Closing summary
Democrats and Joe Biden’s administration spent the day downplaying and dismissing concerns about the president’s age raised in a report by special counsel Robert Hur, which found that Biden had willfully retained classified documents – but shouldn’t be charged, in part given that a jury could find him too old and doddering to be culpable. Here’s what happened at a glance:
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has defended Joe Biden’s fitness to serve and ability to remember details. She said: “This is a president that … has had relationships with world leaders for more than 40 years,” after Biden yesterday evening mixed up the names of the presidents of Mexico and Egypt. “Has he misspoken, as many of us [have]?” She added: “He gets it. He gets how he’s viewed. He gets what people see and what’s written about him and what the American people also see. But there are other things to know.”
Ian Sams, the White House spokesman for investigations, blamed Republicans’ attacks on prosecutors for the special counsel’s report. He noted that Hur’s comments came after months of attacks on the justice department and prosecutors elsewhere by the GOP. He said: “For the past few years, Republicans in Congress and elsewhere have been attacking prosecutors who aren’t doing what Republicans want politically. … That reality creates a ton of pressure.”
Former Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer called the report a “partisan hit job.” “I fear – and I hope I am wrong – that unlike most of the marginalia that excites political junkies, the Special Counsel’s descriptions of Biden will break through to the public at large,” wrote Pfeiffer in his newsletter.
Vice President Kamala Harris weighed in, too, saying the special counsel’s comments were “politically motivated” and blasting Hur’s comments as “gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate.”
The spectacle is playing out in the states, too: Wisconsin Democrats joined in to defend the president, brushing aside concerns about Biden’s memory and instead praising his policy record. “Everyone knows we have two older Americans running for president,” congressman Mark Pocan told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “The difference is one has accomplished much with that life experience and got things done for the American people.”
On a call with reporters, immigration advocates warned that the rhetoric coming from Donald Trump and Republicans was putting their communities at risk, writes the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino.
“The toxicity that has been injected in this debate is fanning the flames of division and doing that has consequences,” said Clarissa Martinez de Castro, Vice President of the Latino Vote Initiative, UnidosUS. “The consequences of this rhetoric are not an intellectual exercise. They actually have a death toll associated with them.”
Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, accused Republicans of “mainstreaming the dangerous talk of ‘invasion’ and ‘Great Replacement theory’”, and noted that just days ago federal agents arrested a Tennessee militia man who allegedly planning an attack on border agents over fears that the border was being “invaded”.
“They have a very dangerous and divisive narrative that really is inciting people to violence,” she said, adding: “They clearly have not learned a lesson from El Paso, Buffalo and Pittsburgh.”
Cárdenas said it was “problematic” that Biden had adopted some of the right’s language around shutting down the border.
“When he sort of uses the same language as the GOP, that is extremely divisive and not helpful,” she said.
“I do think it’s important for him to say that we have to have a functional system,” she continued. “But it is very worrisome when he starts saying things like, ‘we have to close the border.’ I think that’s hugely damaging. Our hope is that he really forcefully speaks about the contributions of immigrants.”
The New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik said in a CNN interview Thursday evening that she “would not have done what Mike Pence did,” on January 6, 2021, implying she would have declined to certify the presidential electoral votes.
Stefanik’s comments come as the congresswoman, who has risen as a star in the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, vies to be Donald Trump’s running mate in 2024. She previously declined to commit to certify the 2024 presidential election votes, saying she would do so “if this is a legal and valid election.”
Other rightwing Republicans, including Ohio senator JD Vance and Montana congressman Matt Rosendale, have also doubled down on election denialism in recent days. In a video launching his campaign for a seat in the US senate today, Rosendale bragged that he had “voted in support of President Trump’s agenda every single time.”
Mitch McConnell and the Uniparty have controlled the Senate for far too long and are the architects of a $34 trillion debt.
— Matt Rosendale (@MattForMontana) February 9, 2024
It’s time they understand that Montanans don’t take orders from Washington, we send orders to Washington! pic.twitter.com/cUoK9P4aV5
“On January the 6th 2021, I stood with President Trump and voted against the electors,” Rosendale declared.
Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers defended Joe Biden in conversations with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, downplaying concerns about the president’s memory raised in a report by special counsel Robert Hur.
Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin instead emphasized Biden’s policy record, saying Biden has “shown time and again that he fights for Wisconsin’s working families and has a strong record of creating good-paying jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure, and lowering prescription drug prices.” Similarly, Democratic congressman Mark Pocan stated that Biden “got things done for the American people,” while Donald Trump “has used hate to try to divide this nation and in a way unseen before.”
Hur, who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents and concluded the president had willfully retained national security information, recommended against bringing charges against the president, saying Biden would come across to a jury as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.
A Wednesday poll by Marquette University Law School found Trump and Biden in a dead heat in Wisconsin, with each carrying the support of 49% of registered voters.
Perhaps the most interesting result in the Biden v. Trump breakdown in the @MULawPoll. Those who "somewhat disapprove" of POTUS still back him against Trump. These "Begrudging Biden Voters" could decide the winner of Wisconsin's 10 coveted electoral votes. https://t.co/UZIoFx2JxR pic.twitter.com/6znhZMMsUh
— Dan Shafer (@DanRShafer) February 9, 2024
Updated
The day so far
The White House is fighting back against special counsel Robert Hur’s comments that Joe Biden struggled to remember details of his life and career in an interview for his investigation into his possession of classified documents. Kamala Harris accused Hur, who said Biden should not face charges, of being “politically motivated”, while spokesman Ian Sams blamed Republican attacks on the justice department for putting pressure on the special counsel. He also noted that the White House was considering releasing the transcript of Biden’s interview, but has not decided yet.
Here’s what else has happened today:
The contest for the Senate got spicier, when relatively popular Republican Larry Hogan jumped into the contest for deep-blue Maryland’s open seat, and Matt Rosendale filed to unseat Democrat Jon Tester in red state Montana, despite losing to him in 2018.
John Cornyn, an influential Republican senator, said he would support legislation to fund Israel and Ukraine’s military, even if it does not include strict immigration provisions.
‘I’m an elderly man and I know what the hell I’m doing’, Biden told reporters in a surprise speech yesterday evening, after Hur’s report was released.
White House spokeswoman says Biden 'gets how he's viewed', downplays misspeaking
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has defended to reporters Joe Biden’s fitness to serve and ability to remember details, after comments from special counsel Robert Hur and instances of the president mixing up the names of world leaders.
“This is a president that … has had relationships with world leaders for more than 40 years,” Jean-Pierre said, after Biden yesterday evening mixed up the names of the presidents of Mexico and Egypt. “Has he misspoken, as many of us [have]?”
She also said Biden, 81, understands that voters are aware of his advanced age.
“He gets it. He gets how he’s viewed. He gets what people see and what’s written about him and what the American people also see. But there are other things to know,” Jean-Pierre said, referring to reports that former Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy considered the president a sharp negotiator.
Updated
Before he departed the podium, Ian Sams shared an unpublished detail of the report that he indicated supports Joe Biden’s argument that he was distracted when he spoke to the special counsel Robert Hur.
“What’s interesting about this, and this is oddly not in the report … at the beginning of his interview, the special counsel told the president: ‘I understand that you’re dealing with a lot of things right now, and I’m going to be asking you questions about stuff from a long time ago. I want you to try to recall to the best of your abilities.’ You know, things of that nature,” Sams said.
“That’s often what prosecutors would tell witnesses. So, you know, he understood that but the president was going to commit to being cooperative. He talked about this last night. He wanted to make sure he had everything he needed, and he didn’t want to throw up roadblocks.”
Updated
White House spokesman says memory characterizations in report 'not accurate'
The White House spokesman Ian Sams noted his disagreement with the special counsel Robert Hur’s description’s of Joe Biden’s ability to recall details.
“I dispute that the characterizations about his memory in the report are accurate, because they’re not. And I think the president spoke very clearly about how his mind was on other things. I mean, he was dealing with a huge international crisis of great global consequence,” Sams said, referencing Biden’s argument that he was preoccupied with the fallout from Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel.
Sams also described interviews by prosecutors as uniquely intense experiences:
I think there’s something important that people should remember about the way that, sort of, interviews like this happen. God forbid, you know, one of you guys ever have to get interviewed by a prosecutor … Witnesses are told, as I mentioned, by special counsel to do the best they can to recall or remember things, and they’re not supposed to speculate. They want facts. They want facts and evidence. And so, you know, I think probably in almost every prosecutorial interview, you can imagine that people have said that they don’t recall things because that’s what they’re instructed to do. So I think that’s just important context.
