A former Biden White House official claims that his colleagues “gaslit” the public and journalists concerned about former President Biden’s age and cognitive abilities.
During a Wednesday seminar held by Puck reporter Tara Palmeri at the Sine Institute of Policy and Politics at American University, longtime press secretary to former first lady Jill Biden, Michael LaRosa, opened up about efforts to shield Biden from media exposure.
Throughout the 2024 presidential race, many media pundits and commentators ran to Biden’s defense when there was speculation about his mental acuity, including after Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report about him being well-meaning but forgetful, viral videos of him looking confused and a Wall Street Journal report about his faltering behind-the-scenes demeanor.
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While LaRosa was hesitant to characterize these efforts as a “cover-up,” he admitted that the White House was aware from “day one” that the former president’s age was an issue.
He also revealed that his colleagues were downplaying and excusing data suggesting Biden’s poll numbers heading into the 2024 election had stalled.
Despite polls showing the majority of Americans felt Biden was too old to serve a second term, many journalists treated questions about Biden’s health like a right-wing conspiracy.
These concerns came to a tipping point after Biden’s faltering June debate performance, after which he was pressured to drop out of the race.
“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 gaslight because that’s what they were doing the campaign, former colleagues,” LaRosa told Palmeri.
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“The message to everybody was to make sure that you tell people it’s too early. It’s too early. These polls don’t mean well; it became too early, and these polls don’t mean anything,” he continued.
Suddenly, the data that the White House constantly touted when Biden was ahead became inconsequential to staffers when his lead slipped away, according to La Rosa.
He also criticized the White House’s “attack” on left-leaning outlets like The New York Times, which had begun covering polling and age issues in mid-2024.
Reports from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and other outlets have revealed that some advisers close to the president have been concerned about Biden’s health since the early days of his administration. The White House frequently dismissed questions about his abilities and even called videos that appeared to show Biden confused or out of step “cheap fakes.”
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“I think if you were watching MSNBC, you probably believed [the White House] and were probably pretty shocked. But if you were, if you were consuming information, consuming data and looking at it objectively and trying to interpret it and process it objectively, then none of it was surprising,” LaRosa said.
The former White House official also claimed that Biden’s team was “scared to death” about letting the former president engage in impromptu and unrehearsed press conferences, telling Palmeri that Biden simply “couldn’t compete for the attention economy.”
“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,” he added.
Biden’s office did not immediately return Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News’ Kristine Parks contributed to this report.
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