President Biden said on Thursday that he would not grant Hunter Biden a pardon if he was convicted in his felony gun trial, a rare comment from Mr. Biden about the legal troubles facing his son.
When asked during an interview with ABC News whether he would accept the outcome of the trial of his son, who faces charges including lying on an application to obtain a gun in October 2018, Mr. Biden said, “Yes.”
In the wide-ranging interview, the president also defended his border policies and reiterated his support for a cease-fire proposal in the war in Gaza. When the topic turned to former President Donald J. Trump and his recent felony conviction, Mr. Biden said his opponent needed to “stop undermining the rule of law.”
Last week, a New York jury found Mr. Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money paid to a porn actress, in an unlawful conspiracy to aid his 2016 presidential campaign. He has since repeated his criticism of the judge in the case and suggested he could seek to prosecute his political opponents if elected again. At a campaign rally in Arizona on Thursday, Mr. Trump called his trial “rigged” and said the charges had been “fabricated.”
Mr. Biden took on a sharper edge when asked about his political opponent’s broadsides after a recent executive order allowing the suspension of asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. The former president called the move “weak and pathetic.”
“Is he describing himself — weak and pathetic?” Mr. Biden said in the interview, which took place on the sidelines of his visit to the beaches of Normandy in France to observe the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
Mr. Biden added that the White House had supported a Senate bill that would have increased funding for immigration agencies and imposed major restrictions at the border, but Republicans rejected it while taking a cue from Mr. Trump, who did not want Mr. Biden to secure an election-year win.
“We had a deal that was much broader than this, much better, much more accepted across the board,” Mr. Biden said. “And he got on the phone and told Republicans: Don’t support it.”
Mr. Biden was also asked about the challenge of managing the conflicts that now dominate his foreign policy agenda.
The president warned last month that the United States would block certain arms transfers if Israel targeted heavily populated areas in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, but Israel has moved ahead with airstrikes in the city, which borders Egypt.
Even though an Israeli airstrike on Thursday in central Gaza killed dozens of people at a U.N. school complex, Mr. Biden said he believed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was still listening to him. The president said Israel was considering “going into Rafah full-bore.”
“Come into the city, take it out,” Mr. Biden said in the interview. “They haven’t done that.”
Mr. Biden reiterated that Israel had agreed to a proposal that the president publicly endorsed last week at the White House that could lead to a “cessation of hostilities permanently.” But neither Israel nor Hamas has taken a definite stance on the proposal since its unveiling.