Updated
Joe Biden plans to appoint a taskforce to review how classified documents are handled during transitions between presidential administrations, White House spokesman Ian Sams said.
The subtext here is that Biden was not alone in possessing classified materials that he should not have. Mike Pence, a fellow former vice-president, also left the White House with government secrets, and was cleared of potential charges last year.
Donald Trump is, of course, facing criminal charges for not only taking classified documents but also hiding them from investigators.
Here’s what Sams had to say about what this new taskforce will do:
We had the issue with President Biden. Immediately after that, we had the issue with Vice-President Pence. And I think it’s important to understand that this is a common occurrence, and the president thinks that we should fix it. Like, he gave all these documents back, he knew … that the government should be in possession of these documents.
And so, what we’re going to do is the president’s gonna appoint a taskforce to review how transitions look at classified material to ensure that there are better processes in place so that when, you know, staffs around the building are roughly packing up boxes to try to get out during a transition as quickly as possible, at the same time … they’re still governing and doing matters of state. They’re going to try to make recommendations that that can be fixed, and he’s going to appoint a senior government leader to do that. We’ll have more on that soon.
Updated
White House spokesman Ian Sams also indicated that it’s possible transcripts of Joe Biden’s interviews with special counsel Robert Hur’s team could be released.
The transcripts could shine some light on some of the more jarring comments about the president’s memory Hur made in his report, such as that he could not recall the years he was vice-president, or when his son, Beau Biden, died.
“I don’t have any announcement on, you know, releasing anything today, but it’s a reasonable question and there are classified stuff and we’ll have to work through,” Sams said, when asked about the possibility of the transcripts’ release.
“We’ll take a look at that and make a determination,” he replied, when a reporter pressed him further.
White House blames Republican attacks on prosecutors for special counsel comments about Biden
Ian Sams, the White House spokesman for investigations, noted that Republican special counsel Robert Hur’s comments about Joe Biden’s memory and age came after months of attacks on the justice department and prosecutors elsewhere by the GOP:
We also need to talk about the environment that we are in. For the past few years, Republicans in Congress and elsewhere have been attacking prosecutors who aren’t doing what Republicans want politically. They have made up claims of a two-tiered system of justice between Republicans and Democrats. They have denigrated the rule of law for political purposes. That reality creates a ton of pressure and in that pressurized political environment, when the inevitable conclusion is that the facts and the evidence don’t support any charges, you’re left to wonder why this report spends time making gratuitous and inappropriate criticisms of the president.
The White House press briefing has started, and spokesman Ian Sams is at the podium.
He is reiterated that special counsel Robert Hur cleared Joe Biden of wrongdoing, and underscored that the president cooperated with his investigation. Thus far, Sams has refrained from condemning Hur’s conduct, as Kamala Harris and others have done.
The Biden administration’s counterattack to special counsel Robert Hur’s comments about the president’s age and memory will continue in a few minutes, when the White House press briefing begins.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will be joined by Ian Sams, the White House spokesman who handles investigations of the president.
We’ll cover what he has to say, and what reporters have to say to him, live here.
Harris says special counsel comments about Biden's memory were 'politically motivated'
Kamala Harris has condemned special counsel Robert Hur’s comments about Joe Biden’s age and memory as “gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate”, and noted that the president’s interview was conducted in the “intense” aftermath of the 7 October terrorist attack in Israel.
The vice-president’s comments were a strong denunciation of the language used by Hur, a Republican former US attorney appointed by attorney general Merrick Garland to investigate the discovery of classified documents at Biden’s personal residences. Hur determined no charges were warranted, but repeatedly noted that Biden could not remember aspects of his life and career in their interview.
Here are Harris’s full remarks:
VP Kamala Harris rips the special counsel’s report into President Biden’s handling of classified documents:
— The Recount (@therecount) February 9, 2024
“The way that the president's demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts, and clearly politically motivated, gratuitous.” pic.twitter.com/DO1M4ompYs
Pennsylvania’s Democratic senator John Fetterman said he believes Joe Biden is still up to the job as president, and criticized comments about his memory made by special counsel Robert Hur.
“The president was very clear in that he is absolutely in full control,” Fetterman said, before turning to Hur’s lengthy report into the classified documents found in Biden’s possession that noted he could not remember some details of his life and career.
