Adam Schiff dodges question on whether Biden officials ‘misled’ public about ex-POTUS’ mental capacity

Sen Adam Schiff said Joe Biden made the 'right decision' by dropping out of the 2024 presidential race
PUBLISHED APR 7, 2025
Sen Adam Schiff did not directly answer whether former president Joe Biden’s aides misled the public about his fitness (YouTube/ NBC News, Getty Images)
Sen Adam Schiff did not directly answer whether former president Joe Biden’s aides misled the public about his fitness (YouTube/ NBC News, Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC: Adam Schiff appeared to avoid a very crucial question about former president Joe Biden's health on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press' on Sunday, April 6.

Kristen Welker asked the senator was asked if Biden's aides lied or misled the public about his fitness and mental “capacities” before his disastrous presidential debate with Donald Trump in June 2024, but he did not answer it directly.

Welker was referring to a new book ‘Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History’ by Chris Whipple, releasing on April 8, in which he mentions comments from former chief of staff Ron Klain, as reported by Fox News. Klain claimed Biden was "fatigued, befuddled and disengaged" during the debate preparation.



 

Adam Schiff calls Joe Biden’s decision to ‘get out of the race’ right

"Do you think that former president Biden's advisors misled the American people about the president's capacities?" Kristen Welker asked.

Schiff replied, “It’s hard for me to gauge what the closest advisors to the president were seeing at the time. I can only speak to the interactions that I had with him, which were, you know, in the months leading up to his getting out of the race, largely ceremonial occasions.”

The 64-year-old further shared his happiness over Biden’s decision to drop out from the race.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA - JUNE 27: Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump participates in the CNN Presidential Debate at the CNN Studios on June 27, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. Former President Trump and U.S. President Joe Biden are facing off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump participates in the CNN Presidential Debate at the CNN Studios on June 27, 2024, in Atlanta, Georgia (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

“He made the decision to get out of the race. I think that was the right decision. The vice president, as the vice president, I think, ran a great campaign but could not run away from being a representative of the status quo,” he claimed.

Book claims Joe Biden ‘couldn’t grasp' what Donald Trump was saying during debate

U.S. President Joe Biden (R) and Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump participate in the CNN Presidential Debate at the CNN Studios on June 27, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. President Biden and former President Trump are facing off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Former president Joe Biden and President Donald Trump participate in the CNN Presidential Debate at the CNN Studios on June 27, 2024, in Atlanta, Georgia (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

In the book, Ron Klain told Chris Whipple, as per The Guardian, that Biden “didn’t know what Trump had been saying and couldn’t grasp what the back and forth was".

Klain also revealed that two mock debates were prepared for the former president.

“The first was scheduled to last 90 minutes but Klain called it off after 45. The president’s voice was shot and so was his grasp of the subject. All he really could talk about was his infrastructure plan and how he was rebuilding America and 16 million jobs. He had nothing to say about his agenda for a second term,” Whipple noted in the book, citing Klain.

Joe Biden was ‘befuddled and disengaged’ during presidential debate

Chris Whipple added, “The president was fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged. Klain feared the debate with Trump would be a nationally televised disaster.”

The June debate was indeed disastrous for Biden, and played a role in the Democratic Party's move to force Biden to withdraw from the presidential race a few weeks later.

First Lady Jill Biden, with
 Jill Biden, with 'VOTE' printed on her dress, and former president Joe Biden arrive at a post-debate campaign rally on June 28, 2024, in Raleigh, North Carolina (Allison Joyce/Getty Images)

Chris Whipple spoke with Politico weeks ago, where he talked about Biden and his 2024 campaign.

“I happen to think that to call it a ‘cover-up’ is simplistic. I think it was stranger and way more troubling than that. Biden’s inner circle, his closest advisers, many of them were in a fog of delusion and denial. They believed what they wanted to believe,” he asserted.

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