Audio from Special Counsel Interview contributes to renewed debate about Biden’s fitness as president

A 2023 AUDIO recording by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Having speaking and memory reductions is the last in a series of recent disclosures that have reopened a debate about the physical and mental fitness of Mr. Biden while he is in office and in office led to new reproaches in Democrats.

The recording, released on Friday evening by the News Outlet Axios, documents part of four minutes from Mr Biden’s interview with Robert K. Hur, a special counselor who investigated his handling of classified information.

Mr. Hur had Closed at the beginning of last year that “no criminal prosecution” was justified in the case. But when cleaning up the president, Mr Hur portrayed Mr. Biden as a “Older man with a bad memory,” Based on an hours of interview with the president, so that Mr Biden’s concern for the office had decreased considerably.

The Audioclip did not reveal new exchanges between Mr Hur and Mr Biden. But it gives a more complete picture of why Mr Hur described Mr. Biden as he did, whereby the whisper of the president was recorded and the long breaks in his speech. Trump administration officials Plan to release the audioAccording to two people who are familiar with the case, talk about the condition of anonymity to describe a decision that still has to be announced.

The Audioclip comes as an upcoming book – written by Jake Tapper from CNN and Alex Thompson from Axios – new details provided About the mental and physical decline of Mr Biden and described how Mr Biden’s advisers have taken out the discussion about his age -related limitations. Among other things, the book says that Mr Biden forgets the names of old assistants and allies, and outsiders who had not seen the president shocked in a time because of his appearance.

Top democrats who locked the ranks to defend Mr Biden in his moment of crisis and responsible for his fitness for the office now had to rationalize those statements. In an interview on the podcast “Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso” last month, Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts – he had urged Mr Biden to stay in the race Until the end – visible effort not to laugh When the host asked if the president was ‘as sharp as you’ at that time.

“I said I hadn’t seen,” said Mrs. Warren, adding that Mr. Biden was “sharp, he was on his feet.”

“Senator,” on his feet “is not a praise,” said Mr. Fragoso, while Mrs. Warren smiled and chuckled. “He can speak in sentences,” is not praise.

Mrs Warren replied: “Ok, honest enough. Fair enough.”

The new debate recalls one of the The most painful periods of the Democratic PartyWhen Mr. Biden and his allies had difficulty rectying his re-election campaign in the midst of calls from Democratic officials-acting private And in public – To stop and call a successor.

Those calls broke out after one disastrous debate performance Against former President Donald J. Trump that Mr. Biden’s Daamen campaign. The president eventually cleared the way for his current partner, vice -president Kamala Harris, to take his place at the top of the card.

The Biden Administration had already released a slightly edited transcript of the interview, but not the audio, which claimed executive privilege. A spokeswoman for Mr Biden said that the recording did nothing but confirm what was already public.

In the clip of the October 2023 interview with Mr. Hur, Mr. Biden speaks softly and naughty In May 2015. Mr Hur did not specifically asked about Beau, but Mr Biden told the special counselor that “in 2017, 2018, that area”, Beau, who had served in the Delaware National Guard and was deployed in Iraq in 2008, “was deployed or dying.” Minutes later the president said “in 2017, Beau had died.”

The death of the Son of Mr Biden was one of the most emotional moments in Mr Biden’s life, and the assessment of Mr Hur that Mr Biden “did not remember, even within a few years when his son Beau died,” the president made fond of the president.

“How on earth does he dare to lift that?” Said Mr. Biden in A news conference Hours after the report was made public, and added: “To be honest, when I was asked the question I thought of myself, it was neither of their damn things.”

In a particularly meandering exchange, Mr Biden said most of a minute exchanged with a few seconds long breaks-to say that “beau had passed and-this was personally it was created of the book and the title” Promice poda “was one I know that you are all close by with your sons and Daughters was just their right.

The concern about the decline of Mr Biden continued to exist until the end of the 2024 campaign of Mr Biden, and grew with every public junk during a rally or news conference. Even during the press conference that denounced the assessment of the special public prosecutor on his memory, Mr Biden spoke about “the president of Mexico, El-Sisi,” who confuse the presidents of Mexico and Egypt in response to a question about negotiations to release hostages that are kept by Hamas.