Things got very awkward for House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) when he appeared on Wolf Blitzer’s program on CNN and got utterly wrecked by the host for his role in covering up President Biden’s obvious physical and mental decline. Making the incident all the worse was that Jeffries failed to even answer Blitzer’s questions.
As background, recently revealed excerpts from the upcoming book “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” by authors Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson revealed that not only were Biden’s aides considering putting him in a wheelchair, but he didn’t recognize actor George Clooney despite Clooney hosting a fundraiser for him.
Describing the incident where Biden failed to recognize someone he knew well, one insider told the authors, according to an excerpt, “It was not O.K. That thing, the moment where you recognize someone you know —especially a famous person who’s doing a f—ing fundraiser for you — it was delayed. It was uncomfortable.” The book notes of the incident, “Clooney was shaken to his core. The President hadn’t recognized him, a man he had known for years. Clooney had expressed concern about Biden’s health before—a White House aide had told him a few months before that they were working on getting the President to take longer steps when he walked—but obviously the problem went far beyond his gait. This was much graver.”
Asking Jeffries about that incident and the book that reported on it, Blitzer asked, “From the book, President Biden didn’t even recognize George Clooney at a fundraiser, the movie star was actually hosting for him. Why should voters trust Democrats when it’s clear so many in your party went to great lengths to keep Biden’s condition hidden, hidden from the public?”
Jeffries refused to answer, trying to dodge the question by saying he was focused on the future. He said, “I can’t tell you what happened between George Clooney and President Biden that wasn’t at that event. What I can say is that we’re not looking back what we’re going to continue to look forward, because at this moment, we’ve got real problems that need to be addressed on behalf of the American people, including the Republican effort to snatch away health care, snatch away food assistance and hurt veterans.”
Blitzer fired back by noting that Jeffries had been around Biden during his final days as president, saying, “You interacted with President Biden during those days, those final days he was President of the United States. Did you see? Did you sense there was a major deterioration?”
Once again, Jeffries refused to answer and instead rambled about Biden’s decision to step down, saying, “Well, in the conversations that I was able to have on behalf of the House Democratic Caucus in those final days, we simply expressed our perspective as to what would be best for the party at that given moment in time, President Biden subsequently made the decision that he was going to pass the baton to Vice President Kamala Harris. Of course, that was a decision that we supported strongly.”
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He was then asked the same question about trust again, with Blitzer co-host Pamela Brown asking, “Just very quickly, I want to ask you, Congressman Jeffries, you know, you say we’re not looking back, looking forward, but what happened in the past has to do with what’s going to happen in the future, and whether voters can trust Democrats. As you look back, you are in a leadership position. When President Biden decided to run again, should you have done more at that point to intervene?”
Jeffries again refused to answer, saying, “It’s a great question in terms of whether voters can trust Democrats or not. Every single high profile special election that has taken place since President Trump was inaugurated, a special election victory in Iowa in January, a special election victory in New York in February, a special election victory in Pennsylvania in March, a special election victory In Wisconsin in the Supreme Court race in April and yesterday, decisively defeating a Republican incumbent in Omaha, in a surprise to many observers, clearly, voters are trusting Democrats this year when they go to the ballot, repeatedly rejecting MAGA extremism.”
Watch the incident here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video