Former President Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, blames the senior aides for the poor debate performance last summer against then-candidate Donald Trump.
Klain, who was interviewed for a new book, was highlighted in an article by The Guardian recalling his time helping Biden prep for last June’s debate, where his poor performance sparked calls for him to withdraw from the campaign.
The Guardian’s piece said Klain’s retelling paints a “devastating picture” of Biden’s ability, noting that the former president “didn’t know what Trump had been saying” and couldn’t keep up with the back and forth.
However, Klain clarified to Politico that he thought “the framing” of the article was wrong.
“My point wasn’t that the president lacked mental acuity … He was out of it because he had been [sidelined], not because he lacked capacity,” Klain told Politico over text.
Klain was Biden’s former chief of staff for two years. He criticized Biden’s White House team for not keeping the then-president focused on Americans who were losing support for his agenda and the economy.
“He has been isolated from domestic politics by a WH team unplugged from hill Dems,” Klain said, arguing that Biden was “solely focused on foreign affairs.”
Klain did not specify which of Biden’s aides he was holding responsible for the lack of focus which led to the poor debate performance, Politico reported.
Klain’s interview with The Guardian was for his feature in writer Chris Whipple’s forthcoming book, “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History.”
Biden’s debate performance was seen as a turning point in the 2024 presidential election. After he failed to produce an energized argument against Trump and prove to an unconvinced public that he was up for serving another four years, the calls for him to step aside and allow a new generation to run flooded in. Former Vice President Kamala Harris was in the running as the Democratic Party’s nominee just weeks later.
Whipple’s book analyzing the debate performance and 2024 campaign is just one of many being released.
The Hill’s political correspondent Amie Parnes and NBC News senior national politics reporter Jonathan Allen, in a new book, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” show how Trump may have been concerned about bullying Biden on stage.