His handlers, family, and staff knew it; the media went along with it; and now whoever was running the country these past four years has put out the word: shut up about it. (Updated 2x)
/pulling him back from the edge of disaster
For four years, we did not have a President and the entire media covered it up.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 16, 2025
It pales in comparison to any political scandal in the history of our country. https://t.co/ShLWgd2XZK
Here’s a summary:
Biden stumbles over words, struggles with key memories — including year son Beau died — during Special Counsel Hur interview, leaked audio reveals
Former President Joe Biden rambled through an October 2023 interview with special counsel Robert Hur— repeatedly losing his train of thought and struggling to recall key details of his political and personal life, including when his son died, newly released audio of the sitdown shows.
“Well, um, I, I, I, I, I, I don’t know,” Biden, then 80, responded to one question about where he would store papers related to his post-vice presidential work at the Penn Biden Center, his memoir “Promise Me, Dad” and the Cancer Moonshot initiative.
Biden sat down with Hur and co-counsel Marc Krickbaum Oct. 8-9 as part of a probe ordered by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland into the 46th president’s unlawful retention of national security papersfrom his time as Barack Obama’s No. 2, as well as a senator from Delaware.
The Biden administration had refused to release the audio tapes of the interviews with Hur, which were obtained by Axios on Friday, arguing that they contained protected “law enforcement materials.”
Biden, speaking slowly with his voice fading in and out, repeatedly requested assistance figuring out the years of certain events.
“This is what, 2017, 18, in that area?” he asked in response to the special counsel’s question about the post-vice presidency activities.
“Yes, sir,” Hur responded.The former president, pausing throughout his answer, then appeared to believe that the events of 2017 and 2018 corresponded with when he left the Senate (2009) and his son Beau Biden’s death (2015).
“Remember, in this time frame, my son is … uh … would’ve been deployed or is dying and so … it was … and by the way there were still a lot of people at the time, when I got out of the Senate, that were encouraging me to run in this period — except the president,” Biden said.
After a digression about his presidential ambitions and former President Barack Obama’s reluctance to support him, Biden said: “What was happening though was … what month did Beau die? Oh god, May 30 …”
“2015,” one of his lawyers chimed in.
“Was it 2015 he had died?” Biden asked.
“It was,” the lawyer responded.
“I think it was 2015,” Biden, still unsure, said.
The former president — still less than three minutes into his response to Hur’s question about his document storage practices — then needed to be reminded what year President Trump was elected to his first term.
“And what happened in the meantime is that uh … as … and … Trump gets elected in November of 2017?” Biden haltingly asks.
Even after an attorney clarified that Trump was elected in 2016, Biden still sounded confused.
“2016, alright so … Why do I have 2017 here?” Biden said.
“That’s when you left office — in January of 2017,” his lawyer responded.
Then Biden hesitantly asked: “That’s when Trump got sworn in, isn’t it?”
He then rambled about the title of the memoir and appeared to become emotional while discussing Beau, prompting Hur to suggest they pause for a bit after Biden trailed off.
“Sir, I’m wondering if this is a good time to take a break, briefly, would that be …” Hur asked before Biden shot down the suggestion.
“No, let me just keep going and get it done,” he insisted.
Hur’s two three-hour sessions with Biden and his legal team took place in the White House’s Map Room, where the former president’s frequent pauses are accentuated by the sound of a ticking clock in the background.
And now the coverup enters Stage Two:
UPDATE And very much related:
JONATHAN TURLEY: Biden not the only loser revealed by shocking Hur audio
Media that protected Biden until it couldn't now shamelessly profits off the story they hid
…. The interview shows that in 2023 it was clear that Biden was mentally diminished despite claims from many allies and former aides that there was a sudden loss of capacity just before the disastrous debate in 2024. It is now undeniable that the White House staff actively hid the president's incompetence from the American public. That includes the White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki (who left her post in May 2022) and her successor, Karine Jean-Pierre, who insisted that Biden was sharp and "running circles" around the staff.
Of course, the media is now covering the story after the public saw the truth in the debate. Figures like CNN's Jake Tapper have even written books that belatedly pursue the question despite previously insisting that there was no evidence of a diminishment in Biden's mental state.
Tapper repeatedly dismissed the claim and even excoriated Lara Trump for raising it. In one interview, he pushed a White House talking point that such suggestions were mocking Biden for a childhood stutter.
"It's so amazing to me- a ‘cognitive decline,’" he told the president's daughter-in-law. "I think you were mocking his stutter. Yeah. I think you were mocking his stutter and I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody's cognitive decline. I would think somebody in the Trump family would be more sensitive to people who do not have medical licenses diagnosing politicians from afar."
When Lara Trump insisted that this was clearly evidence of a "very concerning" cognitive decline, Tapper dismissed her statement by saying, "Thank you, Lara. I'm sure it's from a place of concern. We all believe that."
Keep in mind that others beyond Lara Trump were raising this issue and there were tapes showing obvious physical and mental decline. The media simply refused to seriously pursue the story until the cover-up no longer mattered after the debate.
Over on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough was equally apoplectic at those raising the issue and stated
"Start your tape right now because I’m about to tell you the truth. And eff you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second. And I have known him for years…If it weren’t the truth, I wouldn’t say it
This media effort continued all the way up the debate itself. On CNN.com, Oliver Darcy wrote "Right-wing media figures are desperately pushing conspiracy theories about Biden ahead of the debate."
Once the public found out, the media was ready to tell the story when it became impossible, and no longer politically beneficial, to deny it. Articles began to appear with the same realization of, "Oh you meant THAT mental decline. Well sure."
It was the same belated acknowledgment that came, after the election, with Hunter Biden's laptop. The media just moved on with a shrug and a collective "our bad" concession.
….
The real indictment that comes out of these tapes is a type of political racketeering enterprise by the Washington establishment. It took a total team effort from Democratic politicians to the White House staff to the media to hide the fact that the president of the United States was mentally diminished. If there were a political RICO crime, half of Washington would be frog marched to the nearest federal courthouse.
Of course, none of this complicity in the cover-up is an actual crime. It is part of the Washington racket.
After all, this is Washington where such duplicity results not in plea deals but book deals.
Here’s our (other) native prevaricater:
Transcript: Sen. Chris Murphy on "Face the Nation," Feb. 11, 2024
Listen, I'm somebody that's worked intimately with the President, right. I worked with him on the bipartisan gun bill. He was involved in every step of that process, not only constructing the bill, but winning individual Republican votes; it would not have passed, if not for Joe Biden. And what has happened since we passed that bill, a 12% reduction in urban homicides in this country. There are literally thousands of people alive in this nation today. Because Joe Biden is incredibly competent, and he's incredibly effective.