'It's a Problem:' Democrats Assess the 8-Word Biden Slam

Thursday was former President Trump's "best day of 2024," writes Zachary B. Wolf in an analysis at CNN. He not only had a great day at the Supreme Court and racked up more delegates, he received an unexpected political bonanza from a special counsel who referred to President Biden as a "well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory." The criticism of the 81-year-old Biden has renewed a "feeding frenzy" in regard to concerns about his age:

• Examples: Special counsel Robert Hur calls Biden's memory "significantly limited," and says the president got facts wrong regarding the dates of his vice presidency, fighting in Afghanistan, and even about son Beau's death. Politico Playbook has the details. An indignant Biden fired back, as did other Democrats. And Biden's lawyers said Hur uses "highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events."

• A slip: Hours after the report came out, an angry Biden referred to the president of Egypt as the president of Mexico in a press conference. That, combined with Hur's "elderly man" line, "captured the fears of Democrats who hold their breath when Mr. Biden appears in public," notes the New York Times. As David Axelrod puts it: "The most damaging things in politics are the things that confirm people's pre-existing suspicions, and those are the things that travel very fast. It's a problem."
• Too far? "DOJ guidelines make clear that if you're not bringing charges you don't bash the subject of the investigation in your announcement," and Hur failed to meet that standard, writes Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. But "there's no crying in baseball," he adds. "The White House will need to get Biden in front of interviewers, where he actually does quite well, and in widely seen venues, to counter it. It's really as simple as that."
• But 'very effective': Hur is a US attorney in Maryland appointed by Trump, and he was chosen as special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland in the classified documents case to avoid the appearance of bias, notes David A. Graham in the Atlantic. "Biden's attorneys have a point: The report does seem written in such a way as to make Biden look bad," he writes. "The problem for Biden is that it is very effective at it."
• Big question: The conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal takes Hur at his word. "If Mr. Biden is that forgetful, how can he fulfill his presidential duties for another four years?" the editors ask. "Democrats have some hard thinking to do about his candidacy."
• Telling excerpt: Axios has an excerpt from American Woman, a new book about first ladies by the New York Times' Katie Rogers, that includes an example from Jan. 19, 2022. Biden gave a two-hour news conference that day during which he made multiple factual errors. "Why didn't anyone stop that?" Jill Biden scolded top aides afterward. Rogers describes Jill Biden as her husband's "fiercest protector."

(More President Biden stories.)