As her grandmother prepared for the night of a debate that will upend Joe Biden's presidential campaign, 5-year-old Navy Joan Roberts sat quietly on a couch in a waiting room just a few blocks from the White House.
Another grandmother colored in books with her 5-year-old daughter, while Navy Joan's mother, Landen Roberts, sat in a nearby room with a Daily Caller reporter and recounted her daughter's story of abandonment and hardship.
It's a story the Biden family is unwilling to hear, even as they finally publicly acknowledged four years after Navy Joan's birth: The president's seventh grandchild, the daughter of his son Hunter, has never met her grandfather Joe or grandmother Jill, even after they said in 2023 that they only wanted what was best for their daughter.
As Lunden and Navy Joan finished their tour of Washington, D.C., the Biden family, including Hunter and their children, gathered at Camp David for a family photo op after the disastrous debate night.
Navy Jaune, as usual, was not invited. (Watch: Lunden Roberts: Stepping Out of the Shadows)
“She said, 'Oh, so [Biden is] “'He's helping other people, but when he's done helping them, he's going to come and see me, right?' And it's like, 'someday.' And that hope is in the book. You see that hope,” Roberts told the Caller.
Roberts and Navy Jones' last five years have been very different from the rest of the Biden family's. There's no fancy motorcade, no constant Secret Service protection. They've had to fend for themselves, which includes filing a paternity lawsuit to force their eldest son to support the child in the first place.
Roberts has had enough and is writing a new book about his experiences, while the rest of the Biden family is fighting for their political lives, desperately clinging to power in the White House against all odds.
“My daughter knows my dad is Pappy and she knows the man we see winning on TV is her other grandfather. She doesn't understand what that means or why one grandfather wants to see her all the time and the other has never met her,” Roberts wrote. Book“Stepping Out of the Shadows: My Life in the Wild World of Hunter Biden' is scheduled to be released on August 20th.
“But just like her father, Navy is easy to grow fond of, and even though she never met her grandfather on TV, she adores him from afar,” Roberts continues.
In the space of a week, Biden's campaign went from fighting a close contest to watching it completely implode, with the president rushing back to Camp David after his panned debate performance, where he debated with his family whether to listen to allies who were calling for him to back down or to hang in there until the end.
Calls for Biden to resign have come loud and clear from allies in the media, big donors and currently elected Democrats.
But at the Camp David meeting, Biden's family — his wife, son and grandson — supported him to stay in the race, according to The New York Times. Hunter Biden, who was recently convicted of three felony firearms charges, was reportedly one of the strongest advocates for his father to stay, attending meetings with advisers and aides around the White House.
While the family struggles to maintain their political legacy, Roberts and Navy Joan have been fighting their own battles.
Hunter Biden and Roberts in private Calm In a June 2023 child support battle, Biden's child support was cut from $20,000 to an undisclosed amount. Her eldest son gifted his daughter some of his artwork and paid Roberts' legal fees. As part of the lawsuit, Roberts unsuccessfully sought to have her daughter given Biden's surname.
Before filing the lawsuit in 2019, Roberts' lawyer, Clint Lancaster, told the Caller that the matter would be resolved quietly if he could contact then-candidate Joe Biden and his wife, Jill. Lancaster contacted them with emails that appeared to belong to Jill.
“I got some big names in the campaign, some of whom work for him in the White House, and I bought a mail tracking service. [the email for Jill Biden] “We had 75 calls in the first 30 minutes, and we didn't hear from anyone from the Biden campaign,” Lancaster said. “George Mesires [Hunter Biden’s lawyer] He called me angrily and said, 'You don't need to contact the Bidens. I told you to contact me.' And I said, 'George, do you represent Jill and Joe Biden?' And he said, 'No.' And I said, 'Shut up.'”
In 2020, a few months before the election, Jill Biden released a children's book about her husband's life. dedication Among them.
“To my grandchildren: Naomi, Finnegan, Maisie, Natalie, Hunter and Beau,” the back of the book reads. Jill Biden, who flew around the world to support Hunter during his criminal case, has never offered her support to Roberts.
Before the settlement, Hunter Biden denied that Navy Joan, who bears a striking resemblance to her father, was his daughter. A paternity test eventually proved him wrong. Even after confirming his paternity, Hunter Biden has never met his daughter in person, Roberts said.
