On Sunday, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) spoke to CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" about the Republicans' proposed budget and President Biden's mental acuity during his presidency.
00:00On Friday night, Axios obtained the audio from then-president Biden's interview with former
00:05special counsel Robert Herr, who was investigating Biden's mishandling of classified documents.
00:10In that audio tape, you hear President Biden rambling, unable to keep a train of thought,
00:17getting dates wrong. Let's run a little clip of that.
00:22Trump gets elected in November of 2017.
00:262016.
00:272016.
00:282016. All right.
00:30So, why did I have 2017 here?
00:36That's when you left office, January of 2017.
00:39Okay.
00:43But that's when Trump gets sworn in.
00:46Right.
00:47At a different time in that interview, he's asked about the 2017-2018 period, and he says
00:54during that period, his son Beau was either deployed or dying.
00:58But Beau was deployed in 2008-2009, and he died tragically in May 2015.
01:04Needless to say, even supporters of the president have heard these tapes and been alarmed by it.
01:09What was your response to them?
01:10Did you see much of that when you had meetings and interactions with President Biden during his term?
01:19No, I didn't.
01:20You know, the fact of the matter is, I saw Biden often, but not as often as people seem to think.
01:28I saw him, I talked to him on the telephone very often, and I never saw anything that I thought was outside of the ordinary.
01:36I watched my dad reach the age of 80, and I saw him slow down.
01:46He couldn't do the same things he did at 50 or 60, but it didn't bother his mental capacity at all.
01:54And then my father died from prostate cancer.
01:56So, I never saw anything I thought was unusual.
02:01Did he talk as swiftly as he used to talk?
02:06No, he didn't.
02:07Did he walk as swiftly?
02:10No, he didn't.
02:11But that is to be expected.
02:13Those of us who reach that age, as I have, we don't walk as often as fast as we used to.
02:21And I may talk as fast as I used to, but we down here in the South don't talk all that fast anyway.
02:27Well, with all due respect, sir, having interviewed you quite often, I don't think there's any comparison between how sharp you are and your ability to talk and answer questions and get dates right, et cetera,
02:42and what we've seen from President Biden, both in that audio, but also throughout 2023, 2024, especially on the debate stage.
02:51Do you think that Joe Biden really would have been able to perform as president all the way through January 2029 when he would have been when he would be 86?
03:02Yes, I thought that back then.
03:07I still think that, but I don't know that.
03:12When people ask me, did I know this or did I know the other, and the fact of the matter is, no, I didn't.
03:18And that's, you make my point here.
03:21So, it's not all about age.
03:23I've seen people develop Alzheimer's when they're in their 30s and 40s.
03:30So, it's not about age.
03:31It's about the ability to do the job.
03:35And I never saw anything that allowed me to think that Joe Biden was not able to do the job.
03:42It's just that simple.
03:43The debate didn't make you concerned about whether or not he could do the job?
03:49Absolutely, it did.
03:51I never saw any of that.
03:53I didn't see the tapes from her interview.
03:56And I watched that debate, and you and I talked about it.
04:01And, yes, I was concerned.
04:04Now, the question is, is this a condition or is this an incident?
04:09And I have had incidents when I was looking for my glasses and had them on.
04:14So, you have these kinds of incidents, and that's the question is.
04:18And then, remember, a lot of us were a bit concerned about his schedule in the run-up to the debate.
04:25He took two overseas trips, came back, and started preparing for that debate.
04:31And I called it at the time preparation overload, because they were cramming into a four- or five-day period the preparation for the debate after taking two overseas trips, which I thought was taxing in and of itself.
04:46And so, these kinds of concerns are out there, but none of us thought that there was anything here that created any suspicions of any prolonged condition.
