Joe Biden forgot when he was vice president and when his son died, lawyers say
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Joe Biden’s memory is so poor he struggles to recall when he was vice president or when his son died, federal prosecutors have said.
Lawyers who interviewed the US president in October as part of an investigation into his handling of classified documents found he had “hazy” recollections of his time in office under president Barack Obama, and struggled to remember key details.
On Thursday, the Department of Justice released a report into Mr Biden’s handling of classified documents after leaving the Obama administration in 2016.
The report concluded that he should not be prosecuted for mishandling the material as jurors would see the full extent of his mental decline and conclude he was simply a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.
A series of gaffes this week have raised concerns about Mr Biden’s cognitive abilities, including two speeches in the past week where he claimed to have spoken to former world leaders who were dead at the time.
Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker, said the report was evidence that Mr Biden was “unfit” for the presidency.
“A man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office,” he said.
The White House immediately launched a fightback against the indictment of Mr Biden’s memory, saying the interviews were conducted in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas October 7 attack.
Mr Biden also defended his mental competence in an impromptu speech on Thursday evening, where he lashed out at reporters who questioned him about his memory.
Robert Hur, the Department of Justice’s special counsel, outlined in detail the gaps in Mr Biden’s memory.
“He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended, and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began,” Mr Hur wrote.
“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him.
“Among other things, he mistakenly said he ‘had a real difference’ of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.”
The report revealed that Mr Biden asked the lawyers interviewing him: “If it was 2013 – when did I stop being vice president?” He also asked: “In 2009, am I still vice president?”
Mr Hur, who concluded that Mr Biden had inappropriately stored classified documents, said that he may not have been aware at the time and that if he faced trial, a jury would find him to be a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.
The White House’s lawyers have asked Mr Hur to remove “gratuitous” references to Mr Biden’s memory, which they said were “inflammatory”.
Mr Hur was first appointed to the post of US Attorney for the District of Maryland by Donald Trump in 2018, but appointed as special counsel in the Biden documents case by Merrick Garland, Mr Biden’s own attorney general.
Mr Biden said he was “pleased to see they reached the conclusion I believed all along they would reach – that there would be no charges brought in this case and the matter is now closed”.
New series of gaffes
While Mr Biden has always been prone to gaffes, his latest string of remarks raise further questions on whether he is fit for a second term.
Speaking at two fundraisers in New York, the US president told the same anecdote in which he referred to speaking to Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterand at a G7 summit in Cornwall in 2021.
Mr Kohl died in 2017 and had not been the country’s leader since 1998.
“When I first got elected president, I went to a G7 meeting with the seven heads of state in Europe and Great Britain,” Mr Biden said, as reported by the White House pool.
“I sat down and I said, ‘Well, America’s back’. And the president of France looked at me and said, ‘For how long?’ I never thought of it this way.
“Then Helmut Kohl of Germany looked at me and said, ‘What would you say Mr President, if you picked up the London Times tomorrow morning and learned that 1,000 people had broken down… the doors of the British Parliament and killed some [people] on the way in [to] deny the prime minister to take office.”
Mr Kohl, who stood down more than 20 years ago, was not alive when the US Capitol was stormed by supporters of Donald Trump. He died some four years before his supposed conversation with the US president took place.
Mr Biden mistakenly referred to Mr Kohl again when he gave the speech for a second time on the same day.
Delivering an almost-identical speech in Las Vegas on Sunday, the US president claimed to have talked to Mr Mitterand about the January 6 riots at the G7 meeting in Cornwall.
Mr Biden apparently told world leaders that “America is back”, prompting “Mitterrand from Germany” to offer his opinion.
“Mitterrand from Germany – I mean, from France – looked at me and said, ‘You know, what... why… how long you back for?” he said, apparently referring to Emmanuel Macron.
Mr Mitterand was elected French president in 1981 and remained in office until 1995, dying a year later.
In what has shaped up to be a bruising week for Mr Biden, the Democrat leader on Tuesday appeared to forget the name of Hamas and stumbled over his words when speaking to the press in the White House.
After delivering an address urging Republicans to back a bipartisan immigration and border deal that would provide funding for Ukraine and Israel, he was asked for an update about hostage negotiations involving Hamas.
“There’s been a response from the opposition,” he said, appearing to pause until a reporter suggested the word he was searching for was “Hamas”.
“Yes, I’m sorry, from Hamas,” Mr Biden continued. “But it seems to be a little over the top. We’re not sure where it is. There’s a continuing negotiation right now.”
Despite his age, the Democrats have insisted they have no Plan B if Mr Biden was forced to pull out of the 2024 election for any reason.
If he was suddenly to depart, the party would be left to scramble to pick another nominee at their August convention.
Voters from both parties have told pollsters they are concerned about the age of Mr Biden, who will be 86 at the end of his second term if he is re-elected.
In recent weeks, Mr Trump, 77, has also suffered verbal or mental slips, seeming to mix up Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi when he was talking about the events of January 6.
