Troubling newly released audio recordings of Joe Biden speaking to special counsel Robert Hur in 2023 lay bare the declining president’s memory lapses and include one particularly disturbing moment when he struggles to recall when his son Beau died.
While in office, Biden asserted executive privilege over the audio tapes of his interview with ex-special counsel Hur, who went on record describing Biden as ‘elderly’ and ‘forgetful’ and with ‘diminished faculties’.
Audio was published Friday from portions of interviews Biden gave to federal prosecutors in 2023, the latest in a stream of reports putting questions about Biden’s health back in the spotlight
A then-80-year old Biden fails to recall when his son Beau passed away and even when he left office as vice president under Barack Obama in an interview recorded seven months before the debate disaster against Donald Trump that effectively ended his re-election run.
Hur asserted during the investigation over the mishandling of classified evidence that jurors would see the president as ‘a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’
The audio shows Biden – who has long had a stutter – slurring his words, losing his thought process and not being able to recall important facts about his own life.
At one point, he can even be heard asking: ‘Am I making any sense to you?’
Hur was appointed special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland in January 2022 to investigate the president’s handling of classified files based on a range of areas including Afghanistan.
Newly-released recordings of Joe Biden speaking to special counsel Robert Hur in 2023 show the declining president’s memory lapses as he struggles to remember when his son Beau died
A then-80-year old Biden fails to recall when his son Beau passed away and even when he left office as vice president under Barack Obama in an interview recorded seven months before the debate disaster against Donald Trump that effectively ended his re-election run
The Biden administration had already released transcripts of the interviews taking place on October 8 and October 9, 2023 had already revealed that Biden’s lawyer had to tell him what year his son Beau died of brain cancer and the president joked about the special counsel finding pictures of his wife in a swimsuit.
‘What was happening though was… What month did Beau die?’ Biden mused at one point, adding, ‘Oh God, May 30th.’
A White House lawyer then chimed in with the year, 2015.
‘Was it 2015 he died?’ Biden asked.
He leads into the confusion by suggesting Beau died in either 2017 or 2018, or even earlier than that, as he’s discussing his 2008 presidential run.
Biden asks Hur: ‘This is what, 2017, 18, in that area?’
When Hur affirms, Biden says: ‘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.’
Beau deployed between 2008 and 2009, at the beginning of Biden’s first term as vice president.
Ex-Special Counsel Robert Hur (pictured) asserted during the investigation over the mishandling of classified evidence that jurors would see the president as ‘a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory
Hur argued: ‘I understood that my explanation about this case had to include rigorous, detailed, and thorough analysis.
‘In other words, I needed to show my work,’ he will say. ‘I knew that for my decision to be credible, I could not simply announce that I recommended no criminal charges and leave it at that. I needed to explain why.’
Hur added that he had to call Biden’s memory into question and could not make a charging decision without assessing the ‘President’s state of mind’.
‘For that reason, I had to consider the President’s memory and overall mental state, and how a jury likely would perceive his memory and mental state in a criminal trial,’ he’ll say.
‘Because these issues were important to my ultimate decision, I had to include a discussion of them in my report.
‘I did not sanitize my explanation. Nor did I disparage the President unfairly.
‘I explained to the Attorney General my decision and the reasons for it. That’s what I was required to do’.
Hur’s report, summarizing his probe of Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, contains a multitude of examples of Biden’s ‘hazy’ memory, including one point where Biden appeared to forget when his son Beau died.
In one particularly disturbing moment, Biden struggles to recall when his son Beau (pictured center left) died
Hur insisted that Biden was not fit for prosecution over his mishandling of documents because he was a ‘well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’
The special counsel noted Biden had ‘diminished faculties’ and at points ‘did not remember when he was vice president.’
Biden and his aides pushed back aggressively against Hur’s report, which they characterized as a partisan hit.
The president was at that time – early 2024 – still planning to run for a second term and fending off accusations that he was too old for another four years in the job.
