As President Joe Biden and his allies work to rebut the most damning claims about his memory contained in special counsel Robert Hur’s report, they are pointing to the timing of his interview to demonstrate a leader preoccupied with world events rather than instant historical recall.
Biden sat for the interview on October 8 and 9, as he was consumed with the fallout of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. In that stretch of days, Biden spoke by telephone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, convened meetings with his national security team and delivered statements on the situation in the Middle East.
“I was in the middle of handling an international crisis,” Biden said Thursday about an hour after the report was released.
His written statement made a similar point.
“I was so determined to give the Special Counsel what they needed that I went forward with five hours of in-person interviews over two days on October 8th and 9th of last year, even though Israel had just been attacked on October 7th and I was in the middle of handling an international crisis,” Biden wrote in a statement Thursday.
In a letter to the special counsel, Biden’s lawyers sought to put his interview in that context.
“In the lead up to the interview, the President was conducting calls with heads of state, Cabinet members, members of Congress, and meeting repeatedly with his national security team,” White House counsel Richard Sauber and Biden personal attorney Bob Bauer wrote a five-page letter to Hur on Monday, saying that raising issues with Biden’s memory was “entirely superfluous.”
