Biden Promises Family Won’t Be Involved In ‘Any Government Undertaking Or Foreign Policy’

U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. First Lady Jill Biden pose with their family in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the "Celebrating America" event at the Lincoln Memorial after the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States in Washington, U.S., January 20, 2021. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/Pool
President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden and their family pose at the Lincoln Memorial where the President participated in a televised ceremony on January 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Joshua Roberts-Pool/Getty Images)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

President Joe Biden has vowed to steer clear of his predecessor’s notorious penchant for entrenching family members in government affairs.

“We’re going to run this like the Obama-Biden administration,” Biden told People on Wednesday in his first interview since his inauguration. “No one in our family and extended family is going to be involved in any government undertaking or foreign policy. And nobody has an office in this place.”

The pledge is part of Biden’s effort to define his presidency as a return to normalcy after four years of President Donald Trump, who appointed his eldest daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner to senior positions in the White House.

The couple were heavily involved in Trump’s domestic and foreign affairs despite their lack of experience in politics plus their blatant conflicts of interest with their business dealings. Additionally, a White House whistleblower told Congress that Ivanka and Kushner had been denied top security clearances before Trump overruled senior staffers and approved the clearances anyway.

At the same time, Trump and his allies in the right-wing media fixated on Biden’s son, Hunter, and peddled unproven conspiracy theories that Biden had used his position as vice president to shield Hunter from criminal investigations in Ukraine. Trump’s desperate efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into announcing an investigation into Hunter eventually led to his first impeachment.

Latest News

Notable Replies

  1. How far we have sunk in 4 years. This shouldn’t even be news.

  2. Avatar for pine pine says:

    OT

    Don’t know if anyone caught the opening ceremony for officer Sicknick last night,but its a reminder of where we are in this place and time and what really happen almost 4 weeks ago to our country.

    I also caught this glaring example Fox wasn’t the only one.OAN,NEWSMAX.

  3. What about Chinese trademarks?

  4. Finally, honor and honesty is back in the White House. It seems like it has been a lifetime since Obama.

  5. I wouldn’t worry too much about those, given how the Chinese are almost religious about intellectual property rights.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

76 more replies

Participants

Avatar for zandru Avatar for mondfledermaus Avatar for sysprog Avatar for mattinpa Avatar for cervantes Avatar for thebigragu Avatar for lastroth Avatar for alyoshakaramazov1 Avatar for tao Avatar for khaaannn Avatar for pine Avatar for fiftygigs Avatar for dommyluc Avatar for docd Avatar for misterneutron Avatar for numbertwopencil Avatar for expatls1954 Avatar for maximus Avatar for justruss Avatar for agnesbee Avatar for totoska Avatar for chjim Avatar for cantaresf Avatar for Paracelsus

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: