By now, many people have already concluded that former President Joe Biden was mentally unfit to be president. We all saw for ourselves in the debate with Trump last June, moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper, how disoriented he could be.
But it is truly shocking to hear the audio of Biden trying and failing to answer basic questions in interviews for Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into the former president having taken home classified records in 2017.
In one of two audio clips, Hur asks a simple question: “Where did you keep papers that related to those things that you were actively working on?”
Biden responds by speaking nonsensically about the death of his son and the election of Donald Trump. He can’t remember the dates of either.
After four minutes of Biden rambling and stammering, complete with painfully long pauses, Hur says, “Sir, I'm wondering if this is a good time to take a break.”
Biden responds, “No, I, let me just keep going to get it done.”
Biden thus displays a lack of awareness of his incapacity. This is a common problem for people with mental health problems and is known as anosognosia, a neurological condition in which a person is unaware of their mental decline.
In February 2024, after Special Counsel Robert Hur concluded that Biden was an “elderly man with a poor memory,” Vice President Kamala Harris called his report “politically motivated” and “inappropriate.” Former Attorney General Eric Holder criticized the report for containing “way too many gratuitous remarks” and being “flatly inconsistent with long-standing DOJ traditions.”
Leading up to the June 27, 2024, presidential debate, major media outlets largely dismissed concerns about President Biden’s cognitive fitness. When videos surfaced showing Biden appearing confused or disoriented, CNN, the Washington Post, and others labeled them as “cheap fakes,” suggesting they were misleading or taken out of context. They weren’t.
