Hunter Biden's trial shows the US criminal justice system is working

Hunter Biden's trial shows the US criminal justice system is working | GZERO World

Republican lawmakers are attacking the US criminal justice system as “rigged” and “shameful” after former president Donald Trump’s criminal convictions, calling the case a blatant example of political persecution. But in a twist of legal happenstance, Hunter Biden’s criminal trial began in Delaware just days after the Trump verdict was announced.

On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sits down with former US attorney Preet Bharara and New Yorker columnist Susan Glasser for their reaction to Trump’s unprecedented conviction, the even more unprecedented GOP response, and whether Republican accusations of a “two-tiered” justice system and political witch hunt holds water. In a stunning twist of legal irony, President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, is currently on trial for lying about paperwork he used to purchase a gun in Delaware.

Bharara pointed out how unlikely it would be, if Trump won the presidency and somehow Don Jr. was indicted and put on trial, that the former president would stand idly by and not comment on it or try to get involved somehow, which Bremmer agreed was “inconceivable.” Not only that, but the timing of Hunter’s trial isn’t good for Biden, who wants the messaging right now to be squarely on Trump’s legal woes.

“You couldn’t even make this up,” Glasser argues, “That literally, while the Democrats finally get a couple days where they’re focusing the lens squarely on Donald Trump and his fitness for office, then boom, two days later, Hunter Biden is on trial. The timing is a reminder that Biden can’t seem to catch a break.”

Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.

More from GZERO Media

A robot waiter, serving drinks at the Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair, in Paris, on May 24, 2024.

  • Magali Cohen / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

Imagine sitting down at a restaurant, speaking your order into your menu, and immediately watching a robot arrive with your food. Imagine the food being made quickly, precisely — and without a human involved, because the entire restaurant is fully roboticized.

- YouTube

Forget the fancy cars, futuristic gadgets, and martinis “shaken, not stirred.” In his book "Sell Like a Spy: The Art of Persuasion from the World of Espionage", Jeremy Hurewitz tells GZERO's Tony Maciulis that intelligence officers are a lot more like therapists than James Bond-style action heroes.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI, Rama Duwaji, MIRA NAIR, MAMOOD MAMDANI during an election night event at The Brooklyn Paramount Theater in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.
(Photo by Neil Constantine/NurPhoto)

Last Tuesday, a self-identified democratic socialist who ran on making New York affordable for the 99% won the city’s mayoral race in a landslide, defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo. And the reactions have been predictably hysterical.

A fruit and vegetable stall is lit by small lamps during a blackout in a residential neighborhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 6, 2025, after massive Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure in October.
(Photo by Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto)

As a fourth winter of war approaches, Russia is destroying Ukraine’s energy grid faster than it can be rebuilt.