Democrats and their allies on Friday were formulating damage control responses to a hastily organized White House press conference the night before, after a prosecutor’s report raised serious questions about Biden’s mental acuity. Congress appears to have failed in its mission of assuring voters of Joe Biden’s mental acuity. Classified documents were retained at the end of the vice president’s term.
Biden has said that his interview last October with special counsel Robert Hur, in which he reportedly forgot the year his son Beau died and the exact time he served as vice president, It came days after Hamas attacked southern Israel. While Biden is preoccupied with the U.S. response.
Hur’s report concluded on Thursday that Biden would not face criminal charges in the case, despite “willfully” retaining and disclosing classified material, which he would not be open to as a sitting president anyway but also would not be warranted even if he was no longer President.
But Hull then detailed how he discovered the U.S. president’s memory lapses, sparking Biden’s anger and sending Democrats and aides rushing to his defense in the hours and into Friday.
Kamala Harris told MSNBC on Friday: “The characterization of the president’s behavior in the report is completely wrong with the facts and is clearly politically motivated.”
The vice president blasted the 388-page report’s assertions about Biden’s diminished mental acuity, calling them “unfounded, inaccurate and inappropriate.”
Earlier, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of the key battleground state of Wisconsin spoke of special counsel Robert Hur’s conclusion that the 81-year-old president’s recall was “very limited.” “Hour will not bring charges over the classified documents, in part because jurors will see the President of the United States not as a knowingly criminal but as a “well-intentioned old man with a bad memory.”
“I judge a president by what they do and what side they’re on,” Baldwin told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She noted Biden’s “strong record of creating good-paying jobs, rebuilding infrastructure and lowering prescription drug prices.” ”.
Former Obama administration staffer Tommy Vietor wrote on X that the prosecutor’s comments were “just an act of right-wing aggression from within Biden’s own Justice Department.” wilderness. “
On MSNBC, which often previews the Democratic line, host Joe Scarborough addressed the special counsel’s conclusion that the president’s recall was “very limited” and that he would not review classified documents The charges were brought in part because jurors would see Biden as a “well-intentioned old man with a bad memory” rather than a criminal.
“It’s so weird,” Scarborough said. “Why in the world would [Hur] Wrote his neurological assessment of Joe Biden in his report, why this happened [US attorney general] Merrick Garland posted garbage like this in the DOJ report? “
Dan Goldman, a Democratic congressman from New York, told the station he had “no concerns” about Biden’s age or ability. “Remember, the president’s job is to guide our country. It’s not to be a cheerleader for America. It’s to govern our country,” he said.
Referring to the loss of Hillary Clinton’s emails that became an issue in the run-up to the 2016 election, Scarborough added: “It does sound like James Comey in 2016, when he couldn’t legally prosecute Hillary Clinton, so he prosecuted her politically.”
Vitor responded to the claim, claiming that Hull “apparently decided to go the way of Jim Comey and pad his report with personal attacks to absolve Biden of criminal activity.”
Dean Phillips, a Democratic primary challenger running against Biden, said Hull’s report “almost handed the 2024 election to Donald Trump.”
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“This report simply confirms what most Americans already know – that the President cannot continue to serve as our Commander-in-Chief beyond the end of his term, which ends on January 20, 2025,” Phillips said in a statement.
Some Democrats have privately expressed growing concern about a reelection narrative that centers on Biden’s age. “This is a nightmare,” a Democratic House member reportedly told NBC News. “It will undermine President Biden’s electability and Donald Trump will be a disaster and become a dictator.”
The anonymous source reportedly added: “We’re in a serious situation for Democrats.”
Biden pushed back on Hule’s characterization of his mental condition during a surprise news conference at the White House on Thursday night. The president insisted that his memory was “very good,” saying during the tense exchange that “I know what the hell I’m doing” and that comments about his memory had “no place in this report.”
“I have a great memory,” Biden said. “Look what I’ve done since I became president.”
“For any irrelevant comments, they have no idea what they are talking about,” he added. “It has no place in this report.”
At the end of the interview, he referred to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the “President of Mexico” in response to a reporter’s query about the situation in the Middle East. The blunder follows two other public gaffes this week, with Biden claiming to have recently spoken to two long-dead European leaders, Germany’s Helmut Kohl and France’s Francois Mitterrand – had a conversation.
Polls consistently show concerns about Biden’s age seen as his biggest political liability in a rematch with Donald Trump.
An NBC News poll last month found that 76% of voters expressed serious or moderate concerns when asked whether Biden “has the mental and physical fitness to be re-elected as president.” When asked the same question about the 77-year-old Trump, 48% said they had severe or moderate concerns.
