Inside President Biden's Annual Financial Disclosure: Forbes Reporter Highlights Key Findings

4 months ago

Inflation isn’t just hurting voters. President Joe Biden’s variable interest rate on his home equity loan means he’s paying more to borrow these days, too. Forbes staff writer Zach Everson joins Brittany Lewis on "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss.

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2024/05/15/biden-borrowed-at-least-50000-via-home-equity-loan-new-disclosure-reveals/

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Transcript

00:00 The White House released President Biden's annual financial disclosure last week, and

00:04 you did the honors of digging into it for us.

00:07 So first, you pointed out inflation is not only impacting the average American, it's

00:12 also impacting the Biden family.

00:14 How so?

00:15 Yeah, yeah.

00:16 Middle class Joe has a variable loan against a line of credit on his house that has a variable

00:22 interest rate.

00:23 So he, along with everybody else, as interest rates go up, you know, that hurts him as well.

00:29 So you found out that the Bidens took out a $250,000 home equity loan on the Rehoboth

00:35 Beach House in 2022.

00:37 That year they borrowed against it as well as 2023.

00:40 How much did they borrow?

00:42 So the first year they reported taking out somewhere between $15,000 and $50,000.

00:48 And then in 2023, it was somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000.

00:52 You know, as a reporter, and I think anybody who cares about ethics in government, one

00:56 of the problems is that these reports just require candidates and officials to report

01:02 like within broad ranges.

01:04 So it's very difficult to tell whether it went up $50,000 or whether he borrowed $200,000,

01:10 which would certainly be quite a different story there.

01:13 But we do not know for sure.

01:14 I reached out to the White House.

01:15 They declined to provide any more details than what was in the report.

01:19 And is there any indication as to why he borrowed this money?

01:24 It seems to be in a pattern of ongoing behavior.

01:26 It seems to be how he's run his finances for years and that he has some very nice homes

01:29 right now that we value.

01:32 I think it was about a combined $7 million when we last looked at his net wealth.

01:36 And you know, it's a good way to get some money out of those.

01:40 It's not different than many, many other Americans who take similar loans.

01:44 Aside from borrowing against the Beach House, do the Bidens have any other debts?

01:49 Yeah, they have a couple other loans.

01:52 They have some debts, a term loan and loans against their life insurance that total just

01:57 $25,000 to $65,000.

02:00 Their biggest loan, though, remains a 30-year mortgage on their house in Wilmington, which

02:04 is somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000.

02:08 So again, we're looking at this really broad range.

02:11 And because of that, it makes it difficult to come up with a sum.

02:15 Did Joe Biden's debts go up?

02:17 Did he borrow more last year?

02:18 You can't really tell because of the way those ranges are set.

02:21 You know, a little increase of a dollar could bump them up a massive reporting range.

02:25 So it's tough to get an overall picture just based on this document.

Inside President Biden's Annual Financial Disclosure: Forbes Reporter Highlights Key Findings

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