Joe Biden appeared confused, struggled to remember facts and lost his train of thought during a series of meandering conversations with his ghostwriter roughly four years before he was elected president.
The former commander-in-chief also repeatedly made reference to retaining classified information in the discussions with his biographer Mark Zwonitzer, according to newly-released audio tapes.
The heavily-redacted recordings of Biden working on his 2017 memoir with Zwonitzer were released Monday to the House Judiciary Committee and the conservative Oversight Project nonprofit after a two-year-long court battle.
“We now know what has been long assumed: the autopen scandal extends far back beyond just when Joe Biden ‘ran’ for president from his basement,” Oversight Project President Mike Howell said in a statement.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
“These tapes have so many pauses and ‘ums’ that it sounds like Biden is buffering like a dial-up Internet connection,” Howell added.
In one part of an interview with Zwonitzer, Biden says, “Alright — what was I going to ask you? Something else… Uh… um. Oh gosh. I can’t think of anything else.”
In another moment, Biden asks his ghostwriter to “Hang on a second,” while he apparently studies his notes. “Um … it’s confusing me,” the former president later says.
The tapes were previously scrutinized by former special counsel Robert Hur as part of his 2023-2024 investigation into Biden’s retention of classified documents after leaving the vice presidency in 2017.
According the Oversight Project, the recordings prove “Biden was already demonstrating significant cognitive decline” when he began meeting with Zwonitzer – just a few months after leaving the Obama administration – for the 2017 book, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.”
“In the sections of the audio tapes that were not redacted, Biden references his confused state of mind on many days,” the group said in a statement. “As we know occurred during his Presidency, Biden was clearly experiencing good days and bad days as far back as 2017.”