Hours after last week's release of special counsel Robert Hur's report on Biden's handling of classified documents -- which described the president as a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" and "diminished faculties" -- Team Biden pushed their man in front of reporters in a hopeless bid to demonstrate that his mind is fully intact.
It backfired in various ways, most notably when Biden referred to Egyptian President Sissi as the president of Mexico -- in a week in which he'd already twice confused the dead male German chancellor Helmut Kohl with the living female Angela Merkel, and confused the late French president François Mitterand with President Emmanuel Macron.
Now, sources say a more significant Biden statement during that press conference was also false.
First, some more background. In addition to not remembering what years he served as vice president, the special counsel report said that, in his interview with investigators, Biden "did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died."
At his press conference, Biden lashed out at Hur for insensitively grilling him about Beau's death from cancer at age 46:
“I know there’s some attention paid to some language in the report about my recollection of events. There’s even a reference that I don’t remember when my son died. How in the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business.”
"How in the hell dare he raise that."
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) February 9, 2024
President Biden slams Special Counsel Robert Hur's claim that he struggled to remember details about his son Beau's death. pic.twitter.com/2d4sAlRuDC
Big Media ran with Biden's narrative. For example, at The New York Times, an utterly credulous, unquestioning Katie Rogers -- sounding every bit like a Biden campaign proxy -- devoted an article to Biden's Beau-centered attack on Hur, describing Biden's "chin quivering either from anger or sadness." In what's positioned as a straight news article, she concluded with this state-media salute:
A president who has infused his son’s memory into his presidency wanted to make one thing clear, to both the special counsel’s office and to his critics. “I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away,” Mr. Biden said.
Rogers and other "journalists" covering the story didn't even entertain the possibility that Biden -- who routinely invokes Beau in various remarks to secure the sympathy of his audience -- was the one who brought Beau's death up during the 5-hour special counsel interview.
Now, citing two sources with knowledge of the interview, NBC News reports that it was indeed Biden who raised the topic of his son's death. They say he did so when investigators asked about his activities at his Virginia rental home between 2016 and 2018, a time during which Biden was working with a ghost writer on a memoir about the loss of Beau, who died in 2015:
Biden began trying to recall that period by discussing what else was happening in his life, and it was at that point in the interview that he appeared confused about when Beau died, the sources said. Biden got the date — May 30 — correct, but not the year.
The NBC News report comes after several days of Biden defenders parroting the questionable attack on Hur. "Why in the hell are you asking that question?" asked Obama Attorney General Eric Holder on MSNBC. "What does that have to do with the retention of classified documents?”
Team Biden's exploitation of Beau's death didn't end with media spin -- they also used it in a Biden-Harris fundraising email. Packaged as if it were sent by Jill Biden, it contains this enormously hypocritical line, purportedly from the First Lady: "I can't imagine someone would try to use our son's death to score political points."
All that said, Democrats' campaign to persuade Americans that Biden is fit for office isn't working: 62% of registered voters have "major concerns" about whether Biden has the requisite mental and physical strength to serve five more years.
It couldn't help when Biden, lashing out at Hur, went blank as he tried to remember the name of the church that gave Beau the rosary beads that Biden wears daily:
