BIDEN AGE PROBLEM RATTLES CAMPAIGN. There was some buzz Thursday morning about the then-unseen report by special counsel Robert Hur, the man the Biden Justice Department appointed to investigate President Joe Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. By the end of the day, the report was public, the political world was agog at the quantity of damaging evidence it presented, and the president was in front of the press in an impromptu, rare nighttime news conference, angrily denouncing the special counsel’s findings. And then the Biden White House went to war, but not war over classified documents. The White House went to war over the 81-year-old president’s age.
Hur had decided not to charge Biden with any crime related to classified documents. Some of Biden’s defenders cited that as instant exoneration, but the fact is Hur couldn’t charge Biden given that it is long-standing Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Instead, Hur began with the statement that “our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” including “marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan.” Remember that Biden’s predecessor and main challenger, former President Donald Trump, has been charged with more than 30 counts of “willful retention of national defense information,” and Hur’s description of what Biden did looks pretty damning.
But Biden can’t be indicted as long as he is president. Remember, though, that if the Trump experience has shown anything, it is that a former president can be indicted for actions that took place before, during, or after his presidency. And with that in mind, Hur explained that even if, at some point in the future, Biden could be indicted, Hur does not believe the evidence is sufficient to convict Biden because “jurors would likely find reasonable doubt” about the charges. And why would they find reasonable doubt? Because Hur came to believe that Biden is losing his memory — and indeed may already have lost quite a lot of it.
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For example, Hur, who interviewed Biden face to face for five hours over two days, discussed the Afghanistan documents that Biden kept in his home after he left the vice presidency. Biden could have found them in 2017, Hur wrote, “and then forgotten about them soon after.” By then, Hur wrote, “Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited.” In another part of the report, Hur noted Biden’s “diminished faculties in advancing age.” In the interview, Hur wrote, Biden “did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 — When did I stop being vice president?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still vice president?’). [Biden] did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him.”
Hur wrote that were Biden to face charges post-presidency, his lawyers would argue that he couldn’t have willfully retained defense information because he couldn’t remember what he did or did not have. “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote.
And that is when the Biden campaign, and then the candidate himself, melted down. After all, candidate Biden is asking voters to keep him in the White House for another term until he is 86 years old. Given that, an assessment like Hur’s simply could not be allowed to stand. So Biden walked in front of the press at 8 p.m., a very, very unusual occurrence in this White House, and did a full angry-old-man act about the Hur report. “My memory is fine,” he insisted.
Later that night, Biden’s media defenders rushed to work. Hadn’t Donald Trump confused Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi? they asked. Who’s got the bad memory here? And wasn’t Robert Hur appointed to a position as U.S. Attorney by … Donald Trump? He’s a partisan prosecutor? MAGA! This is a Republican attack on Joe Biden!
The pushback gained steam Friday morning. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough wanted to know why Hur, a lawyer, was acting like a neurologist. “A neurologist and a lawyer,” Scarborough said. “A neurologist from Trump University … so bizarre, and there were so many people who immediately heard these random conclusions, irrelevant conclusions, politically charged, Trump-like ramblings who first of all wondered why in the world [Hur] would put that in a report, his neurological assessment of Joe Biden, and secondly, why [Attorney General] Merrick Garland would release garbage like that.”
And on it went. Later Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris denounced Hur’s discussion of Biden’s age as “gratuitous, inaccurate, and inappropriate.” Hur’s characterization of Biden’s demeanor, Harris said, “could not be more wrong on the facts — and clearly politically motivated.”
But behind those defenses, some Democrats were panicking. They have long known that majorities of voters, not just Republicans but independents and Democrats too, have told pollsters they do not believe Biden has the mental acuity or physical strength to serve a second term in the White House. Poll after poll after poll has confirmed that finding. Now, a special counsel’s report will give new confirmation to what those voters already think and even give it a little bit of an imprimatur.
“About as hair on fire as you can imagine,” a Democratic operative told the Washington Post. “Worse than I even thought it would be.” The outlet continued, “‘When is Gavin getting in?’ or ‘How about Whitmer or Shapiro?’ buzzed around Democratic circles over the last 24 hours, as Democrats wish cast for Democratic Govs. Gavin Newsom of California, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania or Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan to replace Biden. … Donors have also started investigating how to influence the delegate selection process should Biden drop out of the race.”
But the White House sent out word, as it has before, that Biden has no intention of dropping out of the race. Some Democrats appear resigned to that fact — that there will be no bailout, no exit ramp, no way out of running a candidate whom majorities believe is just too old for the job. It doesn’t really matter that Trump is old too, although he is four years younger than Biden. The former president is clearly more vigorous than the current president, and the same polls that have shown majorities concerned about Biden’s capabilities have shown voters less concerned about Trump’s.
So what is likely to happen now is that the Biden campaign will try to move past the Hur episode and keep pressuring Democrats to pretend that there is nothing wrong with the president. The problem with that, of course, is the voters see what they see. Even before the Hur report, they knew that Biden was weakening. Try this: Look at Biden’s recent remarks after winning the 2024 South Carolina Democratic primary and then look at Biden’s remarks after winning the 2020 South Carolina Democratic primary. See if you think Biden is as vigorous today as he was just four years ago.
That is Biden’s problem. His age issue is 1) unfixable — nobody gets any younger; and 2) visible in plain sight. No amount of campaign pushback will change that.
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