Former President Biden denied media reports about his mental decline and former first lady Jill Biden said she never tried to hide him from scrutiny during a joint interview Thursday on ABC’s “The View.”
The Bidens appeared together as new books raise questions about Biden’s fitness to serve and allegations that those around him sought to shield him from scrutiny to hide his decline.
“They are wrong, there is nothing to sustain that,” Biden said.
The former president said that he only dropped out of the race after his disastrous debate performance “because I didn’t want to have a divided Democratic Party.”
The former first lady said she didn’t create a “cocoon” around him.
“I mean, you saw him in the Oval Office,” she said. “You saw him making speeches. He wasn’t hiding somewhere. I didn’t have him, you know, sequestered in some place.”
During the interview, the Bidens pushed back on new reporting on multiple fronts, including that had Biden insisted to former Vice President Kamala Harris that there be “no daylight” between them after she took up the nomination.
Biden said Harris lost the election because Republicans ran a racist and sexist campaign that damaged her.
“I wasn’t surprised because they went the route of the sexist route … I’ve never seen quite as successful and consistent campaign undercutting the notion that a woman couldn’t lead the country and a woman of mixed race, and they played that to a fairly well,” he said.
Politico reports that Biden hired a veteran Democratic operative to defend his reputation against the slew of books being published this year that question his mental acuity, decision making and whether those around him sought to keep him out of public view.
• About 75 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested at Columbia University after forcing their way into a school library and injuring two public safety officers.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration is “reviewing the visa status of the trespassers and vandals.”
The Trump administration has already sought to freeze hundreds of millions in federal funding at Columbia over prior protests and allegations of antisemitism. The Department of Justice is charging a 20-year-old with hate crimes after he allegedly assaulted Jewish people at a Columbia University earlier this year.