White House in damage control after Biden's 'catastrophically bad' presser
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WASHINGTON—President Biden’s age has long been a private worry for many Democrats and a drag on his polling numbers. This week those anxieties came spilling out into the public.
The trigger was special counsel Robert Hur’s 345-page report on Biden’s retention of classified documents, which contained a series of damaging passages about the president’s recollections and “faulty memory” during interviews with investigators last fall. The fear for the White House and Biden’s re-election campaign is that the document will reinforce doubts among large groups of voters about the 81-year-old president’s abilities as he seeks a second term against likely GOP nominee former President Donald Trump.
Democrats reacted with a mix of frustration and anger to Hur’s report, which said Biden portrayed himself as an “elderly man with a poor memory.” Behind the scenes, Biden himself has been furious. At a House Democratic retreat on Thursday, the president unloaded to a small group of lawmakers, questioning the accuracy of the report by asking, “You think I would f—ing forget the day my son died?” according to people familiar with his private comments.
Not all the fire was directed outward: One former Biden aide blamed members of the president’s team for allowing the president to be interviewed by the special counsel in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, an episode that led Biden to spend hours in meetings with national security advisers in the Situation Room. “How can they staff him so poorly and put him in that situation—on that day?” asked the former adviser.
At the White House, officials were apoplectic as they raced to contain the fallout from the characterization of Biden’s memory by Hur, whom Trump appointed to be U.S. attorney in Maryland during his presidency and whom Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped to oversee the Biden document case. Vice President Kamala Harris weighed in Friday, saying the report “could not be more wrong on the facts and clearly politically motivated.”
“We just reject that this is true, and I think that it does raise questions about the gratuitousness,” said Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office who briefed reporters.
Some Democrats inside and outside of Biden’s bubble were privately anxious about what’s next for the campaign. The report came during a week when Biden made a number of high-profile flubs, confusing current and past world leaders. He didn’t help matters when he referred to the Egyptian president as the president of Mexico in his remarks on the counsel’s report Thursday night, and his decision to forgo a high-profile interview ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl has also drawn scrutiny.
“Anytime his age and capacity is front and center is bad for his re-election prospects. That said, it does provide an opportunity to more forcefully deal with this issue which they have to do,” said Brian Goldsmith, a Biden donor and a Democratic consultant based in Los Angeles. “The right response is that Biden is a better president because of his age and wisdom and experience, not despite his age and wisdom and experience.”
“They need to find a way to jujitsu this and turn it from a negative into a positive because it is not going away,” Goldsmith said. He added: “Avoiding the Super Bowl interview is a mistake.”
Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who is mounting a long-shot Democratic primary challenge to Biden focused on the incumbent’s age, said Friday he had “heard from a number of fellow Democrats who are awakening from the delusion being propagated by people with neither the President’s nor our nation’s best interests in mind.”
Despite his worrisome polls and concerns about his age, Biden isn’t considering dropping his re-election bid, according to people familiar with his thinking. First lady Jill Biden, a key voice behind the scenes, has been a strong supporter of his decision to run for another term.
For now, the campaign and the White House aren’t signaling a new strategy. They plan to continue looking for ways to contrast with the 77-year-old Trump, who faces multiple criminal indictments—including for his handling of classified documents. Trump has made his own high-profile flubs like recently referring to GOP rival Nikki Haley instead of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as he spoke about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters trying to stop the certification of his 2020 loss.
Trump and his fellow Republicans have reacted to Hur’s report by saying both that it shows Biden is unfit for office and that the president is benefiting from a double-standard because he wasn’t charged. But Hur in his report cited several material distinctions between the Trump and Biden cases.
Biden aides are also trying to keep the president active on the campaign trail, often with smaller events or interviews with nontraditional media like podcast hosts.
Biden, for example, was scheduled to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Monday and hold events during the week. But there were no calls internally for a course correction.
Hey creepy Joe....you're losing it Bro!
I don't remember much these days atl, but I can't remember any time I've felt worse.