“That’s 350 pages to just say that Joe Biden isn’t going to be indicted here. It was just a smear job and cheap shots and just taking things out of context, or even just inventing any of them too,” Fetterman said.
Maryland's Hogan and Montana's Rosendale jump into Senate race, shaking up map
There have been a couple of interesting developments today in the contest to determine whether Democrats can maintain their slim hold on the Senate in November’s election.
Popular former Republican governor Larry Hogan jumped into the race for Maryland’s open seat. While his election would be an upset in a state Joe Biden won with 65% of the vote in 2020, Hogan has proven his ability to win statewide elections in Maryland before, and his candidacy will probably force Democrats to spend money there that they otherwise could have used elsewhere. Here are some thoughts on Hogan’s candidacy, from University of Virginia analyst Kyle Kondik:
Crystal Ball will be moving MD-SEN from Safe Dem to Likely Dem. My guess is Hogan leads early polls but generating the kind of ticket-splitting required is a huge lift -- still a great development for Rs to expand the map a bit. https://t.co/r3hMq5d2mu
— Kyle Kondik (@kkondik) February 9, 2024
Democrats received slightly better news in Montana, a red state where the party is fighting to get senator Jon Tester elected again. Republican congressman Matt Rosendale today made his much-expected bid for Congress’s upper chamber official – but the GOP isn’t particularly happy about it, since Tester beat Rosendale in 2018.
Steve Daines, Montana’s junior senator and the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, had this to say about Rosendale’s entry:
It’s unfortunate that rather than building seniority for our great state in the House, Matt is choosing to abandon his seat and create a divisive primary. Tim Sheehy has my full support because he is the best candidate to take on Jon Tester. Whichever party wins the Montana Senate seat will control the United States Senate in 2024, and Republicans cannot risk nominating a candidate who gave Jon Tester the biggest victory of his career.
Updated
In an interview with CNN, Paul Begala, a former adviser to Democratic president Bill Clinton, characterized special counsel Robert Hur’s report as a real threat to Joe Biden’s re-election.
But he also had some ideas about how the president could turn the situation around:
“I’m a Biden supporter and I slept like a baby last night — I woke up every 2 hours crying and wet the bed. This is terrible for Democrats...anybody with a functioning brain knows that.”
— The Recount (@therecount) February 9, 2024
— @PaulBegala on how much Democrat “bed-wetting” there will be after special counsel report pic.twitter.com/VB2dCxr7BE
Besides Joe Biden’s unscheduled speech, the other big news of yesterday evening was Donald Trump’s victory in Nevada’s Republican caucuses, bringing him another step closer to winning the party’s presidential nomination. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Maanvi Singh:
Donald Trump was anointed the victor of Nevada Republican caucuses, after staunch loyalists in the state helped maneuver the election process to assure his success.
Shortly after the caucuses concluded, the AP confirmed Trump, who was the only major candidate participating, as the winner, capping off a perplexing election week in a key battleground state. Ryan Binkley, a little-known pastor and businessman from Texas, was the only other candidate running.
With Joe Biden having easily secured victory in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, the current and former president are one step closer to a rematch in the November general election. Trump’s victory on Tuesday came on the same day that the US supreme court appeared poised to reject a challenge to his candidacy in Colorado over his attempts to subvert the 2020 election results.
Nevada’s “first in the west” presidential choice contest is usually a crucial milestone for both major parties. But this year’s primaries were a strange and subdued affair, and sparsely attended – only 16% of registered voters in Nevada participated in the primary.
The odd, bifurcated Republican voting system may be partly to blame.
From the Guardian’s Joan E Greve and Lauren Gambino, here’s more on the complex and long-running negotiations in Congress over approving military aid to Ukraine and Israel, and maybe imposing tougher immigration laws:
The Senate on Thursday advanced a wartime aid package for Ukraine and Israel, reviving an effort that had stalled amid Republican opposition to a border security bill they demanded and later abandoned.
A day after blocking a measure that would have paired harsh new border restrictions with security assistance for Ukraine, Israel and other US allies, the Senate voted 67 to 32 to begin consideration of the $95bn emergency aid bill. Several Republicans who voted to block the broader border package agreed to open debate on the foreign policy-only version of the measure after securing the opportunity to propose changes, including the immigration enforcement measures that were stripped out.
With Kyiv begging Washington for help battling Russian forces on the frontline, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, hailed the preliminary vote as a “good first step”. But its prospects remained unclear as Republicans threatened to force a lengthy amendment process.
