upcoming documentary from Empower Oversight, featuring whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler.
• Ziegler’s Forensic Report:
  • 644 pages, claims “459 violations of state and federal laws and regulations amongst [Hunter], his business partners and family.” [07:33]
• Miranda’s Analysis:
  • Hunter’s candor about addiction is a “sophistry tactic” meant to add credibility he doesn’t earn about his business practices. [07:49]

7. Hunter’s Political Intentions

• Future Aspirations:
  • Hunter allegedly has political ambitions, perhaps as VP or even President, according to former shrink Keith Abloh and ex-wife Kathleen.
  • “I would be so honoured to be of service in that way,” Hunter reportedly told Wired. [08:32]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Hunter’s Rebranding:

  • “The lies are the same, but this new Hunter sounds nothing like the whiny, malicious Hunter who revealed himself in seven years of frantic, crack inspired musings on his infamous laptop.” — Miranda [00:54]

• On Hunter’s Media Narrative:

  • “Like father, like son.” — Commentator [02:18]
  • “He is a skillfully manufactured product, and his sudden explosion into the media landscape is anything but organic.” — Miranda [00:57]

• On Hunter’s Substack:

  • “Internet sleuths ran Hunter’s Substack through an AI detector and found it was 100% AI. Whether that’s true or it’s simply a PR agency polishing his ravings, it is about as authentic as his teeth.” — Miranda [06:00]

• On the Media Strategy:

  • “He’s banking on people not reading our book or your book Laptop from Hell.” — Garrett Ziegler [07:49]

• On Political Future:

  • “Perhaps he really does see himself following in his father’s footsteps as a politician, maybe president, as his former shrink Keith Abloh believes.” — Miranda [08:14]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:04: Opening & Episode Theme
• 00:41–01:30: Hunter’s Recent Activities & the PR Journey
• 02:00: Documentary Project Confirmation; Ziegler’s Perspective
• 02:24–02:35: Analysis of Hunter’s First Tweet & Claims
• 03:07–03:38: Background on Morris, Lawsuits, and Hunter’s Financial Turmoil
• 04:00–05:15: The Laptop’s Legal Journey and Forensic Authenticity
• 06:00: Discussion of Hunter’s New Substack and Alleged AI Writing
• 07:25–07:49: Details from Ziegler’s Forensic Report
• 08:14–08:39: Hunter’s Political Ambitions & Final Thoughts

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Summary

This episode offers a pointed, skeptical examination of Hunter Biden’s latest attempt at public rehabilitation, scrutinizing not just the man but also the professional machinery powering his narrative. Devine underscores the vast difference between the new, PR-boosted image and the records of the past, while emphasizing legal evidence and investigative reports that challenge Hunter’s claims. The episode ends with speculation on Hunter’s ambitions, leaving listeners with ample context and judicious skepticism about his path forward.

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Transcript

[Sam]

Foreign.

[Miranda]

Hello, it's Miranda. I'm back with the new mini episode of Pod Force 1. This feature is a little more topical and relevant to my job as a columnist for the New York Post today. The topic is the comeback of Hunter Biden and his latest media blitz, why he's doing it, and how to counter his lies. Flush with a $1.7 million payout in his defamation suit against a flaky former Trump donor, Hunter Biden is on a publicity blitz. He appears on random podcasts, tweets obsessively

[Commentator]

on X, took to the stage for

[Miranda]

a live performance in Phoenix, Arizona, and launched a new substack, Where's Hunter? On which he posts long screeds about himself. It is a little like reading his

[Commentator]

laptop without the homemade porn.

[Miranda]

The lies are the same, but this new Hunter sounds nothing like the whiny, malicious Hunter who revealed himself in seven years of frantic, crack inspired musings on his infamous laptop. The new Hunter is polished, calculated and utterly inauthentic. He is a skillfully manufactured product, and his sudden explosion into the media landscape is anything but organic. It seems more like a sophisticated publicity rollout by professional PR operatives, which he recently admitted to hiring in an interview with Wired to promote the upcoming documentary Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris made during the years he was bankrolling the disgraced former first son. The filmmaker Morris hired to follow Hunter around, Rob Bindler of Hands on a Hard Body fame, says the project is nearing release. According to super sleuth Hunter nemesis Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump advisor turned private

[Commentator]

eye and founder of nonprofit Marco Polo,

[Miranda]

Bindler's website confirms he is, quote, completing a verite feature documentary featuring Hunter Biden. The timing fits, and as Ziegler says, Hunter lies every time he opens his mouth.

[Commentator]

Like father, like son.

[Miranda]

His first tweet in a decade on

[Commentator]

May 19th was a lie.

[Miranda]

I'm Hunter Biden, he tweeted.

[Commentator]

You've never actually heard from me. Au contraire. He wrote a whole book about himself in 2021.

[Miranda]

Democrats are thrilled that another member of

[Commentator]

the grifting Biden family is grabbing the

[Miranda]

spotlight just when they are trying to

[Commentator]

get everyone to forget their disastrous 2024 defeat, not to mention Joe's catastrophic presidency.

