Former President Joe Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, told staffers on the House Oversight Committee that former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised concerns to him in 2023 and 2024 about Biden’s political chances, two sources familiar with the matter said.
One of the sources said Klain told staffers that Clinton and Sullivan approached him with the belief that Biden was “not politically viable.” But another pushed back on that characterization. That source said Klain told the committee Clinton had told him, “The campaign was not succeeding in dealing with the age issue.”
Klain said Clinton made the comment in 2023, that source said. And he told the committee that after Biden’s weak performance at CNN’s Presidential Debate last June, which furthered questions about his mental acuity, Sullivan told him that Biden “was losing support.”
Klain served as White House chief of staff for Biden’s first two years; Clinton was not in his administration.
A Clinton spokesman did not dispute Klain’s account, but said Clinton was concerned with how the question of Biden’s age was being handled politically in light of the attacks and questions he was facing.
“Jake did not have a conversation with Ron about Joe Biden running for president before the debate,” a representative for Sullivan, Adrienne Watson, told CNN.
Klain was appearing as part of the committee’s investigation into Biden’s mental fitness and decline. One source said Klain told staffers he believed that Biden had the mental sharpness to serve as president and that he did not think Donald Trump was too old to run, but acknowledged that Biden was less energetic and more forgetful. Klain said Biden often confused names and proper nouns, and he appeared tired and ill before the CNN debate, the source said.
The GOP-led committee has sought interviews with former Biden White House aides and even his White House physician, who refused to answer questions earlier this month.
While Biden faced questions about his age and mental fitness throughout his presidency, scrutiny mounted following the disastrous CNN debate which ultimately led him to drop out of the race, making way for then-Vice President Kamala Harris to assume the Democratic nomination. Hillary Clinton was among the high-profile Democrats who immediately threw their support behind Harris after Biden stepped aside.
But in the months since the 2024 election, new reports have emerged on the extent of Biden’s decline.
According to the book “Original Sin,” from CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson – Biden, in the final two years of his presidency, had private moments where he could not recall the names of top aides, had an increasingly limited private schedule, was prone to incoherence and losing his train of thought, and was hidden from the public eye to shield the extent of his decline.
The book revealed several instances of Democratic lawmakers, White House aides, members of Biden’s Cabinet and Democratic donors being shocked at Biden’s diminishing mental and physical capabilities during his reelection bid. But nearly all did not speak out publicly or try to stop him from running.
“Biden, his family, and his team let their self-interest and fear of another Trump term justify an attempt to put an at times addled old man in the Oval Office for four more years,” the book reads.
CNN’s Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.
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