“Failure to pass this bill would only embolden autocrats like [Russia’s Vladimir] Putin and [China’s] Xi [Jinping], who want nothing more than America’s decline,” Schumer said following the vote. He added: “We are going to keep working on this bill until the job is done.”
Influential Senate Republican indicates he'll support Israel, Ukraine assistance without immigration reforms
John Cornyn, a high-ranking Senate Republican representing Texas, indicated this morning that he would vote for legislation to provide military assistance to Ukraine and Israel even if it does not include policy changes to keep migrants out:
The national security supplemental the Senate is considering includes vital defense funding. 🧵
— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) February 9, 2024
While our brave men & women in uniform are performing crucial functions across the globe, including protecting free trade & travel, they deserve our unwavering support.
This bill is far from perfect. I am disappointed the Senate’s border proposal fell woefully short of actually securing our border, & I am pushing to add #HR2 to this legislation.
— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) February 9, 2024
But we can't let President Biden's abysmal border policy prevent us from supporting our troops &…
The Senate yesterday took an initial vote to approve the $95bn measure, after the collapse of a deal to pair the funding for two of America’s national security priorities with hardline immigration policies Republicans had demanded.
Cornyn, along with several other Republicans, voted to move forward with the legislation, while demanding that the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer allow votes on amendments. If that happens, the GOP is expected to try to insert some border security provisions in the bill, but the bigger unanswered question is whether Republican House speaker Mike Johnson will allow it to be put up for a vote in his chamber.
Updated
It was attorney general Merrick Garland who appointed Robert Hur, a Republican, special counsel to investigate Joe Biden’s possession of classified documents.
Biden and his allies have criticized Hur for commenting repeatedly on Biden’s lapses of memory in his report, which otherwise said the president should not be charged. This morning, Anthony Coley, a former spokesman for Garland, said on X that he agreed with those critiques:
I read the report. Slept on it overnight.
— Anthony Coley (@AnthonyColey) February 9, 2024
This am my thoughts are the same:
Robert Hur missed the mark on this report.
Hur was supposed to be the unbiased umpire calling balls & strikes as they are.
The unnecessary commentary feels more like political pot shots.
As he faces attacks over whether he is too old for the job, some believe Joe Biden would be well served to do more – rather than fewer – interviews and press conferences.
Biden has interacted with the press much less than his predecessors Barack Obama and Donald Trump – just look at these numbers from the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump White House spokeswoman, argues he would benefit from spending more time talking to journalists:
If the WH truly wants to alleviate age & vitality concerns they should do a media blitz. Network sit downs, the Sunday show rounds, do the Super Bowl interview, sit down w/Oprah, hell, go on WWHL.
— Alyssa Farah Griffin (@Alyssafarah) February 9, 2024
Run like you’re Barack Obama.
My fear is they know it won’t go well for Biden.
To which Michael LaRosa, the former press secretary for first lady Jill Biden, agreed:
The more he engages with the press and the public, the less amplified innocent verbal slip-ups become. Totally agree @Alyssafarah https://t.co/o5qcixZeH9
— Michael LaRosa (@MichaelLaRosaDC) February 9, 2024
Another point from Dan Pfeiffer: Joe Biden often interacts with Republicans who would like to see him exit the White House as quickly as possible.
Why haven’t they mentioned the memory problems Robert Hur repeatedly pointed out in his report, Pfeiffer asks? It would be to their benefit:
Rumor and innuendo are the official currency in political Washington. Beltway types love to dial up reporters and give them the latest dish. There are few secrets in that town, and if Joe Biden acted like Hur says, we would all know. Biden meets with dozens of people daily – staffers, members of Congress, CEOs, labor officials, foreign leaders, and military and intelligence officials. Many of these people are not even Biden supporters. Some are Republicans who will pull the lever for Trump in November. If Biden was regularly misremembering obvious pieces of information or making other mistakes that suggested he was not up to the job, it would be in the press. Washington is not capable of keeping something like that secret.
Former Obama adviser says special counsel report on Biden amounts to 'partisan hit job'
To former Barack Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer, special counsel Robert Hur’s comments about Joe Biden’s memory amount to “a partisan hit job”. But he still worries that they could do real damage to the president’s standing with the public.
“Based on the text messages I have received from reporters and fellow Democrats, this report will be a big deal,” Pfeiffer writes in his newsletter.
