CNN anchor Brianna Keilar pressed former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday over her views of former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.
While Biden reportedly suffered cognitive issues during his sole term as president, Jean-Pierre has repeatedly downplayed his decline. Keilar noted on “CNN News Central” that her fellow CNN anchor Jake Tapper even co-authored a book on Biden’s decline, finding that cabinet officials felt he would not be dependable at 2 a.m. in an emergency situation and that he did not recognize actor George Clooney at a fundraiser.
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“I mean, we’re talking 2023, 2024. Why didn’t you have concerns?” Keilar asked. “Why didn’t you raise them?”
“So I did not have any concerns. I saw him on a daily basis, Brianna,” Jean-Pierre said. “You know that. I saw him every day. I engaged with him every day.”
While Jean-Pierre acknowledged Biden “showed age,” she claimed he was “sharp.”
“This is a president that pushed his staff. This is a president that was on top of what the policies [were] that he cared about, that were important to the American people,” she said. “And let’s not forget, he also was leading a coalition, an international coalition when it came to something that we hadn’t seen in decades, when it came to the war in Ukraine. There was a lot going on.”
As Jean-Pierre rambled on about what she claimed was Biden’s successful presidency and justified her defense of the former president’s mental acuity, Keilar cut her off to say she was not addressing her questions.
“Do you think he should be president right now? Do you think that he is capable right now of being president?” the CNN host asked. “Because that was what you were advocating for: someone who would be president in his current state until 2029.”
“Yeah. I did not see anything that concerned me when he decided to run for president. I did not. This is someone that I saw every single day. Again, he was on top of the policies,” Jean-Pierre said. “He was sharp. He was someone that cared about what the outcome of the issues that were in front of the American people [were] and what we were doing. I’m speaking from my own personal opinion. I’m speaking from what I saw on a day-to-day basis.”
In addition to Biden’s reported mental struggles, his personal office announced in May that he had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. However, doctors and cancer experts told The Daily Caller shortly after the announcement that Biden likely had the disease during his entire tenure as president.
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