Former President Joe Biden’s newly revealed audiotape of his interview with ex-special counsel Robert Hur calls into question then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ defense of her boss’s cognitive abilities.
Newsweek reached out to Biden and Harris’ offices via online form Friday for comment.
Why It Matters
The interview was conducted in 2023, amid the special counsel’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. President Donald Trump was also under investigation for accusations of improper handling of classified documents after his first term.
Ultimately, Hur recommended Biden not be prosecuted, calling the former president a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.” Democrats and Republicans alike strongly reacted to Hur’s findings, as some called his remarks out of line and others griped with his conclusion.
The obtained audio comes at the end of a harsh week for the former president, as excerpts from CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson’s new book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again were published by multiple media outlets.
Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race in late July, following a disastrous debate performance against then-Republican presidential nominee Trump. Biden repeatedly stared at Trump and made halting statements where he appeared to lose his train of thought. Biden later said he had “a bad, bad night.”
Questions swirled about his mental acuity and possible decline as the White House and Harris fielded questions about his cognitive ability in the final months of his presidency.
What To Know
Immediately following the release of Hur’s February 2024 report, Biden’s second in command defended her boss, saying in part, “What I saw [in] that report last night, I believe is, as a former prosecutor … the comments that were made by that prosecutor–gratuitous, inaccurate, and inappropriate.”
The former vice president went on to praise Biden’s readiness and coordination after Hamas’ attack of Israel on October 7, 2023.
Harris continued, “The way that the president’s demeanor in that report was characterized, could not be more wrong on the facts and clearly politically motivated.”
“We should expect that there would be a higher level of integrity than what we saw,” Harris said.
Former White House spokesperson Ian Sams also raced to Biden’s defense in the aftermath of the report, saying to the media in part, “You’re left to wonder, why this report spends time making gratuitous and inappropriate criticisms of the president.”
This week, a Democratic congressman raised concerns about his own party, suggesting that some officials may still be in denial about the November election loss and the magnitude of the defeat at the hands of Trump.
Speaking to Politico, Democratic Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts was asked about Tapper and Thompson’s book, saying, “It’s OK for us to come to grips with our failures so that we can make the changes necessary to win.” He then expressed his worry: “And while I am very much focused on the future, I’m concerned that there’s still a lot of denial in our party about how badly we’ve lost.”
“Some of the same people who just want to move on are the same people who are basically in denial that we lost,” Moulton said.
Following her election loss to Trump in 2024, Harris has maintained a somewhat low political profile, as rumors swirl about her potential future in state or federal politics.
In early polls testing the Democratic primary waters for 2028, Harris has appeared as a top contender alongside New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
In a poll by Echelon Insights taken from May 8 to May 12 among 1,000 voters “in the likely electorate,” Buttigieg had 10 percent of the vote versus other potential candidates.
Harris had 32 percent and Ocasio-Cortez had 8 percent of the vote. The poll has a 3.8 percent margin of error.
What People Are Saying
Political analyst Craig Agranoff, to Newsweek via text message Friday night: “Her criticism of Hur’s report, particularly the characterization of President Biden as an ‘elderly man with a poor memory,’ was a strategic move to defend her administration at the time.”
Agranoff continued: “However, in hindsight, it risks casting a shadow over her credibility, as public concerns about Biden’s age and mental acuity became more pronounced during the 2024 campaign. This moment reflects a broader challenge for Democrats: balancing loyalty to their leadership with the need for transparency about electability.”
Concluding, the political analyst said: “Harris’s response was understandable in context, but it may have contributed to perceptions that the party was out of touch with voters’ concerns about Biden’s fitness, which ultimately hurt their case in 2024. That said, it’s too simplistic to pin the party’s struggles solely on her; Democrats faced a complex electoral landscape, and this was just one piece of a larger puzzle.”
Former Obama adviser David Axelrod posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday: “A lot of folks now are acknowledging what was obvious then: A guy, who was already showing frailties and would have been closer to 90 than 80 by the end of his second term should not have run for the hardest job on the planet. Never was going to end well.”
Axelrod continued: “Next to being President, the pressure of running for it is almost as hard. The idea that an 81-year-old man, already limited, could handle both–and then serve another four years–always was nuts. And the people closest to him did him no favor by not telling him the truth.”
GOP Congressman James Comer of Kentucky posted to X on Friday: “🚨Joe Biden’s former White House aides can’t hide behind the walls of the Oval Office anymore. They orchestrated a deliberate effort with the liberal media to conceal the truth about Joe’s mental decline. Joining @FoxNews HANNITY tonight at 9pmET. Tune in!”
What Happens Next
It is unclear whom the Democrats will rally behind as their next leader amid the party’s uncertain direction at the moment.
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