President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden often speak about the importance of family – specifically, their grandchildren – and yet the two have never met or corresponded with their youngest granddaughter, Navy Roberts.
Navy is the five-year-old daughter of Hunter Biden and his ex-girlfriend Lunden Roberts. The first son denied fathering the child up until a paternity test revealed otherwise last year and he has still not spent time with her in person.
Roberts details her and Navy’s experience with the Biden family in her new book, Out of the Shadows, and, on Friday’s show, she spoke with Megyn about how poorly they have been treated by the first lady in particular.
The Seventh Grandchild
After years of silence, the president and first lady finally acknowledged that they have a seventh grandchild last summer. The long-awaited admission came in a written statement to People that was dropped late one Friday evening in July 2023. It was on the heels of a New York Times report that took a closer look at Roberts and Navy and the child support agreement Hunter reached with them.
While the elder Bidens claimed in the statement that they “only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy,” their behavior towards the mother and daughter would suggest otherwise.
In the book, Roberts details how she was received by the Bidens for the first several years of Navy’s life. “It’s pretty extraordinary the callousness with which you and, honestly, your daughter are treated for her first four or five years on this earth,” Megyn noted. “[Some of] it paints the first lady in a whole new light.”
The Stockings
Roberts pointed to two situations involving Hunter’s stepmother that she believes will be hard to explain to her daughter one day. The first involved Christmas decorations.
Navy was born in August 2018, and the Bidens entered the White House in January 2021. On display their first two Christmases in Washington, DC, were six stockings for their grandchildren and a couple more for the family pets. Excluded from the tribute? Navy.
By the time Hunter’s paternity was confirmed and the president and first lady were forced to recognize Navy’s existence in 2023, the stockings were conspicuously missing from the White House holiday decor.
Roberts told Megyn she broached the glaring omission when she had a chance to speak with Hunter during their child support hearings. “That actually is something… I brought up to him,” she shared. “Like, that it is hurtful to see, you know, a matriarch of a family who is supposed to bring a family together purposely exclude someone part of that family and part of that bloodline.”
It is something Roberts fears Navy will read into one day. “That is something that someday my daughter will read, and my daughter will see, and it breaks my heart to know that it will break hers,” Roberts said. “She is going to see about being excluded and she is going to wonder why, and all I can do is be there for her when she is old enough to understand these things.”
The Dedication
But it wasn’t the only time Navy has been left out by her grandmother. Roberts writes about a dedication she made in her children’s book, Joey: The Story of Joe Biden, that mentioned all of her grandchildren by name – except Navy. Megyn called it “one of the cruelest cuts of all.”
The dedication page reads, “To my grandchildren: Naomi, Finnegan, Maisy, Natalie, Hunter, and Beau.” And Roberts writes in her book that she discovered the tribute after she had already purchased the book to read to Navy. She believes Jill “purposefully” left her daughter – “a small innocent child and a family member” – off the list.
Choosing to Forgive
Despite all that has transpired the last six years, Roberts told Megyn she has chosen to forgive the first family. “I can’t let, you know, anger and rage just overcome me,” she shared. “I can’t be that person. I have to forgive.”
She also remains hopeful. As part of their child support agreement, Hunter speaks to Navy occasionally via Zoom calls (Roberts said he has still never met her in person), and she hopes he can one day explain to their daughter why some of this occurred.
“I have a lot of mom guilt when it comes to that… because I’m the reason she is in this predicament,” Roberts concluded. “So, that is something that I hope – with Hunter and Navy’s relationship growing – that maybe he can turn things around and try to explain to her those behaviors and why.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Roberts by tuning in to episode 813 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.