"From now on … I want both of your clients at every hearing I conduct," Arkansas Circuit Judge Holly Meyer said during an April 23 hearing, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

"I will no longer allow us to excuse clients … because it is interfering with the progress of litigation, which is taking way too long to get over simple points," she added.

Hunter Biden long denied that a girl birthed by Lunden Roberts, an Arkansas resident, was his, but DNA testing showed otherwise.

Roberts sued Biden over the paternity of the child in 2019, about a year after the girl was born. Following the DNA confirmation, Biden started paying child support.

The case was re-opened after Biden asked to pay less in child support, and Roberts is now seeking to change her daughter's last name to Biden, a request opposed by the girl's father.

Monday's hearing was one of several scheduled before a trial on the matter starts in July.

Meyer's order that Biden appear at future hearings came after Brent Langdon, an attorney representing the president's son, asked to block an expert witness for Roberts from discussing a laptop computer that a Delaware store owner says Biden left at his store.

Langdon said that "there has never been an acknowledgement" from Biden that the computer belonged to him, the Washington Free Beacon reported.