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President Joe Biden joked about his age and memory on Monday shortly after a scathing report was released by Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur.
"I've been around, I know I don't look like it, but I've been around awhile," Biden said during a speech at the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference on Monday. "I do remember that."
Biden's remarks were met with laughs and cheers from the crowd.
The context:
Last week, Hur released a report following an investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents that were found at his home in Delaware. Other classified documents were found at the president's Penn Biden Center office in Washington, D.C.
The report said that no charges would be filed against Biden stating that "Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
What we know:
According to the report, during interviews with Hur, Biden did not "remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended."
"He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died," the report said.
The report also noted that Biden "willfully retained and disclosed" the classified documents after his time as vice president under former President Barack Obama ended.
Newsweek reached out to the White House via email for comment.
Views:
Responding to the report, Biden criticized Hur's categorization of his memory, saying, "I'm well-meaning and I'm an elderly man, and I know what I'm doing," and added that he didn't need anyone to remind him when his son, Beau, passed away.
"My memory is fine," the president said.
Vice President Kamala Harris also slammed the report, saying, "As a former prosecutor, the comments that were made by that prosecutor: gratuitous, inaccurate, and inappropriate."
Harris continued, "The way that the president's demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts, and clearly politically motivated, gratuitous...And so I will say that when it comes to the role and responsibility of a prosecutor in a situation like that, we should expect that there would be a higher level of integrity than what we saw."
What's next:
Former President Donald Trump is also facing a legal headache for his alleged mishandling of classified documents that were discovered at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Other Republicans criticized Biden's mental health following the Special Counsel's report, such as House Republican leaders like Speaker Mike Johnson, who said it was "deeply disturbing."
Update 2/12/24, 12:40 p.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information and to note that Newsweek reached out to the White House.
Update 2/12/24, 1:21 p.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information.
About the writer
Matthew Impelli is a Newsweek staff writer based in New York. His focus is reporting social issues and crime. In ... Read more