The recently released audio of former President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur has ignited renewed debates regarding his mental acuity during the final year of his presidency. This audio, which aired publicly for the first time on Friday, showcases segments where Biden pauses for extended periods or struggles to recall specific dates, behavior that has become increasingly familiar to those who have followed his public speaking engagements in recent years.
Conducted as part of an investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents, the transcript of the 2024 interview has been available for over a year. However, the release of the audio is expected to draw even more scrutiny regarding the former president's cognitive health, a topic that is the focus of a forthcoming book and has sparked rising concern among some Democratic factions.
According to a report from POLITICO, the Biden administration had intended to release the audio as early as May 7. However, the audio was under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department, and former President Donald Trump asserted that the White House was not directly involved in the handling of the audio's disclosure. “I haven’t looked into that. That’s up to Pam and the group,” Trump stated to reporters aboard Air Force One while returning from the Middle East, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Hours later, reports indicated that the Trump administration was preparing to share the audio with Axios, according to anonymous sources familiar with the discussions. The White House and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comments regarding the audio, which had not yet been distributed to other media outlets.
A spokesperson for Biden downplayed the significance of the audio's release, stating, “The transcripts were released by the Biden administration more than a year ago. The audio does nothing but confirm what is already public.”
The timing of the audio's disclosure coincides with the impending release of “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” a book authored by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson. Thompson was among the journalists who reported on the audio's release on Friday. The audio has provided further fuel to ongoing Republican narratives aimed at portraying Biden as mentally unfit for the presidency, particularly at the end of his term. Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles described the situation as the “Coverup of the century” in a recent post on social media platform X, reminding followers that Biden was privy to nuclear codes.
Numerous news organizations, along with conservative entities like Judicial Watch and the Heritage Foundation, have initiated Freedom of Information Act lawsuits in an effort to obtain the audio. Last year, the former president invoked executive privilege to block the release of the audio, with his Justice Department arguing that such disclosure could deter witnesses from cooperating in significant investigations.
Ultimately, special counsel Hur concluded in his report last year that he would not pursue criminal charges against Biden. The former president maintained that he had not violated any laws regarding the handling of classified documents and asserted that his “memory is fine.” Comparisons have been drawn between Hur’s investigation and the legal challenges faced by Trump, who was charged with improperly retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them. Notably, Trump did not cooperate with investigators in that case, which prosecutors eventually dropped following his election as president.
Contributions to this report were made by Jake Traylor.