He continues:
Republicans will use this to drive their chosen narrative. Reporters will raise questions about why the President doesn’t do more interviews. And Democrats will publicly deal with anxiety about the role Biden’s age will play in the campaign. I fear – and I hope I am wrong – that unlike most of the marginalia that excites political junkies, the Special Counsel’s descriptions of Biden will break through to the public at large.
I want to stipulate that the report is very bad and poses some real political peril for Biden. I don’t want to sugarcoat it. Biden’s age is his biggest impediment to reelection and this description could be very damaging.
Pfeiffer also does not spare Hur, a Republican appointed by attorney general Merrick Garland to investigate if Biden broke the law by keeping classified documents from his time as vice-president and earlier in his personal residence:
Robert Hur is described in press reports as a ‘well-respected U.S. attorney,’ and maybe he once was, but this report is a partisan hit job. He swerves out of his lane to drive a negative narrative about Biden, the same message the Republican Party uses against Biden. In the report, Hur generously describes memory lapses from others but hammers Biden for the same.
It’s hard to read the report and not think that, without the ability to charge Biden with a crime, Hur wanted to damage him politically.
Updated
'I’m an elderly man and I know what the hell I’m doing', Biden argued in surprise press conference
White House reporters, the Guardian’s David Smith included, were caught by surprise last night, when Joe Biden made an unscheduled speech to address special counsel Robert Hur’s report into his possession of classified documents, and the comments it contained about his memory.
The speech was a fiery riposte to Hur’s insinuations that the president’s memory was faltering – up until the point Biden misspoke. Here’s what happened:
It came out of the blue. The White House announced that Joe Biden would deliver remarks at 7.45pm – giving the press just 23 minutes to prepare. What the sudden speech would be about, no one knew. The element of surprise and uncertainty was reminiscent of the Donald Trump era.
As it happened, many White House correspondents were at a meeting near the Watergate building about a mile and a half way. The Guardian was among four who jumped in a car, raced across town and sprinted up sedate Pennsylvania Avenue, greeting the Secret Service in a breathless and disheveled state.
Perhaps the press were about to witness history. Was Biden set to announce peace in the Middle East or Ukraine? Was this his Bin Laden moment, a military strike that killed a top terrorist leader? Or after a devastating justice department report said his memory is shot due to old age, was he about to do a Lyndon B Johnson and announce he is not seeking re-election?
Reporters and TV and radio crews gathered in the Diplomatic Reception Room, the site of Franklin Roosevelt’s radio addresses known as “fireside chats”. Above the fireplace was a portrait of George Washington and thick hardback books bearing the names of recent past presidents. The posh, old-fashioned room comes with panoramic French wallpaper showing vistas of America.
After all the hush and hype, Biden emerged at the lectern and did not resign. Far from it; he was in a fighting mood. Biden was responding to the special counsel’s report, welcoming its conclusion that no charges should be brought against him for mishandling classified information. But the president was also combative, emotional and then – not for the first time – took one question too many and paid the price.
Biden fights back after special counsel criticizes memory, Senate bargains over Ukraine, Israel aid
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Yesterday was a doozy for Joe Biden. The president received what should have been good news when special counsel Robert Hur announced no charges were warranted after investigating the classified documents found at his residence last year. But Hur contained in his lengthy report several references to Biden not being able to remember things, and said one reason why he would not recommend prosecuting the president is because jurors would see him as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”. At 81 years old, Biden’s age is expected to be a major factor on voters’ minds as he campaigns for re-election, and in an unscheduled late-night speech, he hit back at Hur’s claims, saying “my memory is fine,” but also mixed up the presidents of Egypt and Mexico.
Meanwhile, we may hear more from Congress today on the chances of passing aid to Israel and Ukraine, one of the Biden’s priorities. The Senate took an initial step to approving the legislation yesterday, but it’s unclear if it has the votes to pass the chamber, and whether the GOP will insert hardline immigration policies (which the party had, bizarrely, rejected earlier this week). Even if the legislation does make it through, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson has not said that he will put it up for a vote.
Here’s what else is going on today:
German chancellor Olaf Scholz is in Washington DC, and will meet with Biden at 3pm ET.
Now we wait for the supreme court’s decision on Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility, after the justices yesterday signaled they were skeptical of arguments to disqualify him for his involvement in January 6.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will take reporters’ question at 1pm.
Updated
