BIDEN’S MEMORY: THE PROBLEM THAT WON’T GO AWAY. Just four days ago, after the State of the Union address, Democrats were exultant in the belief that 81-year-old President Joe Biden, with a high-volume, one-hour-plus speech, had put to bed the question of whether he has the mental sharpness to serve a second term in the White House. Now, some of those same people are angrily denouncing congressional testimony that revives the Biden competency question.
The testimony was from Robert Hur, the special counsel who concluded that Biden illegally mishandled classified information. Hur testified before the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. The testimony focused on two issues.
The first, and most important, was whether Biden willfully retained classified information when he was out of office. The answer is yes, although Hur was careful to note that, for a variety of reasons, including the state of Biden’s memory, he, Hur, did not have enough evidence to convince a jury of that. In addition, the question is moot at the moment because Biden is president of the United States and it is long-standing Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted. But the thing to remember is that Biden mishandled classified information, repeatedly, extensively, and in a variety of locations. If you think that is similar in principle to what was done by a certain former president, you’re right.
The second issue was the age question. As Wednesday began, it was clear Democrats and their allies in the media were furious with Hur for bringing it up in his report, made public on Feb. 8, and then even more furious with Republicans for bringing it up again now. Early Wednesday morning, MSNBC’s Morning Joe lit into Hur, charging that Hur was a craven hack trying to curry favor with former President Donald Trump. The whole crew seemed to believe that the State of the Union address had proven for all time that Biden is sharp and energetic and that anyone who maintains that Biden’s age is still a problem is probably a craven hack trying to curry favor with Trump. Previewing the hearing, Morning Joe contributor Eugene Robinson said of Hur, “Is he going to go deeper into this sort of fantasy world that he created in the report?”
A number of other news organizations pitched in to help, publishing stories suggesting Hur overdid it when he called the president “an elderly man with a poor memory.” The Washington Post reported that a transcript of Hur’s interview of Biden painted a “nuanced portrait” of Biden, who “doesn’t come across as being as absent-minded as Hur has made him out to be.” For its part, the New York Times said that on several occasions Biden “fumbled with dates and the sequence of events, while otherwise appearing clearheaded.” Further down, the story noted again that Biden “appeared clearheaded most of the time.” The White House liked that so much it sent out the quote in a posting on X. Whether voters will be enthusiastic about a president who will be “clearheaded most of the time” is not known.
When Hur sat down at the witness table, Democrats mostly avoided fighting over the age problem and instead tried to make the hearing about Trump. That was probably a smart thing because whatever the spin, the Biden-Hur transcript does show a president who forgets a lot of things. Biden stumbled on the year Trump was elected president. He suggested that he, Biden, was leaving the Senate in 2017 when in fact he was leaving the vice presidency. And he did not seem to remember when he was vice president.
On one occasion, a Hur staffer showed Biden a notebook and asked if Biden used that notebook as vice president. “The date is 4-20-09,” Biden responded. “Was I still vice president? I was, wasn’t I? Yeah.” (Just to note, Biden became vice president on Jan. 20, 2009, and stayed in office until Jan. 20, 2017.) On another occasion, Biden was asked about materials that were delivered to him and responded, “I’m at this stage, in 2009, am I still vice president?” The transcript notes “indiscernible whispering” at the interview table, and then Biden said, “Yeah, OK.” On yet another occasion, Biden was asked how material ended up in his garage, and he said, “Well, if it was 2013 — when did I stop being vice president?” An aide said, “2017.”
That’s not good. But here’s the point. The Biden age problem is real and is going to become more so as the president vies to remain in office until he is 86 years old. It did not go away with the State of the Union speech. Yes, Biden spoke, and yelled, for more than an hour. But voters see Biden nearly every day looking and sounding like a man who is not up to the rigors of the nation’s highest office. That is not going to change.
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