"My memory is fine": a furious Joe Biden calls an evening press conference at the White House to attack the special prosecutor Robert Hur, who exonerated him not without criticizing his management of classified papers and his serious senile forgetfulness, but slips into yet another gaffe on world live broadcast, confusing the Egyptian president Al Sisi with the Mexican one.
It is the third gaffe in three consecutive days, after exchanging Macron with Mitterrand and Merkel with Kohl.
Too many, even for what a Washington Post political commentator dubbed in 2019 "a Lamborghini of gaffes", after the year before Biden himself had defined himself as "a gaffe machine".
So much so that now in the Democratic Party we are starting to seriously worry about the conditions of the oldest president in American history (81 years old) and the risk that his campaign could be compromised by the growing signs of his physical and mental vulnerability.
The White House chooses to play offense against Hur, who was promoted to prosecutor by Donald Trump.
His comments on Biden's age and memory in the final report of the investigation are "gratuitous, inappropriate and beyond the pale", the result "of political pressure mounted by Republicans", accuses White House legal spokesman Ian Sams .
"The way the president's behavior was characterized in that report could not be more wrong with the facts and is clearly politically motivated," Vice President Kamala Harris added.
But the commander in chief's rivals seized the opportunity.
Criticizing not only the double standards of a justice that spares Biden but tries Trump for the secret Mar-a-Lago papers (although the special prosecutor himself has highlighted the differences) but also the memory deficits of a man who he does not remember key dates in his life.
Like the duration of his vice presidency or when his beloved son Beau died.
"Double standards", attacked the tycoon, who is enjoying his best day of 2024 with the almost certainty of not being excluded from the vote by the Supreme Court and with his fourth consecutive victory in the Republican presidential primaries, after having won the caucuses in Nevada (where he ran alone) and in the Virgin Islands (74% to 26 against Nikki Haley).
In the meantime, several Republican parliamentarians loyal to him are calling for Biden's removal by invoking the 25th amendment, the one introduced after Jfk's assassination to replace the US president in the event of his death, dismissal, resignation or incapacity.
The leaders of the Grand Old Party are more cautious for now, even if the speaker of the House Mike Johnson has already defined Biden as "unfit for the Oval Office" after Hur's report.
Haley asked that she undergo a mental competency test to share with the public but also extended the criticism to the 77-year-old Trump: "Can you tell the difference between Egypt and Mexico or between Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley? Biden and Trump don't they succeed, and I think America can do better,” his campaign says, referring to the gaffes of the two leaders.
As for the special prosecutor's report on the handling of classified documents when he was a senator and vice president, Biden said he was satisfied to have been completely acquitted of any crime and wanted to underline the difference with Trump.
In the case, "I collaborated with the justice system, testifying for five hours in two days, 8 and 9 October, in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel, therefore in the midst of an international crisis. Trump, on the contrary, lied and did not cooperate,” Biden attacked, denying that he had shared classified papers and had kept them recklessly (as documented by the photos in the report).
However, what made the commander-in-chief furious were Hur's comments on his memory problems, in particular the fact that he would not remember the date of the death of his son Beau, struck down by cancer at 45. years.
“How dare you?”, he declared visibly shaken.
"I don't need anyone to remind me when my son died: I remember every minute, every instant of that day," he assured.
Then he quipped to Fox's hostile White House correspondent: "Maybe my memory is bad because I let you ask me a question."
It's a shame that as he was leaving he took a reporter's question about Israel and turned back, disastrously falling into the gaffe about Al Sisi.
For further information ANSA Agency Biden 'should not be indicted', but there is embarrassment over the secret papers: 'Forgetful elderly person' - News - Ansa.it The report of the special prosecutor Hur: 'Poorly kept documents' (ANSA)
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