Republicans jumped on the material, saying it proves Biden isn’t fit to run the country.
It comes as a new book ‘Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,’ by Jake Tapper and CNN contributor Alex Thompson blows the lid off of the Democrat inability to admit Biden was failing.
A synopsis for the book provided in a press release, meanwhile, described the liberal-led plot. It frames Biden, ‘his family, and his senior aides’ as ‘so convinced that only he could beat Trump again, they lied to themselves, allies, and the public.’
‘What you will learn makes President Biden’s decision to run for reelection seem shockingly narcissistic, self-delusional, and reckless – a desperate bet that went bust,’ Penguin stated while announcing the book.’
The publisher further framed the attempt – fueled by coverage that likely aired on legacy stations like ABC, NBC, and CBS – as ‘part of a larger act of extended public deception that has few precedents.’
Tapper – who also moderated a 2020 debate between the then-candidates – added in a separate statement, in which he quoted Nobel Prize winning novelist Toni Morrison.
‘”If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”‘
‘That’s what inspired this book,’ the Lead With Jake Tapper host said. ‘We wanted to know more about what we all just lived through.
‘More than 200 interviews later, Alex and I have a much better idea,’ he said, talking up the book’s sourcing.
‘And soon you all will too.’
The statement was delivered a little more than six months removed from the Atlanta debate that Tapper moderated, which led to accusations that CNN’s lead Washington anchor took it easy on the president.
One segment in particular sparked such accusations, after Tapper appeared to cut the 81-year-old off in the midst of a rambling, nonsensical answer – one of several later cited after the Democrats’ abrupt turnaround to opting for Kamala Harris.
The recordings release come as a new book ‘Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,’ by Jake Tapper and CNN contributor Alex Thompson blows the lid off of the Democrat inability to admit Biden was failing
Following the book’s announcement, claimed the station had been ‘complicit in the fraud’, as other singled out Tapper specifically. Others derisively mocked the State of the Union host, framing his book as a shameless attempt at deflection
‘We’d be able to wipe out his debt,’ Biden said at the time of sums incurred by Trump-era tax cuts he said ‘benefited the very wealthy.’
‘We’d be able to help make sure all those things we need to do: child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system,’ he continued, stumbling at times over his words.
‘Making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the… with the COVID, excuse me, with um, dealing with everything we have to with, uh,’ he went on, languishing at this point.
‘Look, if we finally beat Medicare…’
He proceeded to fully trail off.
The silence that ensued – and the overall moment – went on to live in infamy, after Tapper’s timely interjection.
‘Thank you President Biden – President Trump?’
Within days – thanks an array of other viral flubs during the make-or-break faceoff – Biden was bombarded with bipartisan calls to drop out.
He eventually did, albeit reluctantly, after several weeks.
That said, Tapper was one of few left-leaning hosts to call attention to Biden’s seemingly waning health in the months leading up the debate, while talents like Thompson gave time to accounts from White House staffers insisting the president was fine.
Tapper, moreover, cut off Lara Trump during a tense interview that aired on State of the Union in 2020, during an conversation about the candidate’s ‘cognitive decline.’
The host – who was reportedly just denied a raise – had just aired a clip of Trump’s daughter-in-law criticizing Biden’s tendency to stutter, calling it evidence of his ‘cognitive decline’.
‘I’m like “Joe, can ya get it out, let’s get the words out, Joe,” You kinda feel bad for him,’ she said – leading Tapper to chide her and point out previous reporting surrounding Biden overcoming a stutter over the years.
‘How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that?’ he asked Trump sternly. ‘I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody’s cognitive decline’.
Biden and former first lady Jill Biden appeared on ABC´s “The View” in a preemptive defense of his health and decision-making before the first excerpts of “Original Sin” were published.
He said he´s responsible for Trump´s victory but attributed Harris´ loss, at least in part, to sexism and racism.
He maintained that he would have won had he remained the Democratic nominee. Both Bidens rejected concerns about his cognitive decline.
This is a developing story.