Audio of interview confirms Biden memory lapses

Newly released audio of a special counsel interviewing then-President Biden confirms memory lapses that White House officials denied at the time.

Newly released audio of a special counsel interviewing then-President joe Biden confirms memory lapses that White House officials denied at the time, including a president clearly struggling to remember the year his oldest son died.

Even after the transcript was released, Biden aides, including then-White House spokesman Ian Sams, insisted that the president did not forget the year that his son Beau died of brain cancer. The audio shows that Biden struggled to remember the year and had to be prompted by his lawyers, who were sitting in the interview with him.

The recording of the interview was first released by Axios.

Sams did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The audio of Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur is likely to fuel a growing debate among Democrats and others about whether there was a concerted effort to cover up the president’s diminished mental capacity, as well as whether that contributed to the party’s 2024 defeat at the polls. It also comes as several new books offer insight into what many behind the scenes knew.