Political analyst Mark Halperin left Democratic Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet struggling to answer on Tuesday when pressing him about his awareness of former President Joe Biden’s “mental decline.”
While Bennet on CNN in July became the first senator to publicly say Biden could lose to President Donald Trump “in a landslide” following his cataclysmic June debate performance, he did not mention the former president’s cognitive issues. On “Next Up With Mark Halperin,” Halperin asked the senator why he thought Biden should not have run for a second term.
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“Should he not have run because of mental decline or for some other reason?” the host asked.
“I think he shouldn’t have run because he was — he was — I think that he had gotten to a point — I wouldn’t say a mental decline — but of, of, of, of, of decline that put him in a position of not being able to wage a vigorous campaign against Donald Trump,” Bennet answered. “And there’s no way you can beat Donald Trump unless you can wage a vigorous campaign. And he couldn’t do it.”
Halperin asked the senator why he would not use the term “mental decline” and whether he had observed Biden cognitively diminishing in public.
“I didn’t see — well, look, when I — the first thing that I really saw, other than one visit to the White House on an immigration matter, that was about, I think, six weeks before this, was when I saw his debate with Donald Trump,” Bennet asserted. “And I think I was the first Democrat to publicly say on network television that we were going to lose in a landslide if he stayed at the top of the ticket.”
Halperin noted that Bennet gave “a common answer,” pushing back by saying Biden exhibited cognitive decline in public and often avoided the media.
“He had once addressed a dead congresswoman at an event meant to honor her as if she were there. He was sequestered from the media, talked to the media far less often even in 2020, including 2024,” the political analyst said. “I don’t think you needed to see anything secret or private or that debate to see mental decline. Do you not agree with that?”
“Well, I think that, again, I have not made a personal assessment, you know, at that time, certainly, of Joe Biden’s mental decline,” Bennet responded. “I think he was not in a position to wage a vigorous campaign against Trump, whether it was mental or physical, and we paid a heavy price for his decision to run again.”
Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in April also struggled on “Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso” to defend her claims that Biden was mentally fit.
“You know, the thing is, he — look, he was sharp. He was on his feet,” Warren said. “I saw him [at a] live event. I had meetings with him a couple of times.”
“Senator, ‘on his feet’ is not praise,” host Sam Fragoso fired back. “‘He can speak in sentences’ is not praise.”
Moreover, former Vice President Kamala Harris still denied Biden demonstrated any cognitive decline even after taking his position as the Democratic presidential nominee.
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