The secrets behind former US President Joe Biden's mental and physical condition are beginning to be revealed.
In a new book called "Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History," Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff during Biden's tenure, reveals some of the behind-the-scenes secrets about Biden's condition.
Klain was interviewed by the book's author, Chris Whipple, and spoke about the preparations for the televised debate between Trump and Biden. “If he looked perplexed when Trump talked, voters would understand that Trump was an idiot. Klain replied: ‘Sir, when you look perplexed, people just think you’re perplexed. And this is our problem in this race.'”
Whipple described Klain’s first pre-election meeting with Biden, ahead of the televised debate with Trump. “In his first meeting with Biden at Aspen Lodge, the president’s cabin, Klain was startled. He’d never seen him so exhausted and out of it. Biden was unaware of what was happening in his own campaign. Halfway through the session, the president excused himself and went off to sit by the pool."
That evening Biden met again with Klein and his team. "‘We sat around the table,’ said Klain. ‘[Biden] had answers on cards, and he was just extremely exhausted. And I was struck by how out of touch with American politics he was. He was just very, very focused on his interactions with NATO leaders.’”
According to Whipple, Klain, “wondered half-seriously if Biden thought he was president of Nato instead of the US. ‘He just became very enraptured with being the head of Nato,’ he said. That wouldn’t help him on Capitol Hill because, as Klain noted, ‘domestic political leaders don’t really care what [Emmanuel] Macron and [Olaf] Scholz think.’”
Biden’s team then tried to organize two mock TV debates, to practice with the president before the real one. The debates were supposed to last 90 minutes, but Biden withdrew after 45 minutes in the first mock debate, and after only 25 minutes in the second.
"I’m just too tired to continue and I’m afraid of losing my voice here and I feel bad," Biden said. "I just need some sleep. I’ll be fine tomorrow."
“The president was fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged. Klain feared the debate with Trump would be a nationally televised disaster,” Whipple stated. The June debate was indeed disastrous for Biden, and played a role in the Democratic Party's move to force Biden to withdraw from the presidential race a few weeks later.
