President Joe Biden publicly acknowledged for the first time his seventh grandchild several weeks after her mother Lunden Roberts and the president’s son Hunter Biden reached a child support agreement in an Arkansas court.
Navy Joan Roberts, the 4-year-old daughter of his son Hunter.
The President told People magazine that he and the first lady “only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy” but he has never even met the girl.
Biden has seven grandchildren by way of his four kids.
The president’s son Hunter Biden shares daughters Naomi, 29, Finnegan, 22, and Maisy, 21, with ex-wife Kathleen Buhle, daughter Navy Roberts, 4, with Arkansas woman Lunden Roberts, and son Beau Jr., 3, with his current wife, Melissa Cohen.
Biden’s eldest son, the late Beau Biden, welcomed daughter Natalie, 18, and son Robert “Hunter,” 17, with wife Hallie.
In 2019, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that Roberts filed a motion in court that indicated that DNA testing has established, “with scientific certainty,” that Hunter Biden is the father of Navy.
The President and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, have been criticized in The New York Times and by some Republicans for not recognizing the girl as Biden’s 7th grandchild. However, the Bidens did so to People Magazine on July 28, 2023.
Critics of the president had noted that while he had spoken about his relationship with his six other grandchildren, he had generally failed to mention Navy Roberts when discussing his family.
Earlier this month, following a story about the granddaughter, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd penned a column criticizing the Biden family for not embracing his granddaughter.
Hunter Biden has been married to his wife Melissa Cohen since 2019. He has a son with his current wife and three daughters with former wife, Kathleen Buhle.
Navy Roberts was born in August 2018.
A former stripper at the Mpire Gentlemen’s Club in Washington, D.C., Roberts had a brief affair with Hunter Biden that resulted in a pregnancy, not long after he ended a torrid affair with Hallie Biden, the widow of his brother, Beau Biden.
Both Roberts and Hunter Biden appeared in person before Independence County Circuit Judge Holly Meyer in Batesville, Arkansas, on May 1, 2023.
The judge ordered both parents to be present for proceedings and can no longer only send attorneys in the ongoing child support and paternity case involving their daughter.
In June 2023, Hunter Biden and Roberts settled their child support case, agreeing to slash the father’s monthly child payment from $20,000 to $5,000. Hunter Biden had asked for a reduction in child support due to changed circumstances, and he initially denied paternity.
As part of the settlement, Roberts dropped an effort to have Navy Joan take the last name Biden.
“This is not a political issue, it’s a family matter,” claimed Biden, who has been under scrutiny for failing to publicly acknowledge the girl. “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.”
Navy Joan Roberts
The President often talks about his close-knit family but he has failed to acknowledge his 4-year old granddaughter.
Roberts’ lawyer Clint Lancaster criticized the Bidens in June for not recognizing Navy at that time.
“Lunden is a great mom and little Navy is going be fine,” said Lancaster. “The kid has lots of love on the maternal side of the family in Batesville. They are a very, very close family. They adore her and are always going to support her … But I think everybody is disappointed that there’s not more contact [with the Biden family].”
He added: “It’s not lost on anybody that Jill Biden wrote a children’s book and [dedicated it] to her grandchildren. She could have kept it at that, but she named every child except Navy. They hung stockings for the dog at Christmas but not for Navy. That is one of the saddest things.”
Roberts told the court in April, that Hunter Biden “has never seen or contacted” Navy and that President Biden and his wife “remain estranged” from their grandchild.
Lunden Roberts was working as a stripper at Mpire Club in Washington D.C. when she met Hunter Biden, using the stage name Dallas. They met around the time that Hunter Biden was dating his brother Beau Biden’s widow, Hallie Biden.
Text messages on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop show that Lunden Roberts was working for him as an assistant at his firm, Rosemont Seneca, when she became pregnant in late 2017.
She told him about the pregnancy in 2018, and just three months after Lunden Roberts gave birth to their baby girl Hunter Biden kicked her off the company’s health insurance policy.
He also repeatedly ignored messages she sent to him regarding his unborn child, including pleas for help caring for the baby.
The child’s existence had remained a secret until May 2019 when Roberts, who is from Batesville, Arkansas, sued Hunter for child support because he ignored her pleas for help caring for the child.
Although he denied paternity when she eventually sued him for child support, he was unequivocally proved to be the child’s father in an Arkansas court.