Former Allies Finally Speaking Out on Biden's Unraveling
The first portrait of Joe Biden as President of the United States. Photo courtesy of the White House. Public domain.
On a warm June evening in 2024, the President of the United States stood on the debate stage and lost not just his grip on the conversation but also the confidence of a nation watching live.
Twelve minutes into his presidential campaign debate against Donald Trump, Biden appeared frozen, blank-eyed, and bewildered, as if lost or caught in a moment his mind couldn't process. What followed wasn't just a political stumble — it was a seismic moment that exposed the fragility inside the White House and the costly illusion his inner circle refused to shatter.
This wasn't a story of a sudden decline. It was the slow-motion unraveling of a presidency hidden in plain sight.
How Out of It Was Joe?
In the months preceding the debate, White House staff reportedly struggled to prop Biden up as he began to slip mentally. They would limit his exposure to lawmakers and even members of his cabinet. Senior advisors would often cover for Biden in national security positions and would censor news clip packages of negative press.
In an expose for Vanity Fair, reporter Chris Whipple shared that as far back as September 2022, he was only allowed to interview Biden via email; the President's aides did not want him interacting in person with the press. Bill Daley, former Chief of Staff for Barack Obama, observed Biden needing a teleprompter to speak to a comparatively small White House Saint Patrick's Day party. Democratic voters largely opposed Biden running for a second term, seeing him as too old and mentally compromised to hold the top job.
Yet Biden and his circle insisted everything was fine.
Signs of Biden's cognitive decline became more apparent when he arrived at Camp David to prepare for the debate. Biden would reportedly leave prep sessions to nap by the pool. He seemed physically weak with a strained voice and often struggled to grasp the subjects discussed. Former Chief of Staff Ron Klain described the scene to Vanity Fair, saying, "We sat around the table. He had answers on cards and I was struck by how out of touch with American politics he was. He was just very, very focused on his interactions with NATO leaders. All he really could talk about was his infrastructure plan and how he was rebuilding America and 16 million jobs."
Biden didn't even seem to care about his platform for reelection. According to Klain via Vanity Fair, Biden resented having to make campaign promises, allegedly saying, "I'm not going to make more promises. I made too many promises in 2020 and I delivered on most of them, and all people remember are the things I didn't deliver on."
Although the mock debates were supposed to last 90 minutes, Biden was unable to finish any of them. He reportedly left the second prep session after 25 minutes. "I'm just too tired to continue and I'm afraid of losing my voice here and I feel bad," he said, as reported by Vanity Fair. "I just need some sleep. I'll be fine tomorrow."
But as history proved, he wasn't.
The Fog Descended on Them All
In the weeks and months following Biden's disastrous debate performance, commentators and ordinary voters have asked how those closest to him — his aides, advisers, and family — could have allowed Biden to run at all. Was this a conspiracy? A cover-up?
Whipple, who wrote an upcoming book on Biden's decline entitled "Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History," isn't sure about that. Instead, as he told POLITICO, what he saw was far less actively malicious but far more tragic, saying, "I have fresh reporting on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis of Biden's final days, and obviously his decline is a major part of the story. 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."
According to Bill Daley, this sort of denial isn't uncommon for those working in the White House, saying, "You're in the bubble. You've crossed the Rubicon," Vanity Fair reports. And once Biden decided to run for reelection, that bubble became even harder to pop. "Everybody bought into it," said Daley. "And once they crossed the Rubicon, they bulls---ted everybody to stay out of the race," referring other potential Democratic candidates.
Leon Panetta, Bill Clinton's former Chief of Staff and CIA Director under Barack Obama, put it to Vanity Fair more bluntly, saying, "I think they were living in an isolated world. Everybody was marching to the same tune. And there was nobody there to say, 'What the hell's going on?' They just never had a grown-up in the room who could look Joe Biden in the eye and say, 'What the f--k are you doing?"
Fallout and Fuming
Ultimately, his atrocious debate shattered the illusion of Biden's fitness for office for voters, donors, and opponents alike. Under intense pressure from Democratic leaders, Biden would end his reelection campaign in July and endorse his Vice President, Kamala Harris.
Some of Biden's circle demonstrated that they still bought into the idea of Biden in his prime despite evidence to the contrary. Klain posted on X, formerly Twitter, in the aftermath of Biden stepping down, "Now that the donors and electeds have pushed out the only candidate who has ever beaten Trump, it's time to end the political fantasy games and unite behind the only veteran of a national campaign — our outstanding @vp, @KamalaHarris!! Let's get real and win in November!" as reported by Mediaite.
However, Biden's decision's timing left Harris with only 107 days to campaign, which proved insufficient to challenge Trump's campaign effectively. Trump would go on to win reelection in November 2024.
The story of Biden's decline continues to unfold, revealing the depths to which those closest to him went to pretend he was fine. But perhaps the people they most wanted to fool were themselves.
References: Joe Biden's Final Days: Did Aides Cover Up His Mental State—or Was It Group Delusion? | Biden Super-Loyalist Ron Klain Stabs Him in the Back: Couldn't Even 'Grasp' Trump's Arguments at Debate | Ex-Biden aide says former president was 'fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged' prior to June debate: book | Playbook: Biden world braces for book storm | New book details Biden campaign's 11th hour karaoke party before he dropped out | How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge
