America's Talking - Biden Defends His Mental Fitness After DOJ Report Calls Him ‘Elderly Man With Poor Memory’

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

A visibly upset President Joe Biden addressed the nation late Thursday to respond to news that the special counsel tasked with investigating his handling of classified documents had chosen not to charge him, but also detailed numerous examples of his memory loss. The blockbuster special counsel report, while clearing Biden, sparked questions about Biden’s mental fitness when it called him an “elderly man with a poor memory.” Biden is 81 years old. "My memory is fine," Biden fired back before getting hostile with reporters who asked about his mental fitness to serve as president. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, Vice President of News and Content at the Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief, Casey Harper. How are you, Casey? Doing good, Dan. How are you? I am doing well, thank you. We are recording this on Friday, February 9th.

Casey, what a day it was yesterday, Thursday, for President... What a day. For President Joe Biden. Yeah, the special counsel investigating President Biden's mishandling of classified documents after he was vice president released a 400-plus page report explaining why he was not bringing charges against the president. We'll get to that in a few minutes. But the shocking revelations in the report were specific details about Biden's memory loss that were on display during his interviews that he gave to investigators.

even if the special counsel were to have broad charges, the report said. He doubted he could have convinced a jury to convict because of the president's mental state. Biden then later in the day held a press conference where he was somewhat hostile with reporters, critical of the special counsel, but where he also made at least two huge mental gaffs when speaking. Casey, what are your takeaways first about Biden's mental capacity as detailed in the report? Yeah, I mean, if there was a day to sink a presidential campaign and motivate the DNC to find a replacement candidate, we may have had it yesterday, or yesterday being Thursday. This week was catastrophic for the Biden campaign. Biden's already behind. And I think seven swing states against Trump, the Republican frontrunner right now, who seems to have no real opposition in his way. And what we saw on this whole handling,

this thing is that a DOJ report that is not going to leave, never going to leave Biden alone has been released. His press team, for whatever reason, made a huge blunder at sending him out at 8 o'clock at night when the news is fresh. This is a little inside baseball, but Biden hardly ever does press conferences, right? And so whatever Goodwill may be with him and reporters is kind of lost. They're all very aggressive right now. They're very hungry to get a quote to advance this story. And there's not a lot of goodwill because he just hardly ever takes, you know, does press conferences. So for him to go out there and do a press conference was very risky. And it didn't pay off to you. I mean, some of the questions that he took, you know, CNN is asking him essentially why he didn't, doesn't step aside and let a different Democrat who's more mentally fit take on Trump, especially if he's losing.

I mean, that is not the kind of question you want to be thrown out, especially by a media outlet that's considered left of center. of course, you know, Fox News, Peter Ducey is asking him about his mental fitness, his memory. What does he remember? Does he remember his son? And as you said, he had these huge mental gaps where he apparently confused Mexico and Egypt. He talked essentially about the Mexico-Gaza border, apparently referring to Egypt and the president LCC there. He says, you know, one of the main critiques in the report that was brought up is that he couldn't

remember essentially when his son tragically died. Of course, that is tragic. And Biden really brought that up. And he said that he was offended that he was even asked about. He tried to create what seemed like an emotional moment, this idea that my son is being brought into it. I think it was a somewhat sympathetic argument when he first gave it. But then when he was pressed about it by a reporter, he couldn't remember where his son's rosary was from. He says he praised this rosary every day, but he, when he was, he's our lady of, he couldn't remember and moved on. So he kind of in some ways confirmed the suspicions. And I think if there's any impetus or any motivation within the Democratic Party to replace Biden, he just poured gasoline on that fire. So what's the fallout

now, Casey? President Biden, of course, is really the only legitimate candidate in the Democratic primary. Um, um, um, heck, he won new. Hampshire, his name wasn't even on the ballot in New Hampshire, he won in a write-in campaign. There is no, in terms of announced candidates, there is none that can challenge Biden. If you watch the news last night after the report was released after his news conference that you just talked about,

pundits on both sides of the aisle are questioning of whether or not he can continue. Of course, Biden now is 81. years old, if he were to stay in the race and were to win, you know, he'd be 86 when he left the White House, given where he's at mentally right now, the American public has to have real doubts about whether he can serve a second term. Yeah, I mean, I think it's clear the American public does. The polling shows that, you know, when you talk to voters, they talk about his mental issues. It's really, but at this point, it's not even really about the voters, per se, it's about

the leadership of the Democratic Party because, you know, regardless of what qualms, you know, especially independent voters have in the polls showing Biden losing handily to Trump, he has more than enough, as you said, more than enough support to win the Democratic primary. And so for him to lose the Democratic primary in a sense to save the party, you could say there's going to have to be a sort of coup within the DNC. And they're going to, and it's just, it's really up to whether they're going to do that. But to do that, they need a very high-level top-notch candidate to kind of step in and save the day. I mean, we've kind of talked a little bit about Michelle Obama, just because our poll found that Michelle Obama really polled as well or even better than Biden. And to be clear,

she's shown no indication or said anything to make us think she's going to do that. But it's going to take someone like that, someone stepping out. I think maybe a Gavin Newsom, he could make a big push. This could be his moment. Again, he has shown a lot of ambition. He's done some national level political things, but he hasn't necessarily telegraphed that that is his plan. I think it would be, it could be bad for him politically if the party is not supporting it, because to go against an incumbent president is really tough, Dan, as you know, I mean, that's why there's not been a real challenger to Biden. Even Trump, if he was a difficult candidate, he didn't really have a real challenger when he was an incumbent. Incumbents get to try again. But Biden could be an exception. And I think the Democratic

Party is really looking in the mirror and saying, Are we willing to ride the sinking ship down and knowing that we're losing to Trump and just walk it out? And I don't know. I know that right now there's no apparent candidate, but where there's a will, there's a way. And if they had someone famous enough step up, they could, you know, they could make it happen. Well, it's going to be an interesting few weeks and even few months as this primary season marches on. Of course, you've got Super Tuesday where more than a dozen states vote. in both the Republican and Democratic primary, and that's in March.

Casey, we should spend at least a minute on the special counsel saying he was not going to bring charges against President Biden, in part because he didn't think he could persuade a jury to convict because of Biden's mental state. But then in a separate investigation, former president of Donald Trump was charged with crimes in his handling of classified documents after he left the white. House. And of course, there's discussion about, you know, the different standards here. Final word on that. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely raised eyebrows, and I think for good reason, that they essentially, actually, Mike Pence did the same thing. Pence, Biden, and Trump all held on to classified documents after leaving the White House. They were all caught. And those documents eventually returned one way or the other, but Trump was the only one charged. Now, the justification for that, while there is prosecutorial discretion, the justification is that Pence and Biden cooperated with investigators and quickly handed everything over and said, oh, sorry, here, just take it. It was an accident. Whereas Trump, you know, push back. He said, no, you can't take it. And he really resisted the federal recordkeepers. And so they ended up pressing the charges. But still, does it pass the smell test? I think for many voters, it does not. So Biden, you know, he is, at least on this charge,

legally off and won't have fallout, but the political fallout may actually be worse than if he had been charged for that crime. Thank you, Casey, for your analysis of this incredible story. Listeners can keep up with all of our follow-ups, and there will be follow-ups in the days and weeks and months ahead at thecentersquare.com. But we are out of time for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McCaleb. Please subscribe. Thank you for listening.