Former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki claims she never saw any signs of the ex-president’s diminishing mental acuity during her tenure in the White House, but agreed that aging happened fast.
Psaki made the shocking claim when asked about the previous administration during her appearance on the “Mixed Signals” podcast Friday.
“I never saw that person — not a single time, and I was in the Oval Office every day – that was on that debate stage,” Psaki said regarding Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump in June 2024.
Critics and allies both called for Biden to drop out of the presidential race over the nationally televised trainwreck.
Host Ben Smith asked Psaki about the theory that White House staffers had covered up Biden’s mental capacity at the end of his tumultuous term.
“I think cover up is such a loaded phrase, but I also left in May 2022 just for the facts here, and I have seen Biden once since then,” Psaki shared.
The 46-year-old said she hadn’t seen Biden in person during the time critics were questioning the president’s ability to lead the country.
“I’m not a doctor, aging happens quite quickly,” she said. “Were things that people saw during that period of time that were similar to that or would’ve been in a category of that? I don’t know, possibly and all these books are gonna tell us.”
Psaki didn’t entertain the notion of a political cover-up from her former colleagues.
“It’s a very loaded term, I think. A cover-up is often like a crime. People use that term when they refer to Watergate or the covering up of not sharing public information and about a war,” she said.
The former presidential spokesperson said it was “dangerous” for people to claim there was a cover-up in the Biden administration when there hadn’t been any criminal charges filed.
She called the Biden staffers “good human beings at their root.”
“I would like to think they would not be a part of an active ‘let’s hide from the public what we see happening privately,’” she asserted. “I don’t know the facts of what was happening privately.”
Smith questioned the media’s role in the supposed cover-up and asked if journalists were being gentle around the “sensitive” topic of Biden’s age.
“Maybe we’ll learn from these books is what the facts were behind the scenes and what the media missed,” Psaki said. “Maybe the media missed a lot and so maybe in retrospect, there were major stories and moments missed.”
Psaki defended her former boss because his older age was known to the public before he was elected and she blamed the Republican party for showcasing Biden’s senior moments.
“While we know there were problematic things behind-the-scenes now in 2023 and 2024, there was an aggressive all-out pitching operation from the right-wing and from the Republicans about Joe Biden’s age and how he was in decline….the majority of which wasn’t true, in 2019-2022,” Psaki claimed.
“When we got polling before 2023-2024, the biggest vulnerability for Biden was his age,” she added.
She claimed that Biden’s reputation was tarnished because he ran for reelection and was forced to drop out in favor of Kamala Harris.
“I think a lot of his legacy has been based around this question of him running for reelection, him not being aware or not being honest with himself, about him not being to do a full term,” Psaki said.
