Leaked audio reveals extent of Biden’s struggle to remember key details in 2023 interview, including when son died

Recordings of the then president’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur regarding misplaced classified documents released more than one year after transcripts

Audio of President Joe Biden’s 2023 interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur concerning the improper possession of classified documents has been released more than a year after his administration released transcripts.

The recordings, published by Axios, reveal the extent to which the 46th president, then 80, struggled to remember key details and dates, was prompted by his lawyers, and spoke in a halting, whispering voice, punctuated by long silences.

They shed light on why the White House refused to release the audio while Biden was still in office amid questions regarding his mental acuity, and also perhaps why Hur’s conclusion was that jurors in any trial that might arise over his possession of the documents would have viewed him as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

At the time, the White House hit back at Hur’s assessment of the president, insisting he was “sharp” and that any attacks on Biden were politically motivated — yet the special counsel comes across as respectful, and the tone of the interview is friendly and mostly appears relaxed.

The release of the audio comes as the Trump administration was reportedly weighing up releasing the recordings. It also comes ahead of the publication of a new book about a White House and presidential campaign hiding the decline of the president as he ran for another term in office. Original Sin, by Axios’s Alex Thompson and CNN’s Jake Tapper, will be released on Tuesday.

During the two three-hour sessions with Hur and his co-counsel Marc Kricknaum, Biden’s attorneys had to remind him of the year his son Beau died and the year that Donald Trump was elected president for the first time — 2015 and 2016, respectively.

Biden spokesperson Kelly Scully told Axios: “The transcripts were released by the Biden administration more than a year ago. The audio does nothing but confirm what is already public.”

President Joe Biden (AFP/Getty)

Where the recordings do add a new dimension to what is already known from the transcripts is the length of pauses and the slowly unfolding nature of some answers.

Further emphasizing these silent moments from the president is the sound of a ticking clock in the background.

Nevertheless, Biden remains engaged despite memory lapses. At times, Axios notes, he cracks jokes and makes humorous asides, and throughout, he “sounded more like a nostalgic, grandfatherly storyteller than a potential defendant who could be accused of hoarding secret papers.”

Perhaps the upshot of the basis of the interview was that he had little recollection as to how or why he came to have classified documents in his possession after his two terms as vice-president to President Barack Obama.

At one point, his attorney, Bob Bauer, warns about getting into speculation as to how the documents may have ended up where they did, emphasizing that the president does not recall specific details.

The timing of the interviews is also noteworthy. The first session took place on 8 October 2023, the day after Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza. In the aftermath of an international crisis that would go on to spark the conflict that continues to this day, Biden is slow, forgetful, and often veers off topic.

However, during the second session, the following day, 9 October, the president sounds more engaged and vigorous, Axios notes.

Former special counsel Robert K Hur prepares to testify to the House Judiciary Committee about his interview with the then president (Getty)

Hur’s report did not recommend moving ahead with a prosecution and attempting to persuade a jury of Biden’s guilt in purposefully taking classified materials.

“It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president, well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness,” he had concluded.

The Biden camp blasted comments about the president’s age as “gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate”, while Donald Trump’s super PAC said that if Biden wasn’t fit enough for trial, he wasn’t fit enough to be president.

Thompson and Tapper’s upcoming book is a collection of their reporting on the cover-up around Biden’s mental and physical decline. The book’s excerpts are already causing a ruckus, as they detail startling instances of Biden’s gaps in mental acuity that were reportedly hidden from the public through 2024.

Biden, whom aides reportedly considered putting in a wheelchair at points, reportedly did not recognize Hollywood megastar George Clooney at an event the president had flown in to Los Angeles specifically for Clooney to host on his behalf. Other excerpts claimed he forgot the names of longtime aides, including that of his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.

Democrats are now struggling to respond to criticism of why it took so long for Biden to step aside in favor of Kamala Harris, and questions about how long any cover-up of the president’s decline had been going on.

The release of these audio recordings and the upcoming publication of Original Sin will likely completely swamp any continued denials from Biden defenders regarding the president’s mental fitness more than a year before the 2024 election.

It could be the break the Democratic Party needs to move forward and start winning back trust from the American people.

With additional reporting from John Bowden in Washington, D.C.