Washington:
The White House on Friday fiercely pushed back against a brutal special counsel report that painted Joe Biden as old and forgetful, calling it an election-year political blow to the president.
US Vice President Kamala Harris called the scathing report “politically motivated” while White House spokesman Ian Sams called it “gratuitous and inappropriate” as they tried to do it justice Question.
Biden declined to answer questions about the report on Friday when he hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the Oval Office for talks on Ukraine, but the night before he had reacted angrily to its findings. response.
The investigation cleared the 81-year-old Democrat of illegally keeping confidential documents in his home and garage, but labeled him a “well-meaning old man with a short memory.”
Biden’s supporters and aides rushed to his defense on Friday over issues that have left him vulnerable in his bid for re-election in November, likely against Republican Donald Trump.
Asked about the report, Harris said: “The characterization of the president’s conduct in the report is completely factually incorrect and clearly politically motivated.”
“I don’t think he knows he’s alive,” Trump, 77, said of Biden’s mental state in a rambling speech at a National Rifle Association event on Friday.
“Unprovoked and inappropriate”
Amid questions about Biden’s mental acuity, Harris has also been in the spotlight because she would be the first to successfully serve as president if he resigned or became incapacitated.
Both Biden and Harris have low approval ratings as they bid for another four years in the White House.
The White House’s strategy appears to be to begin directly targeting special counsel Robert Hur, a Republican who was appointed U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland by then-President Trump in 2017.
But it was Biden’s own attorney general, Merrick Garland, who appointed Hull as special prosecutor in the documents case.
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, who scored a notable victory in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania in the 2022 midterm elections, said Hull has an agenda as a “Trump appointee.”
“It’s just slander and a cheap attack,” he said of the report.
Facing a series of questions from reporters, Sams, a spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office, said that the report contained “unwarranted and inappropriate criticism.”
He stopped short of calling Hall partisan but said the investigators felt pressure “beyond the scope of their authority” because of the polarization of U.S. politics.
“We’re in a very stressful political environment. When you’re the first special prosecutor in history to not prosecute anyone, there’s pressure to criticize,” he said.
‘angry’
Other allies also jumped to the president’s defense. Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said criticism of Biden’s age and frailty was not “realistic.”
She described him as a “mentor” and added: “No one in this building will say what we have seen in this report about his memory.”
Republicans have called on Biden to resign. Trump, who faces criminal charges for withholding classified documents and refusing to cooperate with investigators, has accused the Justice Department of double standards.
Biden issued an angry response of his own at the White House on Thursday night, specifically lambasting the special counsel’s claim that he couldn’t remember when his son Beau died.
Sams added: “To say he doesn’t remember when his son died is really outrageous.”
But the president compounded his problems by confusing the presidents of Egypt and Mexico while making sharp remarks to reporters who questioned the report.
Democratic Congressman Adam Smith acknowledged that Biden’s remarks “didn’t go well” because he was “angry” and suggested his campaign must do a better job of delivering its election message.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
