BY OSABUOHIEN VIVIAN ROSE
U S. President Joe Biden has welcomed his first great-grandchild in California on Wednesday after his granddaughter Naomi Biden Neal gave birth to boy.
“The good news is, I’m a great-grandfather as of today,” Biden told reporters after getting a briefing from California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection officials on their efforts to fight the wildfires raging throughout Los Angeles.
Biden said his granddaughter gave birth to “a 10-pound, four-ounce baby girl” before quickly correcting himself to say “baby boy.”
In a recent interview with USA Today, Biden spoke about his great-grandchild’s impending birth, saying, “I’m about to be a great-grandfather, Jesus God. But Naomi … I’m going out to California. She’s due to have a cesarean on the 8th of January.”
“God willing,” he added.
The birth of Biden’s great-grandchild comes just over two years after the president and the first lady hosted Naomi Biden’s wedding to her husband, Peter Neal, at the White House.
At the time, the bride told Vogue about her close relationship with her grandparents, saying that it “hasn’t changed much” since her grandfather became president.
“When I was in middle school, we lived so close, and they were at every sports game and our school plays. We still do the same things. It’s always been this way,” she added.
Naomi Biden is the daughter of Hunter Biden and his first wife, Kathleen Buhle. Hunter Biden, the son of the president’s first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, who died in a car accident when he was a little boy, has often grabbed headlines in the past four years as he faced federal charges and scrutiny over his addictions.
In December, the president announced that he was granting Hunter Biden a pardon just days before he was set to be sentenced in two separate cases, for a conviction on federal gun charges and for a guilty plea on federal tax evasion charges.
Joe, first lady Jill Biden and Hunter Biden visited Naomi Biden at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles Wednesday, before the briefing on the fire response. Hunter Biden was accompanied by his current wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, and his young son, Beau Jr., who is named after his late brother, who was the president’s eldest son.
