Biden says he won't return Trump's attacks on his children because 'it's crass'

"When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don't stoop to their level," former first lady Michelle Obama famously said in 2016 during her speech at the Democratic Convention. "No, our motto is, 'When they go low, we go high.'" Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is living by these words as he once again proves himself to be far more civil and gentlemanly than the current President of the United States. Addressing Donald Trump and his allies' incessant attacks on his son, Hunter Biden, the former vice president clarified that will not be resorting to the same tactics.

In an interview on the progressive podcast "Pod Save America" released over the weekend, the 77-year-old said that, unlike his opponent, he will not attack the President's children to sway voters. Biden made it clear that he will continue to play by the rules even as Trump and his cronies amp up their efforts to discredit Hunter by zeroing in on his business relationships, drug abuse, and personal history in the final days leading up to the election. The father-of-four explained that he had made a conscious decision not to highlight the activities or business dealings of Trump's children throughout his bid for the presidency as he considers such tactics to be "crass."

"I want to start with last night's debate. On that debate stage and actually, throughout this campaign, President Trump has lobbed false accusation after false accusation about your son Hunter. For doing things that we know for a fact that Donald Trump's children have been doing: profiting from the presidency. Yet, both last night and throughout this campaign, you have not brought up his children's activities. I assume that that's a specific decision and I'm curious why you've made it," Daniel Pfeiffer—who was the Senior Advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama from 2013 to 2015—asked Biden.

"It's a specific decision, and I just think it's crass," Biden responded. "I'm running against Donald Trump, not his children, and the American people want to hear about their families, not about Trump's family or my family, although I'm very proud of my family. It's just not how I was raised. It's that basic. It's Donald Trump." As The Hill points out, these past four years have seen countless reports about Trump's family profiting off his presidency, especially with his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner holding positions as senior White House advisers that present conflicts of interest with their businesses.

However, the Trump administration has repeatedly brushed off these concerns and last year, Ivanka even went as far as to claim that her father ran for office after making his money in real estate while Biden's wealth is "derivative" of his time in office. Stating that the two situations were "completely inverse," she told The Associated Press that "[Trump's] wealth, and our wealth, collectively and independently, was created prior to government service and prior to anyone in our lives having run for elected office. Most people do create their wealth post service. We created ours prior."

At the time, Biden responded by inviting Ivanka to look at his tax returns for evidence that he didn't cash in as vice president or a legislator while calling on Trump to release his own income tax returns. The former vice president has previously criticized Ivanka and Jared's government roles while suggesting that he would not let his children hold senior positions in the White House if elected president. "If I get elected president, my children are not going to have offices in the White House. My children are not going to sit in on Cabinet meetings," Biden reportedly said in October 2019.