Conservatives accused ABC News host George Stephanopoulos of ‘gaslighting’ the public after it was revealed he privately described President Joe Biden’s condition as ‘heartbreaking up close.’
Stephanopoulos made the comment after interviewing the Democrat following his disastrous debate performance in the 2024 campaign.
It was revealed by author Chris Whipple in his new book, Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History.
After Biden bungled the June 27 Atlanta debate against President Donald Trump, the White House and Biden’s campaign went into damage control mode.
Part of that effort included a sit-down with Stephanopoulos, a longtime ABC News veteran and former White House aide to Democratic President Bill Clinton.
‘Stephanopoulos questioned the president gently, like a grandson,’ Whipple said of the July 5th interview, conducted in Madison, Wisconsin, a vital swing state.
Afterward, Stephanopoulos raised eyebrows when he was caught on the street candidly saying that he didn’t believe Biden could make it through a second term.
‘I don’t think he can serve four more years,’ Stephanopoulos had said.
The ABC News journalist quickly apologized.
ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos is getting some flack from conservatives for telling author Chris Whipple that President Joe Biden’s condition was ‘heartbreaking up close’ after interviewing him on the heels of the Democrat’s disastrous June debate performance
Former President Joe Biden (right) sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos (left) as part of a damage control effort after his debate against now President Donald Trump in late June went off the rails. Biden dropped out of the race in mid-July
Chris Whipple’s new book Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History was released Tuesday
‘Earlier today I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldn’t have,’ he told Puck News at the time.
But Whipple’s book shows that Stephanopoulos was speaking honestly when he made the ‘four more years’ quip, as he gave the author a similar assessment.
‘The media and Democrats tried gaslighting us for 4 years that everything was fine despite what our own eyes were seeing… never let them forget,’ said the popular @LibsofTikTok X account Wednesday, sharing the new details about Biden’s ‘decline’ found in Whipple’s book.
Other conservative X accounts echoed the sentiment.
During an appearance on CNN’s Laura Coates Live Tuesday night, Whipple argued what happened with the Biden campaign was ‘even stranger than a so-called cover up.’
He said of Biden’s team ‘they were really lost in a kind of fog of denial and delusion.’
‘The closest advisers to Biden believed, despite all the evidence, that Joe Biden was capable of running for reelection, of winning and of serving another four years,’ Whipple said. ‘Now it was really delusional.’
He continued: ‘This was different from a cover-up. It wasn’t a Watergate-style cover-up. It wasn’t a grand conspiracy as Karl Rove has described it.’
The popular Libs of TikTok account on Wednesday knocked the media and Democrats for ‘gaslighting’ Americans about President Joe Biden’s condition. Other conservatives chimed in and agreed with that sentiment
ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos (left) interviewed President Joe Biden (right) in Madison, Wisconsin on July 5, 2024, as part of a damage control effort after Biden bungled his debate with now President Donald Trump
‘It really was a case of people who should have known better, believing that Biden could win,’ the best-selling author explained.
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Biden also comes across as not realizing just how politically damaging his debate performance was.
In its aftermath, the president was urged by his former Chief of Staff Ron Klain to hold a meeting with the Progressive Caucus to shore up his support with his party’s left flank – a group that could break off and support a different candidate.
Biden, Whipple wrote, ‘wasn’t convinced.’
‘Well, I’m supposed to go to Camp David this weekend for a photoshoot with my president,’ Biden said, according to Whipple.
Klain responded: ‘You need to cancel that. You need to stay in Washington. You need to have an aggressive plan to fight and to rally the troops.’
Biden agreed at the time.
But Whipple wrote that the president’s resolve didn’t stick.
‘That weekend Biden and his family were at Camp David having their pictures taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz,’ Whipple said.