‘He was out of it:’ Top Biden aide blames WH staffers for debate performance

FORMER PRESIDENT BIDEN’S CHIEF OF STAFF RON KLAIN HAS ATTRIBUTED BIDEN’S POOR DEBATE PERFORMANCE AGAINST THEN-CANDIDATE DONALD TRUMP LAST SUMMER TO A LACK OF FOCUS – NOT BY BIDEN – BUT BY HIS SENIOR AIDES.

KLAIN – A CLOSE ALLY AND SUPPORTER OF BIDEN – WAS INTERVIEWED BY AUTHOR CHRIS WHIPPLE – AND IS THE SUBJECT OF WHIPPLE’S LATEST BOOK OUT NEXT WEEK.

EXCERPTS WERE GIVEN TO THE GUARDIAN – BUT KLAIN IS **CLARIFYING SOME OF HIS STATEMENTS – SAYING THE NEWS OUTLET “FRAMED” THE FACTS WRONG.

IN WHIPPLE’S UPCOMING BOOK “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History”  – KLAIN DESCRIBED BIDEN’S DEBATE PREP –

AS HE WAS BROUGHT BACK ON TO ASSIST BIDEN FOR THE DEBATE AFTER SERVING AS HIS CHIEF OF STAFF FROM 2021 TO 2023.

KLAIN EXPRESSED CONCERN OVER BIDEN’S PREPAREDNESS –

IN A STORY PREVIEWING EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK –

THE GUARDIAN WROTE –

“In a new book, Joe Biden’s former White House chief of staff paints a devastating picture of the then US president’s mental and physical state before the debate with Donald Trump that sent his 2024 campaign into a tailspin.”

“25 minutes into the second mock debate, the president was done for the day. ‘I’m just too tired to continue and I’m afraid of losing my voice here and I feel bad,’ he said. ‘I just need some sleep. I’ll be fine tomorrow.’ He went off to bed.”

“The president was fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged,” Whipple writes. “Klain feared the debate with Trump would be a nationally televised disaster.”

It was.”

HOWEVER — KLAIN TELLS POLITICO – HE FEELS LIKE “THE FRAMING IS WRONG” –

CLARIFYING  HIS REMARKS WERE NOT ABOUT BIDEN’S MENTAL CAPACITY – ABOUT HIS STAFF’S NEGLIGENCE.

POLITICO WROTE –

“I think the framing is wrong,” Ron Klain said over text after The Guardian described him as painting a “devastating picture” of Biden’s mental and physical state in an interview for a forthcoming book. “My point wasn’t that the president lacked mental acuity … He was out of it because he had been [sidelined], not because he lacked capacity.”

“He had been isolated from domestic politics by a WH team unplugged from hill Dems,” Klain said via text, allowing Biden – who at the time was managing U.S. involvement in two foreign wars – to become “solely focused on foreign affairs.” Klain did not specify which of Biden’s close aides he held responsible for those failings.

KLAIN TOLD WHIPPLE HE STILL BELIEVES BIDEN SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE FOLLOWING THE JUNE DEBATE.

KLAIN ARGUED BIDEN COULD HAVE “GOVERNED EFFECTIVELY FOR ANOTHER FOUR YEARS.”

IN AN INTERVIEW WITH POLITICO PREVIEWING HIS BOOK’S RELEASE –

WHIPPLE SAID

“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.”

BIDEN’S CAMPAIGN HAS NOT PUBLICLY COMMENTED ON THE CLAIMS –

BUT HE IS REPORTEDLY PLANNING HIS OWN BOOK.

WHIPPLE’S BOOK ADDS TO THE GROWING BODY OF WORK ANALYZING THE HISTORIC 2024 ELECTION.

EARLIER THIS WEEK WE TOLD YOU ABOUT A BOOK WRITTEN BY NBC REPORTER JONATHAN ALLEN AND THE HILL’S AMIE PARNES – WHICH ALSO OFFERS INSIGHT INTO THE BIDEN CAMPAIGN – AND THE MOMENT OF TRANSITION IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WHERE BIDEN BOWED OUT AND KAMALA HARRIS BECAME THE NOMINEE.

YOU CAN FIND OUR EARLIER REPORT BY DOWNLOADING THE STRAIGHT ARROW NEWS MOBILE APP OR FIND US ONLINE AT SAN DOT COM.