Bill Clinton defends Biden's mental acuity on The View — and blames bad staffing
Former President Bill Clinton defended former President Joe Biden, speaking to "The View" on Thursday, and blamed bad staffing for a poor debate performance.
Promoting a new fictional book co-written with James Patterson, Clinton was asked about President Donald Trump and Biden.
"First of all, he's done his best to implement that White House [Project] 2025 report that he said he never read, which may be true, but," he said as the audience laughed. "I don't mean that disrespectfully. I mean, that's what he wanted to do, and he's doing it."
Co-host Joy Behar said that Trump promised he wouldn't implement the plan.
"Yeah, he said, don't read that. Don't pay any attention to that. But he always does that. So, people pretty much knew what they were getting," Clinton said. "They would get, you know, new and unprecedented actions against immigrants, legal and otherwise, and a humongous tax cut. But I think there's been more of what they thought they'd get on the tariffs, the taxes, the immigrants, and other things. I think there's even more of it than they expected."
He also blamed Congress for refusing to tell Trump, "no." The Senate, he said, may ultimately stop him "because they have a broader electorate."
But it was former Trump communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin's question about Biden and whether Clinton gives any credence to reports that Biden was slipping mentally.
"Well, I think you have to pay attention to them, but all I can say is whenever I was around him, his mind was clear, his judgment was good, and he was on top of his briefs," said Clinton. "But look what — look at that debate, for example. What happened in the ten days before his debate, and what were the White House staff thinking? He went to Europe and back twice, and then he went to California once. And he was 80 years old. What the heck is he doing that for?"
Behar also recalled that Biden was ill during the debate.
"So, why was that allowed to happen? So, there's a lot of questions. All I know is I think we should think less about that and more about the future," Clinton said.
He went on to recall former President Ronald Reagan, "who had clear signs of Alzheimer's in his last two years." He also mentioned President Woodrow Wilson, who had a stroke while in office and wasn't making any decisions. "His wife made them."