Biden's inner circle 'convinced themselves' he was capable to run for re-election, author Chris Whipple says
Author Chris Whipple said Wednesday that former President Biden's inner circle "convinced themselves" that former President Biden was able to run for re-election, despite the evidence that Biden wasn't up to the job.
Whipple explained that a lot of people have referred to the events leading up to former Vice President Kamala Harris taking Biden's spot at the top of the ticket as a "cover-up" orchestrated by the people closest to the president. However, Whipple argued that it was worse.
"The truth is actually stranger than that, and wilder than that. And it is that Biden’s inner circle, some of them you saw on camera just now, convinced themselves, in spite of all the evidence around them, they convinced themselves that Joe Biden could run for re-election and that he was capable of governing for another four years. I know this because I spent so much time talking to his inner circle. Mike Donilon, Ron Klain, all the others. They convinced themselves that Joe Biden could do it, and it’s astounding," Whipple told Fox News on Wednesday.
His new book, titled "Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History," which was released on Tuesday, recounted behind-the-scenes conflicts between members of the Democratic Party and the Biden administration over whether the former president needed to step out of the 2024 race after his disastrous debate with then-candidate Donald Trump on June 27.
Klain said Biden was "out of it" and "exhausted" during debate preparation in June, according to Whipple's book.
The author wrote that Klain "was startled," adding, "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."
"In spite of all that, Ron Klain was fighting three weeks later to keep him in the race. It's an amazing story," Whipple told Fox News host Dana Perino on "America's Newsroom."
According to Whipple, ABC News host George Stephanopoulos said his post-debate interview with former President Biden in June was "heartbreaking up close."
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Whipple said Stephanopoulos' questioning of the former president was "gentle."
Whipple described Biden as "hoarse and semi-coherent" throughout the interview and noted Stephanopoulos was equally disappointed.
"Stephanopoulos questioned the president gently, like a grandson," Whipple wrote. "Afterward, when I asked the ABC anchor by email for his impressions, he replied: ‘Heartbreaking up close.’"
Whipple maintained during the discussion that Biden was able to govern in a narrow sense.
"The morning of his abdication on July 21st, he was on the phone parsing the details of a multi-nation prisoner swap. This is a guy who could do that. And yet he was a shadow of himself on the campaign trail. And that’s why they were hiding him," the author said.
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"From day one, this really came down, in my view, from Anita Dunn and the entire White House comms team. They were overprotective," he added.