President Joe Biden responded forcefully Thursday night to claims about his “poor memory” leveled by Special Counsel Robert Hur, who cleared the commander-in-chief Thursday after an investigation into his handling of classified documents—but landed several parting shots calling into question Biden’s mental capacity.
In the report, which some conservatives have already had a field day with, Hur wrote that Biden “did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.”
During live remarks from the White House just hours later, Biden took particular umbrage at that passage.
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“How in the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself: It wasn’t any of their damn business,” Biden said.
“I wear—since the day he died, every single day—the rosary he got from Our Lady of—” he added, trailing off.
Beau Biden died in May 2015 from brain cancer.
“Every Memorial Day we hold a service remembering him, attended by friends and family and the people who loved him. I don’t need anyone—I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away,” Biden continued.
“The simple truth is, I sat for a five-hour interview over two days, of events going back 40 years. At the same time, I was managing an international crisis,” he said, referring to the Israel-Hamas conflict that flared up substantially last October after a brutal assault carried out by Palestinian militant group.
The report concluded that “the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” and that no charges were “warranted.” The report also made a clear distinction between how Biden cooperated with the investigation and how former President Donald Trump acted regarding the investigation into his own hoarding of classified documents. Trump ultimately was indicted on 40 felony counts in that case, including several related to obstruction.
“Their task was to make a decision about whether to move forward with charges in this case. That was their decision to make. That’s a counsel’s decision to make. That’s his job. They decided not to move forward,” Biden said.
“For any extraneous commentary, they don’t know what they’re talking about. It has no place in this report,” Biden went on to say. “The bottom line is the matter is now closed, and we can continue what I’ve always focused on: my job of being president of the United States of America.”
The special counsel, however, weighed in on the “significant limitations” to Biden’s memory—portraying it as one reason that he opted not to recommend charges in the case.
“At trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote.
When asked about that passage, Biden quipped: “I’m well meaning, and I’m an elderly man, and I know what the hell I’m doing.”
After attempting to walk away from the podium, Biden was called back to answer questions about the conflict between Israel and Hamas, as well as the brutal campaign being waged in the Gaza Strip that has already killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
After mistakenly calling Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi the “president of Mexico”—a line that is sure to inflame critics’ concerns about his memory—Biden leveled some of his most substantial pushback to his counterpart in Israel since the conflict began.
“I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in the Gaza Strip has been over the top,” Biden said. “I’m pushing very hard now to deal with this hostage ceasefire. There are a lot of innocent people who are starving, a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and it’s gotta stop.”
