Democrats had basically two objectives on Tuesday: create the impression that the Hur report exonerated Joe Biden, and repair the damage done by his assessment of Joe Biden’s poor memory.
Well, they failed at both objectives. Special Counsel Hur explicitly said that his report was not an exoneration of Joe Biden. As for the issue of Joe Biden’s memory... they didn’t do any better. In fact, anyone who reads the transcript will see just how bad Biden’s memory was while he was answering questions. Is the average American going to read the transcript of Joe Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur? Not a chance. So, what are the Democrats and their allies in the media going to do? Just make stuff up about what the transcript actually says.
Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) likely didn’t even bother reading the transcript. Instead, she relied on what the liberal media reported it said, and asked Hur to “correct the record."
"I want to give you a chance—since the transcript is out—to correct the record on an important point,” Rep. Dean began. “Very sadly, your report, on page 208, says that Mr. Biden couldn't come up with the date the year of his son Beau Biden's death. When in fact in the transcript, it shows that you asked him the month. And you know what he said, Mr. Hur? he said, 'Oh, God, May 30.’"
"Would you like to correct the record?” she added. "His memory was pretty firm on the month and a day."
"Congresswoman, I don't believe that's correct with respect to the transcript, but if you could refer me to a specific page, I'd be happy to look,” he told her.
To which Dean said she’d “read about it,” before quickly yielding the remainder of her time, not giving Hur the chance to read what the actual transcript says.
Dean gives Hur a chance to correct what his report says about Biden not remember the date of Beau's death. Hur dodges. pic.twitter.com/swHL6bWISG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 12, 2024
For starters, the report says: “[Joe Biden] did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died."
Now, as has been previously established, Special Counsel Hur never asked Joe Biden about when his son died.
Now, what does the transcript say? Here’s the relevant portion.
MR. HUR: So during this time when you were living at Chain Bridge Road and there were documents relating to the Penn Biden Center, or the Biden Institute, or the Cancer Moonshot, or your book, where did you keep papers that related to those things that you were actively working on?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, um... I, I, I, I, I don’t know. This is, what, 2017, 2018, that area?
MR. HUR: Yes, sir.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Remember, in this timeframe, my son is -- either been deployed or is dying, and, and so it was -- and by the way, there were still a lot of people at the time when I got out of the Senate that were encouraging me to run in this period, except the President. I'm not -- and not a mean thing to say. He just thought that she had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did. And so I hadn't, I hadn't, at this point -- even though I'm at Penn, I hadn't walked away from the idea that I may run for office again. But if I ran again, I'd be running for President. And, and so what was happening, though - what month did Beau die? Oh, God, May 30th --
MS. COTTON: 2015.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: 2015.
It gets worse from there.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Was it 2015 he had died?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: It was May of 2015.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: It was 2015.
MR. BAUER: Or I'm not sure the month, sir, but I think that was the year.
MR. KRICKBAUM: That's right, Mr. President. It --
PRESIDENT BIDEN: And what's happened in the meantime is that as -- and Trump gets elected in November of 2017?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: 2016.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: '16.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: '16, 2016. All right. SO why do I have 2017 here?
MR. SISKEL: That's when you left office, January of 2017.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Yeah, okay. But that's when Trump gets sworn in then, January --
Not only was Rep. Dean wrong, but it’s quite clear from the transcript that Joe Biden struggled to remember the year, needed help, and then proceeded to get wrong the year that Donald Trump was elected.
But hey, he’s sharp as a tack, right?
Why did Dean think that Hur had asked Biden the date that his son Beau died and that Biden immediately knew the answer? Perhaps she was going by the claim made by CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang, who similarly mischaracterized the transcript:
The President was fired up about Hur’s claim that he couldn’t remember when his son Beau died… because it was false. He immediately said the date, according to the interview transcript.
— Weijia Jiang (@weijia) March 12, 2024
Read more here: https://t.co/NVzeDac6Ve
This is what the left does. They are literally just making things up in the hopes of combatting inconvenient facts that hurt them politically.
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