A senior aide for former President Joe Biden has admitted the administration was “gaslighting” Americans when it repeatedly dismissed growing concerns about the oldest-ever president’s age and ability.
Michael LaRosa, a former White House aide and longtime press secretary for first lady Jill Biden, admitted that the campaign was aware from “day one” that the 81-year-old’s age was an issue — and aides were “scared to death” of letting him do off-the-cuff interviews ahead of the election, Puck reported.
“Cover-up to me is a little hard, a little harsh. Every politician, everybody, every human being tries to cover up age. We were always, from day one, cognizant that age was an issue,” LaRosa said Wednesday at a Science Institute at American University seminar.
“There are some things that are true, I mean, like the gaslighting. There was a lot of denial of the polling. And I will use the term gaslighting because that’s what they were doing, the campaign, former colleagues. The message to everybody was to make sure that you tell people it’s too early.”
Biden was dogged by countless negative polls in the lead up to Election Day amid widespread fears that his ever-increasing verbal gaffes, moments of confusion and physical stumbles were signs of advanced aging and cognitive decline.
The White House, at the time, repeatedly insisted that he was in good health.
But behind the scenes, the Biden campaign were terrified of letting him go rogue, according to LaRosa.
“The president’s team was scared to death of impromptu, unscripted, un-rehearsed, unpracticed, un-choreographed, anything, they couldn’t compete for the attention economy,” he said.
“They just couldn’t do it. They didn’t have any idea. And they didn’t have the vessel either in Biden, by the way, who would have done anything. He loves TV. He loves doing stuff. It was the orbit that did not trust their own candidate.
“Biden needed the press. When he needed them the most, they didn’t trust him, they gave him the back foot of the doubt and they put their foot on the gas and never took it off. And he was politically dead.”
Mounting pressure over his mental decline and dismal polling ultimately led Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race and endorse his then-vice president Kamala Harris.
The former aide made the admissions when asked by the host, Puck journalist Tara Palmeri, about a new book CNN’s Jake Tapper co-authored that details the lengths the Biden administration and its allies engaged in a “cover-up” of his mental decline.
Tapper, for his part, has been blasted on social media given the CNN anchor repeatedly dismissed concerns about the then-president’s age during the campaign.
