THE WASHINGTON POST: Democrats rattled again by fresh claims that Joe Biden’s aides hid ex-president’s frailty

A growing number of Democrats are publicly second-guessing their party’s handling of the last election, acknowledging that former president Joe Biden’s delayed withdrawal was damaging and in some cases conceding they were too quick to dismiss questions about his age and mental acuity.

The criticism, and self-criticism, comes as a new book — Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson — blames Democrats’ defeat in large part on Biden’s aides who, it asserts, hid the extent of his decline.

The former president and his supporters forcefully reject that notion. But the renewed questions, along with Mr Biden’s public comments responding to those claims, are sending shivers through a Democratic Party still traumatised by November’s loss to Donald Trump.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), an outspoken supporter of Mr Biden before he ended his reelection campaign last summer, acknowledged in a statement to The Washington Post on Wednesday that he had been mistaken in backing the former president’s reelection.

“In my few interactions at public events, I found him coherent and proud of his record, but it is now painfully obvious he should not have run,” Mr Khanna said. “We should have had an open primary. We must acknowledge this truth to regain trust with the American people.”

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear - a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028 - said in an interview Wednesday that it would have helped the party if Mr Biden had ended his reelection bid earlier than July. “In retrospect, if the president was going to drop out, dropping out earlier would have give any candidate a little more time,” Mr Beshear said.

He suggested, too, that Democrats would have had a better chance if their nominee, then-vice president Kamala Harris, had drawn clear distinctions with Mr Biden. “It would also have taken a campaign willing to break with the president on certain issues,” Mr Beshear said.

The flare-up comes at a particularly inconvenient time for Democrats, who believe the political tides are beginning to shift their way after the onslaught of Mr Trump’s first few months. Democratic leaders are now seeking to focus on a Republican spending bill, which they say will slash Medicaid, and on the potential economic chaos unleashed by Trump’s tariffs.

Mr Biden, they note, left office four months ago, was not the party’s candidate in 2024 and will presumably never run again. Mr Trump, in contrast, has only begun a four-year term that Democrats say is already causing irreparable damage.

But other Democrats contend that party leaders should state openly that Biden should never have sought reelection. Such a confession is needed to regain the trust of voters, they say, given that Americans retain doubts about the Democratic Party even as they sour on Trump.

Mr Khanna came to Biden’s defence in February 2024 after then-special counsel Robert K. Hur issued a report saying he would not prosecute Mr Biden for mishandling classified documents in part because a jury would see the president as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Democrats were infuriated by what they saw as an unfair shot at Mr Biden, and Mr Khanna appeared on CNN to rebut the description. “I’ve seen the president twice in the past two weeks. I’ve had a conversation with him. He’s completely mentally sharp,” Khanna said.

Former Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, who ran against Mr Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary and then served in his Cabinet, said in remarks this week that the party would likely have been better off if Mr Biden had not run.

“Maybe. Right now, with the benefit of hindsight, I think most people would agree that that’s the case,” Buttigieg, a potential presidential candidate in 2028, told reporters Tuesday. “We’re also not in a position to wallow in hindsight. We’ve got to get ready for some fundamental tests for the future of the country and this party.”

Original Sin includes several evocative anecdotes, asserting that in a June 2024 meeting Biden did not recognise actor George Clooney, whom he had known for years, and that at one point aides discussed whether Biden should use a wheelchair in his second term.

A spokesperson for Mr Biden’s office said the authors did not fact-check the book with them, adding that they would not respond to individual assertions as they trickle out.

“We continue to await anything that shows where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or where national security was threatened or where he was unable to do his job,” the spokesperson said. “In fact, the evidence points to the opposite - he was a very effective president.”

Mr Biden in recent days has appeared on BBC News and on ABC’s The View, offering sharp criticism of Mr Trump’s opening stretch and a defence of his own record. He also gave a speech last month criticising the president’s handling of social security.

Some Democrats fret that such appearances play into Mr Trump’s determination to continue using Mr Biden as a foil. But Sen. Dick Durbin (Illinois), the second-ranking Senate Democrat, said that with Mr Trump attacking him several times a day, it is natural that Mr Biden would want to defend his reputation.

“He is more assertive than most former presidents, that’s for sure,” said Mr Durbin, who announced last month he was not running for re-election. “But he is facing criticisms from the Trump administration about things that happened and didn’t happen on his watch that are unprecedented. So I can understand his sense of defending his own name and his own reputation.”

Jaime Harrison, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Democrats now engaged in second-guessing are being disloyal for political gain. Biden “is off the scene now, so there are no repercussions for what they now claim is being bold,” Mr Harrison said.

“Was Joe Biden old? Yes. He acknowledged it. He was old. But he went through the process,” Mr Harrison said. “Had other people gotten in, then it could have been very different. But nobody decided to do that. So, don’t get a backbone now after you decided not to get in.”

Many Democratic leaders are brushing off questions about whether they suspected that Biden, who turned 82 last November, might not have been up to the job, saying they are focused not on the past but on the future - blocking Trump’s initiatives and winning the 2026 midterm elections.

Asked Tuesday at a news conference whether he was being forthright about Biden’s limitations, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) did not answer directly. “Look, we’re just looking forward,” he said.

Dick Harpootlian, former chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party and a long-time Biden supporter, said he blamed Democrats around the president who put “pressure on him to get out” but did not have a plan.

“I think people realize now that Joe Biden in a wheelchair would have been better than what we have right now,” said Harpootlian. “This is the blame game, and the Democratic Party doesn’t appear to be waking up.”

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-California) said that if Mr Biden’s aides put the best spin on his abilities, that was not a scandal but their job.

“Look, what do you expect from flacks and hacks?” Sherman said. “I’ve got a press secretary, and I’m sure he told you I am the most brilliant incisive man to ever walk the planet. If he didn’t, he’s fired. Of course the people who worked for the president said he is brilliant.”

David Axelrod, a longtime Democratic strategist and close adviser to former president Barack Obama, said the loyalty shown by Biden’s aides may have been sincere, but that did not excuse it.

“I think they were motivated by a belief in him, by a belief to see him continue,” Mr Axelrod said on NPR. “But it was an irresponsible decision on his part, and I have to say on his family’s part.”

The issue’s reemergence makes it likely that any Democratic presidential hopeful in 2028 will be challenged on how they viewed Biden in 2024 and what they said about it.

One potential candidate, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, told CNN that in his meetings with Mr Biden he saw nothing to make him doubt the then-president’s abilities. “I never had the experience of anything other than a guy who brought to the table a lot of good ideas about how to solve problems,” he said Tuesday.

Jill Biden, who appeared with her husband on “The View,” was even more forceful than her husband in defending him against any suggestion that his abilities were faltering at the end of his tenure.

“The people who wrote those books were not in the White House with us,” the former first lady said. “They did not see how hard Joe worked every single day. … I think he was a great president. If you look at things today, give me Joe Biden anytime.”