Joe Biden's campaign team has launched a number of attacks against Donald Trump, highlighting the former president's apparent slurring and confused state.
In a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, the Biden-Harris HQ account shared multiple clips from Trump's speech at the National Rifle Association [NRA] presidential forum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Friday. Newsweek emailed Trump's campaign team for comment on Saturday.
The attacks arrived after Special Counsel Robert Hur's 388-page review of Biden following sensitive materials being found at the president's private residence in Delaware and former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., in December 2022 and January 2023. While Hur said criminal charges against Biden would not be warranted, the report cited concerns about the president's cognitive abilities; it was said that Biden's memory was significantly limited and that he struggled to remember basic and key facts.
The report was leapt upon by Trump, Biden's presumptive GOP challenger in the 2024 election, as well as other Republican figures, who said it proved that the 81-year-old president's cognitive decline means he should not run for a second term.
Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives at the National Rifle Association presidential forum at the Great American Outdoor Show on February 9, 2024 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Joe Biden's team has attacked the former president... Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives at the National Rifle Association presidential forum at the Great American Outdoor Show on February 9, 2024 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Joe Biden's team has attacked the former president for slurring during his NRA speech. More Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Similar concerns have also been raised about Trump. In recent months, the 77-year-old has described Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as the leader of Turkey; referred to Nikki Haley as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; and also suggested that former President Barack Obama was still in office.
Biden's campaign team appeared to highlight the apparent cognitive issues surrounding Trump, including slurring his words during his speech at the NRA convention. While sharing one clip, Biden's team said that a "confused" Trump says he got 100 percent of the vote in the recent GOP primary in the Virgin Islands, which is "off by about 26 percent."
Another short video shared by Biden's team appears to show Trump slurring while he pronounced the word "subsidiaries."
Trump, slurring: Rich people are given 7,000 dollar subsies pic.twitter.com/c99d0Og8EO — Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) February 10, 2024
Other clips also suggest the former president got distracted while telling a bizarre story about marbles; that a confused Trump appears to brag how much he did for China as president; and that he did not know it was a Friday while he was delivering his talk at the NRA event.
In another post, Biden's team included a "list of lies" Trump told during his Pennsylvania speech in addition to "slurring his words, confusing what time and day it is, and pledging to repeal every gun safety law."
Trump gets distracted with bizarre story: I know all about the marbles. I can tell you every marble. How they could have done it years ago without the tractors pic.twitter.com/ObCOq87hJM — Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) February 10, 2024
Among the most damning claims from Hur's classified documents report was how Biden did not remember, "even within several years," when his son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. Hur said that, while answering questions as part of the probe in October, Biden also couldn't remember when he was vice president, and had to ask when his first term ended and began.
While explaining that charges would not be brought against Biden, even if he wasn't in office, Hur said it would be hard to secure a conviction as the Democrat would likely present himself to a jury as a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
"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," Hur wrote.
Biden rejected the criticisms of Hur, saying during a heated press conference on Thursday: "My memory is fine."
Biden also criticized the special counsel for suggesting he could not remember the year his son died.
"The simple truth is I sat for five hours of interviews over two days of events, going back 40 years. At the same time, I was managing an international crisis," Biden said, in reference to the Palestinian military group Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7.
"Their task was to make a decision about whether to move forward with charges in this case. That was their decision to make. That's the counsel's decision to make. That's his job. And they decided not to move forward.
"For any extraneous commentary, they don't know what they're talking about. It has no place in this report," Biden added. "The bottom line is: The matter is now closed."