Jill Biden’s former-press secretary has claimed the Biden campaign was “gaslighting” the public and the press by playing down concerns over the president’s age and cognitive ability.
Michael LaRosa admitted that such concerns, which became apparent during Joe Biden’s disastrous presidential debate with Donald Trump, were in fact shared by administration officials.
During the debate in June, the now-82-year-old frequently lost his train of thought and stumbled over his words, leading Trump to remark at one point “I don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence, and I don’t think he does either.”
However, despite this high-profile Democrats and those closest to Biden refused to admit that his age was an issue.
Speaking at an event at the Science Institute at American University on Wednesday, LaRosa said the campaign was aware of the issues from “day one,” though rejected the idea of a “cover-up.”
“Cover-up to me is a little hard, a little harsh. Every politician, everybody, every human being tries to cover up age. We were always, from day one, cognizant that age was an issue,” he said.
“There are some things that are true, I mean, like the gaslighting. There was a lot of denial of the polling. And I will use the term gaslighting because that’s what they were doing, the campaign, former colleagues.
“The message to everybody was to make sure that you tell people it’s too early. It’s too early. These polls don’t mean anything. Well, it became too early. And these polls don’t mean anything for about a year and a half. The polls, the numbers – never moved.”
LaRosa also admitted that the campaign denied “really insightful journalism” of outlets including the The New York Times, and they were “scared to death” of letting Biden do interviews with the media.
“The president’s team was scared to death of impromptu, unscripted, unrehearsed, unpracticed, un-choreographed, anything, they couldn’t compete for the attention economy. They just couldn’t do it,” he said.
“They didn’t have any idea, and they didn’t have the vessel either in Biden, by the way, who would have done anything. He loves TV. He loves doing stuff. It was the orbit that did not trust their own candidate.”
Biden eventually announced he was dropping out as the Democratic candidate on July 21 2024, nearly a month after the debate disaster. His party scrambled for a response, quickly coalescing around his vice-president, Kamala Harris, despite some Democrats calling for some kind of primary process to pick a candidate.
Some in the party point to Biden’s insistence on standing for a second term, and his reluctance to step down, as a major factor in their defeat in the November election. Trump swept the swing states and won the popular vote, albeit by a relatively narrow 2.2 million.
