President Joe Biden exhibited a series of memory lapses during his five-hour interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, prompting White House lawyers to rescue him when he could not recall when he served as vice president, when his son Beau died of cancer, when former President Donald Trump was elected, or what a fax machine was.
A full transcript of the interview—during which Hur pressed Biden about his handling of classified documents found in his possession—was released Tuesday ahead of Hur’s testimony on Capitol Hill. It appeared to support part of the reasoning behind Hur’s decision not to prosecute. Hur said when he first released his report that he believed a jury would find Biden to simply be too old and forgetful.
At one point during the interview, Biden struggled to recall the term “fax machine” as he described the layout of his library — and one of the White House lawyers bailed him out.
Later in the interview, he brought up the topic of his son Beau Biden, who died of cancer in 2015 — but he struggled to recall the date that it happened even though he appeared to be aware that it was the reason he had not run for president while he was the outgoing vice president.
Biden: Well, um … I, I, I, I, I don’t know. This is what, 2017, 2018, that area?
Hur: Yes.
Biden: Remember, in this timeframe my son is — either been deployed or is dying … And, and so what was happening, though — what month did Beau die? Oh, God, May 30
Lawyer: 2015
Biden: Was it 2015 he had died?
Just seconds later, Biden couldn’t remember when President Donald Trump was elected, asking, “Trump gets elected in November of 2017?”
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When two people corrected him, noting that Trump was elected in 2016, Biden seemed confused: “16, 2016, all right, so why do I have 2017 here?”
White House Counsel Ed Siskel jumped in, saying, “That’s when you left office.”
In addition to forgetting what to call a fax machine a second time, other questions Biden asked during the proceedings included, “When did I announce for President?” and, “Well, if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?”