As Legal Insurrection previously reported, two weeks ago Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sat down for an interview on “Meet the Press” where he denied that Democrats, including himself, ever misled the American people about President Joe Biden’s apparent mental decline.
Here’s how the exchange between Schumer and moderator Kristen Welker went down:
KRISTEN WELKER: Leader Schumer, what do you say to Americans who feel as though you and other top Democrats misled them about President Biden’s mental acuity?
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: No. Look, we didn’t. And let’s – let’s look – let’s look at President Biden. He’s had an amazing record. The legislation we passed, one of the most significant groups of legislation since the New Deal – since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, putting in 235 judges, a record. And he’s a patriot. He’s a great guy.
[…]
KRISTEN WELKER: Do you feel, as we have this conversation today, that President Biden could serve another four years, had he stayed in the race and potentially won?
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: Well, I’m not going to speculate. As I said, I think his record is a stellar one. And he’ll go down in history as a really outstanding president.
Note the piling on of the praise along with the dodging and weaving in the answers, as Schumer was and is still very reluctant to admit publicly to what most of us know at this point about Biden.
I suspect a big reason for that is the critical role he admittedly played in getting Biden to drop out of the presidential race just three weeks after the infamous June 2024 debate between the POTUS and then-presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Schumer, in a detailed New York Times write-up published just days before Biden’s sole term in office ends, admitted his role in the situation. He recalled that his back was up against the wall with the Senate Democrat Caucus. Senate Democrats privately warned him they would publicly call for Biden to exit the race if he didn’t announce his decision soon
Some of them even wondered if it was Biden they were communicating with after receiving a letter after the Independence Day holiday break telling them, in a nutshell, it was time to fall in line:
Democrats on Capitol Hill seethed. In a closed-door lunch the next day, senators said the president was being selfish. They questioned whether he had even written the letter himself, or whether his aides or maybe even his son Hunter had written it for him.
In another meeting a few days later, things got worse, with some Democrat Senators demanding a sign-off from two neurologists who would say that Biden was okay:
The July 11 meeting was grim. Democratic senators, even normally reserved ones who were close with Mr. Biden, erupted. The usually quiet Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a West Point graduate and former paratrooper, said he could no longer support his commander in chief unless Mr. Biden could produce two neurologists to issue a public report saying he was fit to serve, and then hold a news conference where anyone could ask questions.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island told Mr. Biden’s aides that the silence from the majority of Democratic senators should not be interpreted as a sign of support. It was out of respect and affection to allow Mr. Biden time to gracefully exit the race, but it would not last forever, he said, because if they continued to vouch for his fitness, they would be “lying.”
This isn’t how people react if they believe a bad performance was a one-off. This is how they react when they know the problems are part of a pattern that they undoubtedly witnessed many times before.
What was perhaps most illuminating about the Times report beyond the Democrat Senators tacitly admitting they knew Biden’s poor performance at the debate was more than just a mere bad night were three things.
For starters, there was Schumer’s roundabout admission that he knew Biden had memory issues before the debate:
For months, Mr. Schumer had been concerned that Mr. Biden was going to lose to Mr. Trump and cost Democrats Congress. It wasn’t that he thought Mr. Biden was not capable of the job. During their weekly conversations, the president often rambled, but he had always rambled. Once in a while, Mr. Biden would forget why he had called, but Mr. Schumer thought little of it. He was convinced that Mr. Biden could handle the job.
Then there were the only two questions Biden asked Schumer at their meeting at Biden’s Rehoboth Beach home on July 13th: “Do you really think Kamala can win?” Clearly, there was doubt.
Lastly, there was the confirmation that former President Barack Obama’s role in getting the ball rolling was extensive. In fact, it was Obama who urged Schumer to meet with Biden since Obama believed Biden was still harboring a grudge over Obama’s support for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign:
As days ticked by, Mr. Obama worried that Democrats were doing nothing. He told Mr. Schumer that he himself had a fragile relationship with his former vice president, who still carried a chip on his shoulder over Mr. Obama’s decision to support Hillary Clinton’s candidacy in 2016. Having urged him not to run back then, Mr. Obama told Mr. Schumer, he wasn’t sure if he was the best messenger to tell Mr. Biden to step aside now.
What it all boils down to is that they all knew, but stayed quiet about it until Biden’s debate performance forced their hand. The cover-up remains one of the biggest scandals in presidential history, and I eagerly await any forthcoming tell-alls that hopefully will dive into who knew what and when – complete with receipts.
-Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter/X.-
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