Biden heads to Italy with Hunter’s daughter Finnegan, 23, less than 24 hours after her father was found guilty of gun charges

President Joe Biden left for the G7 on Wednesday with son Hunter’s conviction hanging over his head and the threat of Donald Trump waiting for him as he tries to reassure world leaders of America’s place in the world.

Finnegan Biden, 23, Hunter’s middle daughter, accompanied the president on Air Force One.

While the political impact of Hunter’s guilty verdict remains to be seen, it could exact a heavy personal toll on the 81-year-old Biden, who is seeking a second term. The president changed his schedule Tuesday to return to Wilmington, Delaware, to be with his son and hug him on the airport tarmac.

He left Wilmington for Italy, en route to a meeting with the leaders of the world’s seven largest economies in what could be his final G7 conference.

Politics will dominate his journey.

Nervous world leaders are keeping a close eye on the upcoming US election and wondering whether it will be Biden or Trump who will join next year’s meeting in Canada.

When Biden came to power, he promised to return America to its place in the world after Trump’s more isolationist policies.

“There was a real sense of relief in the room that America was back and actually at the table at the helm,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday.

But Trump is leading in the key battleground states that will decide the election. And it’s not just in the United States; An extreme right-wing movement is on the rise throughout Europe.

French President Emmanuel Macron called for early elections just a day after meeting Biden after his party’s far-right National Rally (RN) crushed his rival Marine Le Pen’s party in the European elections.

Far-right parties also made gains in the German elections. And in Britain, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party is about twenty points behind the centre-left opposition.

While in Italy for two days of meetings, Biden will try to hold together his Western alliance, which is central to Ukraine’s defense in its war against Russia.

He is coming off a heavy travel schedule that last week saw him in France, where he traveled twice to Normandy: once for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings and then to speak at Pointe du Hoc. He and first lady Jill Biden attended a state dinner on Saturday.

They returned to Wilmington on Sunday to see son Hunter. On Monday, Biden was back at the White House for a Juneteenth concert. On Tuesday, he addressed a gun control group in remarks interrupted by protests over the Gaza war. Then he rushed home to Wilmington to be with his son.

America’s oldest-ever president will scrutinize all this when he returns to the world state.

And the president has indicated he is feeling the pressure.

Biden has often spoken about how world leaders tell him he must win a second term in the White House.

“There’s no major international meeting I attend… a world leader doesn’t pull me aside as I’m leaving and say, ‘He can’t win.’ You can’t let him win,” Biden recently told Time Magazine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will also attend the G7, where he will meet Biden and other world leaders. Biden will also hold a joint press conference with Zelensky, bringing the war in Ukraine to the forefront of the world stage.

At their meeting in Italy, G7 leaders will try to agree on plans to provide Ukraine with as much as $50 billion in aid, based on interest generated on $300 billion in frozen Russian assets.

The assets were frozen by the US and Europe after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

More sanctions against Russia are expected to be announced

The G7 countries – the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain – have provided billions in aid to Ukraine.

But if Trump wins the White House in November, that could change. Republicans in Congress blocked funding for Ukraine for months. Biden apologized for this to Zelensky when he met him in France last week.

Kirby said the White House was confident that “regardless of who gets what seat in the EU parliament” the US would still be able to work closely with European allies to support Ukraine.

“We are not at all concerned that we will not be able to advance shared interests and values ​​on the European continent,” Kirby said.

G7 leaders meet at a five-star resort in southern Italy. They will also discuss the Middle East, trade imbalances with China, threats from artificial intelligence and development challenges in Africa.

But on the sunny shore, the shadow of his son’s conviction will hang over Biden.

Aides are reported to be concerned about the toll on the president, who is close to his son and is said to worry about him constantly.

Hunter Biden has struggled with addiction problems for years.

The trial exposed some of the family’s darkest moments as they dealt with Hunter’s drug use.

Jill Biden was there almost every day, sitting at the front of the courtroom to watch the testimony unfold.

Biden has said he will not use his power as president to pardon his son and has been careful to distance himself from the Justice Department’s case.

He released a statement of support after Hunter’s conviction. Hunter was convicted on three counts of lying on a government form about his drug use when purchasing a gun in 2018.

“As I said last week, I am the president, but I am also a father. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. “So many families who have had loved ones who have battled addiction understand the feeling of pride in seeing someone you love come out on the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery.”

Hunter Biden also faces a second trial in September, this time on tax charges.

Biden’s stay in Italy will be short-lived. He arrives around midnight local time on Wednesday and leaves on Friday evening, heading straight to Los Angeles for a campaign fundraiser with George Clooney, Jimmy Kimmel and Julia Roberts.