Well that's your problem creepy Joe...seems you can't remember anything! 😏
Panic, Fury and Blame: Inside the White House After Report Targets Biden’s Age
(copied from WSJ 2.9.24)WASHINGTON—President Biden’s age has long been a private worry for many Democrats and a drag on his polling numbers. This week those anxieties came spilling out into the public.
The trigger was special counsel Robert Hur’s 345-page report on Biden’s retention of classified documents, which contained a series of damaging passages about the president’s recollections and “faulty memory” during interviews with investigators last fall. The fear for the White House and Biden’s re-election campaign is that the document will reinforce doubts among large groups of voters about the 81-year-old president’s abilities as he seeks a second term against likely GOP nominee former President Donald Trump.
Democrats reacted with a mix of frustration and anger to Hur’s report, which said Biden portrayed himself as an “elderly man with a poor memory.” Behind the scenes, Biden himself has been furious. At a House Democratic retreat on Thursday, the president unloaded to a small group of lawmakers, questioning the accuracy of the report by asking, “You think I would f—ing forget the day my son died?” according to people familiar with his private comments.
Not all the fire was directed outward: One former Biden aide blamed members of the president’s team for allowing the president to be interviewed by the special counsel in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, an episode that led Biden to spend hours in meetings with national security advisers in the Situation Room. “How can they staff him so poorly and put him in that situation—on that day?” asked the former adviser.
At the White House, officials were apoplectic as they raced to contain the fallout from the characterization of Biden’s memory by Hur, whom Trump appointed to be U.S. attorney in Maryland during his presidency and whom Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped to oversee the Biden document case. Vice President Kamala Harris weighed in Friday, saying the report “could not be more wrong on the facts and clearly politically motivated.”
“We just reject that this is true, and I think that it does raise questions about the gratuitousness,” said Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office who briefed reporters.
Some Democrats inside and outside of Biden’s bubble were privately anxious about what’s next for the campaign. The report came during a week when Biden made a number of high-profile flubs, confusing current and past world leaders. He didn’t help matters when he referred to the Egyptian president as the president of Mexico in his remarks on the counsel’s report Thursday night, and his decision to forgo a high-profile interview ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl has also drawn scrutiny.
“Anytime his age and capacity is front and center is bad for his re-election prospects. That said, it does provide an opportunity to more forcefully deal with this issue which they have to do,” said Brian Goldsmith, a Biden donor and a Democratic consultant based in Los Angeles. “The right response is that Biden is a better president because of his age and wisdom and experience, not despite his age and wisdom and experience.”
“They need to find a way to jujitsu this and turn it from a negative into a positive because it is not going away,” Goldsmith said. He added: “Avoiding the Super Bowl interview is a mistake.”
Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who is mounting a long-shot Democratic primary challenge to Biden focused on the incumbent’s age, said Friday he had “heard from a number of fellow Democrats who are awakening from the delusion being propagated by people with neither the President’s nor our nation’s best interests in mind.”
Despite his worrisome polls and concerns about his age, Biden isn’t considering dropping his re-election bid, according to people familiar with his thinking. First lady Jill Biden, a key voice behind the scenes, has been a strong supporter of his decision to run for another term.
For now, the campaign and the White House aren’t signaling a new strategy. They plan to continue looking for ways to contrast with the 77-year-old Trump, who faces multiple criminal indictments—including for his handling of classified documents. Trump has made his own high-profile flubs like recently referring to GOP rival Nikki Haley instead of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as he spoke about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters trying to stop the certification of his 2020 loss.
Trump and his fellow Republicans have reacted to Hur’s report by saying both that it shows Biden is unfit for office and that the president is benefiting from a double-standard because he wasn’t charged. But Hur in his report cited several material distinctions between the Trump and Biden cases.
Biden aides are also trying to keep the president active on the campaign trail, often with smaller events or interviews with nontraditional media like podcast hosts.
Biden, for example, was scheduled to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Monday and hold events during the week. But there were no calls internally for a course correction.
Hey creepy Joe....you're losing it Bro!
I don't remember much these days atl, but I can't remember any time I've felt worse.
Well that's your problem creepy Joe...seems you can't remember anything! 😏
