As we've documented, there is an ongoing trend of Biden officials and surrogates who have been tasked with going before the cameras and stating that the president’s mental acumen and cognitive ability are razor-sharp and without peer. The latest to engage in this ritual self-humiliation is former 2020 presidential candidate, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
Watch as Klobuchar does the thing, when asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker about whether the White House should allow a full release of the transcripts of special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Biden, “for the sake of transparency”, as aired on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday, February 18th, 2024:
KRISTEN WELKER: Well, let me ask you this. The report described President Biden as a, quote, “elderly man with a poor memory”. Do you think the White House should allow the release of the full transcript without claiming executive privilege for the sake of transparency, Senator?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): You know, that is going to be, again, up to the president and his lawyers, but I've got to comment on this just from my own personal experience. I was on Air Force One with the president going from Minnesota to Wisconsin for- going from Washington, D.C. to Wisconsin for an infrastructure project. And I was with the president for over an hour, and talked about so many things, domestic, international. He was focused. His recall was good. It was the same experience that my colleagues had who met with him for hours, Democrats and Republicans, about the Mideast only a few weeks ago. And so I think that we've got to evaluate what's happening right now by, one: what he has done, which is bring us out of this pandemic. The first time that we are finally seeing negotiation of prescription drug prices and focus on what matters to the American people and compare what he is doing to what we've got as the alternative on the Republican side which is Donald Trump.
WELKER: Well…
KLOBUCHAR: …who is nothing but standing up week by week for chaos.
WELKER: Well, Senator, you take me to my next point which is on 2024. As you know, concerns have been growing for quite some time within your party about President Biden's ability to win a second term. The latest person to express this: Ezra Klein of The New York Times who said this week, quote, “He is not up for this. He is not the campaigner he was, even five years ago. The way me moves, the energy in his voice. The Democrats' denying decline are only fooling themselves.” Senator, what is your reaction to that stark assessment?
KLOBUCHAR: My reaction is, as someone who ran against Joe Biden, as someone who has spent significant amount of time with Joe Biden, that he is up for this job.
Welker was fortunate to have asked that question while Klobuchar was in Minneapolis, just a short drive away from the purifying waters of Lake Minnetonka, and not in-studio where she might have otherwise caught the business end of a binder. Upon hearing the question, Klobuchar immediately gritted her teeth and did the thing, as did Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen earlier this week. But this is a taxing, draining thing to have to do- to self-debasingly affirm that people aren’t really seeing what is plainly before their very eyes. The tell is in Klobuchar’s long, weary sigh when Welker goes for a second pass at Biden’s cognitive decline, citing Ezra Klein.
The interview touched other issues, such as Ukraine but mostly centered around the 2024 presidential election. And ancillary issues such as the special counsel’s report. And Biden. And mental decline.
