THE BIDEN DAM BREAKS. During much of the last administration, and especially in its final year, the president of the United States suffered serious cognitive impairment. It wasn’t a secret — 81-year-old Joe Biden frequently had senior moments during public events. What was striking about the situation was that Biden’s staff, fellow Democrats, and allies in the media insisted that he was in good shape and sharp mentally when he obviously wasn’t.
The situation exploded on June 27, 2024, when Biden met rival Donald Trump for their first and, as it turned out, only debate. You know the story. Biden was so out of it that Democrats scrambled to push him off the party’s ticket, to be quickly replaced by then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Then, the presidential campaign quickly moved on to a disastrous conclusion for the Democratic Party.
But there was never a real reckoning with Biden’s condition and all the false statements his representatives and defenders and supporters had made. Now, that reckoning might — might — be starting.
A new book, titled Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, offers some previously unknown details about the steps the Biden White House took to hide some of the president’s weaknesses. But one part that is particularly notable is that top Democrats, many of whom vouched for Biden in public, knew perfectly well what bad shape he was in — before the June 27 debate.
Authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes report that some of those top Democrats expected disaster at the debate. Party power broker Nancy Pelosi, for example, made plans to watch the debate by herself in her “seven-figure Georgetown condo overlooking the Kennedy Center and the Potomac River.” Pelosi skipped debate-night events, the authors write, because “she wanted to watch … without distraction, with a clear and focused mind.” Months earlier, she had advised Biden not to debate Trump. Earlier on debate day, she had tried to reassure worried Democrats. “But she privately harbored concerns about the risk of resting the fate of the party and the country on the spectacle of a side-by-side of Biden and Trump,” the authors say, “which was why she needed to watch by herself.”
Another top House Democrat, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), whose support in the 2020 primaries revived Biden’s faltering campaign, also felt the need to watch by himself. According to the book, Clyburn turned down nearly a dozen invitations for debate events because he was nervous about what would take place on the stage. “He attributed his apprehensiveness to the gut instincts acquired from a lifetime in politics,” the authors write. “If it doesn’t go well, he thought, I don’t want anyone to see me cry. He sequestered at his Washington condo, mixing Diet Pepsi into a glass of Jack Daniel’s before he settled in. Maybe that would settle his nerves.”
It didn’t. The book describes other Democrats — Biden adviser Anita Dunn, Al Sharpton, and megadonor John Morgan — all seeking privacy to watch a debate they feared would turn into a disaster. The notable thing about all of them is that this wasn’t just an ordinary case of debate-night jitters. They knew there was a problem with Biden. They knew he wasn’t up to taking on Trump. They hoped that somehow, it might turn out OK. But the reason they sought seclusion was that they sensed the news would be bad, and they didn’t want to have to process it in a big and emotionally volatile social situation.
There’s much more in the book — this is just one snapshot. Another new book, Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History, portrays Biden as deeply exhausted from foreign travel before the debate. Author Chris Whipple writes that as Biden and his team gathered for debate prep, top aide Ron Klain “was startled. He’d never seen [Biden] so exhausted and out of it. Biden was unaware of what was happening in his own campaign. Halfway through the session, the president excused himself and went off to sit by the pool.” Still, Klain was one of Biden’s biggest advocates, pushing for him to stay in the race and continue the run for reelection.
The anecdotes are suggestive, and they add to the confirmation of what we already know, but they do not add up to a definitive account of the Biden senility affair. We need to know much more about who knew what and who did what.
Yes, there are other books to come, and some will focus on Biden’s cognitive problems. We’ll learn more. But it’s legitimate to wonder, while we read more about how addled Biden was, if those around him, and some of those who reported on him in the media, will admit what they did and explain why they did it. Why did they say Biden was not just cogent but “better than he’s ever been, intellectually, analytically,” as one prominent anchorman did? Why did they accuse Republicans of doctoring videos and creating fakes when the GOP pointed out troubling episodes of Biden’s behavior? Why was it so important for them that Biden be portrayed as sharp and up to the job when he was neither? Here’s hoping we find out, but there’s no guarantee we will.