WASHINGTON — Democrats are shaking their heads in disbelief at the timing of Jill Biden’s memoir and her change in tone about President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance.
The party would rather talk about the high cost of living and increased gas prices under President Trump, Democrats told The Post, rather than relive the debate around Joe Biden’s cognitive health.
“We need this as much as we need a hole in the head,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist who worked in the Senate for years.
Jill Biden’s confessional about her concerns over the former president’s health is dropping as the party fights to win control of Congress in November.
“But it will have none, zero, zip impact on the election,” Manley insisted. “It’s all about Trump. And his polling is in a free fall. It’s an unnecessary distraction.”
The former first lady’s memoir, “View from the East Wing,” comes out next week. But she’s already drawing attention for her comments on her husband’s performance in the 2024 debate with Trump, speculating he could have been drugged and expressing her fear he was having a stroke.
“I think Jill Biden must have had a stroke herself to think that her husband was up to the job,” said a Democrat who worked as a senior aide in the Biden era.
“If she can sit back and listen to his constant drivel for over 4 years, she’s the one with real cognitive decline. The fake doctor may want to consider self medication if it took this long to gain some self realization,” the aide said in a jab at the first lady’s insistence on being called “Dr. Jill Biden” for her doctorate in education.
In her memoir, Jill Biden writes of her husband on the night of June 27, 2024, “I felt like we were watching an AI hologram of the man we knew, and the hologram was glitching,” according to an excerpt published Thursday by The Atlantic.
“Is he short-circuiting?” she recalled thinking to herself. “Is this a stroke? … Has he been drugged? … Oh God — will people watching assume this is how he is all the time?”
The excerpt emerged after the former first lady told CBS News in an interview airing Sunday that “I had never, ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never.”
“I don’t know what happened,” Jill Biden continued. “As I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death.”
Biden shocked the nation during his debate with Trump, repeatedly freezing on camera, fumbling for answers and appearing dazed and confused.
But at the time, Jill Biden sang a different tune, publicly praising her husband and defending him against those who questioned his cognitive abilities. She even traveled with him to a Waffle House in Atlanta.
“Joe — you did such a great job. You answered every question, you knew all the facts,” Jill Biden said post-debate. She gave no indication she was worried about his health, instead vowing not to let the evening define his presidency.
The revisionist history stunned many Democrats.
“Why did we push out he had a cold,” asked one Biden administration alum Wednesday night, “if she thought he had a stroke?”
“No one thought he had a stroke,” another former Biden White House official told The Post. “That is in her head and her head only. This has been litigated and relitigated among staff. We didn’t think he had a health issue because they kept on with the schedule. Immediately to the afterparty and then to Waffle House. Who goes to Waffle House after a stroke?”
At the time, the White House offered a plethora of excuses for Biden’s performance, initially blaming a cold before pivoting to jet lag from an overseas trip two weeks earlier, before finally claiming that he had prepped so hard for the debate, he got facts jumbled in his head.
Biden’s team, at the time, also blasted any Democrat who questioned his fitness to lead the party, leading some of them to express their outrage at the about-face.
“Apparently the goal of this book is to dispel accusations of a coverup, but mostly it’s just enraging to read that this was JILL BIDEN’S(!!) reaction to the debate performance after the Biden family, campaign, and his supporters savaged people for articulating the same feelings,” former Barack Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor wrote on X.
Eventually, the Democratic chorus of concern grew so loud that Joe Biden bowed out, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, who was trounced by Trump in the general election.
Still, reliving those times won’t help the party now, one Democrat said.
“We had a duty to win and we didn’t,” Andrew Bates, a spokesman in the Biden administration, told The Post. “I think about that all the time. But I don’t see why that painful conversation for the party needed to be publicly reopened right now.”
But he also said he expected no impact on the midterms, noting they’ll be “a referendum on Republicans’ broken promises to end inflation and stop wars.”
Another Democrat who worked in the Biden White House agreed.
“People have already processed and moved on from Joe Biden being too old to be president,” this person said. “He was forced out of the race by his own party. While it feels painful and traumatic for those who had to deal with this at the time, the public is focused on the current president and related concerns: high gas prices, immigration concerns, Epstein.”
Democrats definitely have their own issues with voters, this person noted, but they don’t have to do with Biden.
“People definitely still have concerns and a lack of faith in Democrats, but I’d be surprised to see any data about relitigating the debate having an impact.”
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