Portions of the audio recording from Special Counsel Robert Hur’s October 2023 interview with Joe Biden have just been released!
This is the very same interview in which Joe Biden struggled to remember when his own son Beau passed away from cancer — a claim which the audio tapes have now confirmed.
In addition, Biden’s struggle to recall other details like specific names and dates was extremely pronounced.
He even had a hard time remembering exactly when President Trump was elected to his first term.
Listen here:
Exclusive: Axios obtained the audio of Robert Hur's 2023 interviews of Biden which show repeated mental lapses as he struggles to remember words & dates amid long, uncomfortable pauses.
Biden WH didn't release it last year. Listen below.
w/ @MarcACaputo https://t.co/VJr2c9m3bh pic.twitter.com/Xoa0rQMtG9— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) May 16, 2025
Throughout the audio recording of the interview, Biden frequently paused and mumbled, having a hard time answering many of Robert Hur’s questions.
At one point in the interview, Biden’s lawyer Bob Bauer had to step in:
Though amiable, the interview became somewhat tense when Biden attorney Bob Bauer chastised prosecutor Krickbaum in this exchange over why Biden had kept a memo about Afghanistan.
“Your answer is that you don’t know,” Bauer instructed the president.
Listen here. pic.twitter.com/CoZSD6vi5R— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) May 16, 2025
During another part of the interview, Joe Biden rambled on and on about the time he shot a bow and arrow in Mongolia:
Throughout his interview, Biden sounded more like a nostalgic, grandfatherly storyteller than a potential defendant who could be accused of hoarding secret papers.
He waxed on about several topics including shooting a bow and arrow in Mongolia.
Here is that exchange. pic.twitter.com/I6QHiomhW8— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) May 16, 2025
Last year, the White House released the transcript of the notorious interview, in which Hur concluded that Joe Biden was a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
In other words, Special Counsel Hur decided that Joe Biden was unfit to prosecute for crimes related to classified documents because his mind was too far gone.
Despite releasing the transcripts, the Biden White House refused to release the audio.
And now, we know why.
As Axios reporter Alex Thompson noted, the audio highlights the extent of Joe Biden’s mental decline.
You can hear every mutter, every long silent pause, the confusion in Biden’s raspy voice.
The audio shows what the transcript lacks — Biden’s dry-whisper voice and the long silences as he struggles to speak and remember details.
Those often were supplied by his attorneys, who acted as caretakers of his memory.
There is also a clock in the background as a metronome. pic.twitter.com/Q782dT1f5n— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) May 16, 2025
Axios shared the following take-aways from the audio recording of the interview:
Amid long, uncomfortable pauses, Joe Biden struggled to recall when his son died, when he left office as vice president, what year Donald Trump was elected or why he had classified documents he shouldn’t have had, according to audio Axios obtained of his October 2023 interviews with special counsel Robert Hur.
Why it matters: The newly released recordings of Biden having trouble recalling such details — while occasionally slurring words and muttering — shed light on why his White House refused to release the recordings last year, as questions mounted about his mental acuity.
- The audio also appears to validate Hur’s assertion that jurors in a trial likely would have viewed Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
- Partly based on that determination, Hur decided not to prosecute Biden for improper possession of classified documents, angering Republicans because Trump was facing charges in his own classified document scandal then.
- Democrats and Biden’s White House blasted Hur for his observations about Biden. They repeatedly insisted he was “sharp” and that Hur was politically motivated. But the audio from the six hours of interviews indicates he and co-counsel Marc Krickbaum were respectful and friendly.
The big picture: The audio surfaces as Democrats and the national media are grappling with the legacy of Biden’s White House and campaign hiding his decline as he ran for another four-year term at age 81.
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- Democratic leaders have struggled this week to respond to reports about a new book on that topic — “Original Sin,” by Axios’ Alex Thompson and CNN’s Jake Tapper — that will be released Tuesday.
- The audio — from two three-hour sessions on Oct. 8 and 9, 2023 — adds voice and dimension to the transcripts of the interviews that the Justice Department made available in the weeks after Hur’s report was released Feb. 8, 2024.
- Biden’s White House refused to release the recordings last year, arguing they were protected “law enforcement materials” and that Republicans only wanted “to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes.”
By the way, the DOJ has confirmed that the audio recordings that Axios exclusively released this evening are real.
They plan to release the full recording, in its entirety, very soon. It could happen this weekend.
Per The New York Post:
Hur’s two three-hour sessions with Biden and his legal team took place in the White House’s Map Room, where the former president’s frequent pauses are accentuated by the sound of a ticking clock in the background.
The Trump administration reportedly plans to release the complete recordings as soon as Saturday, according to Politico.
Keep in mind that this was all recorded in October 2023.
Joe Biden was already checked out more than a full year before the November 2024 election.
It was obvious. Democrats and the media knew what was happening…and yet, they covered it up, assuring the public that Biden was still sharp as ever.
So, why?
Who was really running the country while Biden was in a rapid state of mental decline?
This is going to go down as one of the biggest presidential scandals in American history.
Be sure to share this article. Every American needs to listen to the audio for themselves!
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