[Miranda]

Just as he tried to do with

[Commentator]

his 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things, Hunter is

[Miranda]

leaning into his crack addiction and associated debauchery to try to divert attention from

[Commentator]

the Lucrat national influence peddling operation he

[Miranda]

and his uncle Jim Biden ran during Joe's vice presidency. With Joe's involvement to close multimillion dollar

[Commentator]

deals and open doors. It didn't work then and is unlikely to work now, even with Morris's creative magic. Dubbed Hunter's sugar brother by Hunter's ex partners because of the millions of dollars he spent paying off Hunter's tax debts, paying his legal fees and funding his lavish Malibu lifestyle in 30,000 rentals, Morris closed his wa Hunter's lawyer Abbey Loll was fully paid. Loll has since filed suit against Hunter for unpaid fees over $50,000 but believed to be much more. Hunter is also being sued by his baby mama London Roberts over unpaid child support payments for the seven year old daughter Navy, who he has refused to meet and that his parents still refused to acknowledge apart from a cursory statement they were shamed into releasing after the New York Times noted the hypocrisy of their professed family values. Hunter's current media blitz doubles down on Morris's fictional hypothesis that Hunter's laptop does not exist. The pair have concocted an elaborately improbable tale in which Rudy Giuliani, or maybe it's the Russians, or both stole Hunter's digital database and created mixed tapes which they then passed off as Hunter's laptop with the help of Trump ally Roger Stone and Hunter's former shrink Keith Abloh. The reason none of their lies stand up to scrutiny is that too many people know the truth and have told it in court in whistleblower testimony and hard won prosecutions in a number of forensically detailed books which are the antidote to Hunter's feeble attempts to rewrite history. There is also an upcoming documentary Shielded by Power, backed by watchdog group Empower Oversight, which helped IRS whistleblower Gary Shapeler and Joe Ziegler get the truth out about Hunter's crimes and the Biden DOJ cover up Shapley and Ziegler's 2023 book the Whistleblowers versus the Big Two special agents, the Biden crime family and a corrupt bureaucracy is another fact filled rebuke to Hunter's continuing lies. For starters, Hunter's MacBook was used in Delaware court, held aloft by prosecutors and shown to the jury who convicted him on gun charges. His laptop was seized by the FBI in December 2019 from John Paul Mac Isaac's laptop repair shop in Delaware where Hunter had abandone in April, a few days before his father announced his 2020 presidential run. FBI forensic analysts deemed the device belonged to Hunter, had not been altered in any way and was fit to be used in a court of law, which it was Further, IRS investigators Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler geolocated Hunter via his iPhone to a cigar bar around the corner from Mac Isaac's repair store the night he dropped off his laptop. Mac Isaac, a patriot who lost his business, has catalogued exactly what happened with receipts in his 2022 book, American My Battle to Expose the Truth. Hunter is about to publish his own new book, which he told Wyatt he is starting to release this month in serial form on substack. It's about the plot against me, the conspiracy that was led by figures like Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon assembling all of my digital life through and laptops and icloud hacks. Internet sleuths ran Hunter's substack through an AI detector and found it was 100% AI. Whether that's true or it's simply a PR agency polishing his ravings, it is about as authentic as his teeth. All his Morris funded Lowell led lawsuits to try to prove his conspiracy theory have failed against Giuliani in 2023 and against Ziegler last year. His $1.7 million defamation against Patrick Byrne's reckless gossip last week was his only legal success. Led by Dick Harpoutlian Noel, the crony of his dad's whose wife was appointed ambassador to Slovenia by Joe in 2021, Ziegler is still taking legal action to recover his legal fees from Hunter and has recovered $67,000 from Morris.

[Miranda]

Ziegler's forensic 644 page report on Hunter's laptop is a definitive cataloguing what he

[Commentator]

says are, quote, 459 violations of state and federal laws and regulations amongst himself and his business partners and family, end quote.

[Miranda]

Ziegler says Hunter is using, quote, a sophistry tactic that if people believe he's

[Commentator]

being candid about his alcohol and drug addictions, therefore he's being candid about his business dealings. He's banking on people not reading our book or your book Laptop from hell, end quote. Perhaps Hunter is a reformed character, as he now claims, only interested in helping others beat addiction. Perhaps he really does see himself following in his father's footsteps as a politician, maybe president, as his former shrink Keith Abloh believes. And as he once confided to his ex wife Kathleen is his aspiration. Quote I would be so honoured to be of service in that way, he told Wired magazine last month in one of the many hagiographic media profiles that have accompanied his reinvention. The question was about working in a future Gavin Newsom presidential administration maybe as

[Miranda]

VP and pigs might fly. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to come back on Wednesday for the next episode of Pod Force One with Chris Whitcomb. A former member of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team who was at the Waco siege and Ruby Ridge. He's now an accomplished author and he talks about his fascinating new book, Broken the Explosive Search for Truth behind the Idaho Murders. He also provides hard earned insights into how the FBI went so wrong you won't want to miss it. Have a great week and hope you can tune in.

[Sam]

Sam.