Biden audio from special counsel interview highlights frequent memory lapses, difficulty staying on topic

Former President Joe Biden’s sprawling interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur laid bare his fading memory and apparent difficulty staying on topic, as audio from the October 2023 discussion revealed he frequently veered off course into lengthy anecdotes while being questioned about his handling of classified documents.The generally upbeat and affable then-80-year-old president often cracked jokes, waxed nostalgic and used saucy language — but also rambled, trailed off and often forgot the dates of key events in his life — including when his son, Beau, died of brain cancer — the audio showed.The audio, which was first obtained by Axios this week after nearly 18 months of Biden’s camp refusing to release it, sheds light on Hur’s assertion from last year that if Biden was brought to trial over the classified documents row they would perceive him as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” though no charges were ever filed.The now-82-year-old’s flimsy grasp of facts and dates was especially apparent when responding to Hur’s question about where he kept documents related to projects he was working on after his vice presidency ended in 2017, when the Bidens moved into a rented estate on Chain Island Road in McLean, Va.“Well, um… I, I, I, I, I don’t know.

This is what, 2017? 2018? That area?”“Yes, sir,” Hur confirmed.“Remember, in this timeframe, my son is — either been deployed or is dying, and so it was — and by the way, there were still a lot of people at the time when I got out of the Senate that were encouraging me to run in this period, except the president.I’m not — and not a mean thing to say.

He just thought [Hillary Clinton] had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did.”Beau Biden, in fact, was deployed in Iraq from October 2008 to October 2009, and died May 30, 2015.The mention of Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate pegs the timeframe he was referencing as sometime before A...