President Joe Biden surprised the American people Thursday night by delivering previously unscheduled remarks on his classified documents scandal — and promptly created an unmitigated PR disaster.
Earlier in the day, the special counsel investigating Biden’s improper retention and storage of classified documents issued his report. Robert Hur found the president did mishandle documents, broke national security law and undermined national security by releasing classified information to his ghostwriter. However, perhaps even more damning, Hur declined to recommend charges against the president, asserting that he presents as a “well-meaning” elderly man with a poor memory. During interviews with the DoJ, Biden supposedly couldn’t remember what years he served as vice president or when his son, Beau, died.
Biden sought to flip the script on Hur’s report by giving a press conference on the matter. He took a victory lap on not facing charges, and angrily rejected the idea that when his son died was any “business” of the DoJ. However, when Biden tried to prove he would never forget when Beau died because he wears his rosary daily, he could not recall where the rosary was from. He only remembered “Our Lady of…” before trailing off.
Later, during the question and answer period of the presser, Biden mixed up the president of Egypt with the president of Mexico while discussing the conflict in Gaza. He blamed staff for storage issues related to the documents.
The press ate Biden alive, demanding to know if his memory was OK and why he wouldn’t step aside in the 2024 election. Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked Biden, “How bad is your memory?” to which Biden replied, rattled, “So bad I let you speak.”
Another member of the press shouted from her seat about a recent incident where Biden claimed to have met with a German leader who had been deceased for three decades. The roar from the press only got louder as Biden continued to defend himself.
It was a stunningly bad appearance from the president when he most needed to demonstrate competency. Did Biden demand he speak on the documents case? If it was the White House communications team’s idea, they should all be fired. Why add remarks to the president’s schedule with fifteen minutes’ notice when there was no urgent need to address the country? Why allow him to show up late? Why choose this moment to allow questions from a hungry press corps that has had little opportunity to ask anything of the president? Nothing about tonight made any sense, unless White House staff are deliberately allowing Biden to self-immolate. God help us.