“I called Little Rock. [Secret Service] “I called the field office. I called and said, 'Hi, this is attorney Lunden Roberts. We just did a DNA test on Hunter Biden. Joe Biden has a grandson in Arkansas,' and they said, 'What?' And I said, 'OK, Hunter Biden got my client pregnant. We have a DNA test,' and they said, 'Oh, you can stop there. I believe you,'” Lancaster told the Caller, adding that he believes he began monitoring the situation after the call.
To date, Navy Joan remains President Biden's only grandchild. Without it Secret Service protection.
Lancaster said his office was receiving more than 100 calls a day as a result of the paternity case and the presidential campaign, and that he was handling all media inquiries about Roberts at the time, but that to his knowledge, Roberts had never received support from anyone in the Biden family.
Despite the callous neglect, Roberts and Navy Joan are showing affection for the Biden family that has never been returned.
“When it was time to vote, I would dress myself in a navy, mustard-colored velour jumper with a 'Biden for President' pin on my sleeve,” Roberts wrote in her book, describing her trip to the polls in 2020. “We would walk into City Hall and have her choose her grandfather's name on my ballot.”
“Navy and I support her grandfather, even though her grandfather and father don't support her. I wish they could see 2-year-old Navy toddling around and telling her conservative family in her little baby voice, 'No Trump! Let's have Joe!'” she continued. “And every time she hears Trump's name, she frowns just like her dad and yells, 'Let's have Joe!'”
Two years after the 2020 election, Biden and the first lady plan to decorate the White House with Christmas stockings for all of Hunter's children, except for Navy Joan.
This year, our White House Holiday celebrations aim to capture the “We the People” spirit embodied in the very idea of America. pic.twitter.com/SKyXZ9RkI8
— Jill Biden (@FLOTUS) November 28, 2022
Biden has made it his business to promote his Catholic faith and family values, all of which seemed to be ignored by the beaming 5-year-old who walked into Kohler's office wearing a cute bow and a sparkly onesie. To Roberts, the treatment seemed cruel.
“I'm getting to a point where I'm like, enough is enough, and this is me acknowledging that and coming out of the shadows,” she told The Caller.
Hunter isn't a complete stranger to his daughter: The paternity case was settled and he has regular video calls with her.
“Like I said, there's always redemption. I want what my daughter wants. And seeing her face light up on that first Zoom call. [Hunter]or every time she talks to him. A daughter craves a father's love. And she does. And that's something I never want to take away from her,” she continued.
When Joe Biden chooses to recognize Navy SEALs in 2023, it Reportedly “His son gave the go-ahead. Roberts didn't know if Hunter had discussed recognizing Navy Joan with his parents.”
As for whether Hunter would be able to convince his parents to accept Navy Joan, and whether it would work out, Roberts wasn't sure.
“That's difficult, because I'd like to think that that's what happened when they first made the public statement recognizing her. So I just assumed there was some interaction with that. I'm not sure,” Roberts said.
“When something happens and you keep getting this hopeful feeling and then the disappointment, you don't know what to think. It's so unpredictable, you just don't know what to think,” she added.
If Roberts wrote the book in the hopes of garnering attention from Biden, that chance likely took a nosedive the moment the White House went into survival mode.
Biden has publicly denied the possibility of dropping out of the presidential race, but calls for the 81-year-old to give up the race have not subsided, and many worried supporters are looking to the president's family to persuade him, as Jill Biden has long been his most popular woman. Influential People in Joe's life. (RELATED: Jill Biden reportedly influenced the president's decision to reverse Trump administration border policies)
A primetime ABC News interview was supposed to calm panic within the Democratic Party, but it didn't happen. With Biden's political future at stake, talking about a book that highlights his shortcomings is not on the cards.
Meanwhile, Jill trend Hunter was full of praise for the motorcade last week, highlighting why he has the best chance of beating Donald Trump in 2024. Reports suggest Hunter has distanced his father from his advisors and is helping him prepare speeches and other events.
Roberts believes her daughter deserves that world, and she wants an explanation for why Navy Joan doesn't.
“Why not?” Roberts said of welcoming his daughter into the Biden family. “What's your defense against that? You're a man who values family values, and you've got a little girl, your granddaughter.”
Click here to watch the Daily Caller's full conversation with Lunden Roberts.
Copyright © Lunden Roberts. Excerpted with permission of Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
