Joe Biden’s ‘My Memory Is Fine’ Press Conference Was An All-Time PR Blunder

On Thursday, Special Counsel Robert Hur concluded that President Joe Biden should not be charged for his mishandling of classified material in no small part because of his mental decline, describing the commander-in-chief as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

According to Hur, Biden “did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died” and asked the special counsel to refresh his memory of what years he served as vice president in two separate instances (“if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?”; “in 2009, am I still Vice President?”).

Panic is what naturally could be expected to — and obviously did — overtake the president’s political team. Biden is already trailing his likely general election opponent, Donald Trump, in the bulk of both national and swing state polls. When asked why they’re hesitant to give him four more years at the helm, voters cite his mental capacity.

According to a recent NBC News survey, 76% of Americans, 81% of independents, and even 54% of Democrats worry about Biden’s fitness for office.

The White House’s response to the fire threatening Biden’s reelection campaign — and even his presidency — was to bathe him in kerosene and send him walking into the flames.

Sometime after 7:00 p.m. on Thursday night, the White House announced that Biden would hold a press conference at 7:45 to discuss Hur’s findings. Just before 8:00, Biden finally made his way out to the podium.

Once there, he praised the special counsel for deciding not to charge him and nearly came to tears while chiding him for including the anecdote about Biden’s memory of his son’s death.

“How in the hell dare he raise that?” asked Biden through gritted teeth. “I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.”

It was hard to watch. But it wasn’t a denial of the facts presented by Hur, and despite the Biden team’s protests to the contrary, the president’s state of decline was relevant to his ultimate conclusion that the president should not be prosecuted.

Things only got worse when he began to take questions.

He snapped at Fox News’ Peter Doocy, offering a half-constructed crack about how “my memory is so bad I let you [Doocy] speak.”

He lashed out at another reporter who observed that “the American people have been watching and they have expressed concerns about your age.”

“That is your judgment! That is your judgment! That is not the judgment of the press!” he shouted, seemingly forgetting that he was engaging with a member of the press.

And most memorably, a few moments later, he referred to Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as the “president of Mexico.”

He came across as ornery. He did nothing to dispel the damning facts included in Hur’s report. And worst of all, he seemed old.

Not too old to drive or to hold a conversation, but far too old to continue to be responsible for running the executive branch of the most powerful, indispensable nation in the history of the world.

There’s little doubt that Biden needed to respond to the claims made in the Hur report and refute the special counsel’s characterization of his abilities if he couldn’t contest Hur’s recounting of his conversation with Biden.

But in retrospect, sending him out to the podium unprepared, alone, and obviously flustered only hours after the report dropped was an obvious mistake and one that resulted in one of the greatest public relations blunders of all time.

On some level, though, one has to feel for Biden’s staff, who find themselves in an impossible position. Of course, the 81-year-old shouldn’t have to be asked to defend his memory of his son’s death or take on the White House press corps in a distressed state.

Indeed, he shouldn’t be president at all.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.