Biden lashes out over criticism of failing memory
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Transcript
00:00 To the US, where there's been good news and bad news for President Biden in the White House of
00:03 the past few hours. The good news, he will not be charged after an investigation into allegations
00:08 that he mishandled top secret documents after his time as Vice President. The bad news, the inquiry
00:14 by the Department of Justice Special Counsel was scathing in its assessment of the President's
00:18 memory, stating the 81-year-old would have quote "likely presented himself to the jury as sympathetic,
00:25 well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory who couldn't recall to the panel, they said,
00:29 when he was Vice President or even the date his son Beau died." It triggered this fiery response
00:35 from the President a little earlier. I know there's some attention paid to some language
00:42 and report about my recollection of events. There's even reference that I don't remember
00:47 when my son died. How in the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was asked the question,
00:55 I thought to myself, it wasn't any of their damn business. Well, these are claims that have
01:00 dogged the President for months and weaponized by the opposition, the Republicans. As Fraser Jackson,
01:05 our Washington correspondent, explains. In the evening, the early evening, we got that report
01:11 from the Special Counsel and we'd been hearing that we might be hearing from Biden the entire
01:15 day, but it didn't materialize. And then eventually there was a 15-minute warning and suddenly a
01:20 primetime address from Joe Biden where he really pushed back on some of the headlines that came
01:25 out of that, some of them questioning his mental competency. Joe Biden tried to get the narrative
01:31 back on track by saying that he'd actually complied with this investigation, saying,
01:36 quote, "This was an exhaustive investigation going back more than 40 years, even into the 1970s when
01:42 I was a young senator. I cooperated completely, threw up no roadblocks and sought no delays."
01:47 A slight jab there at Donald Trump, who was also facing investigation and now criminal charges
01:52 because of his mishandling of documents. And that was something that Joe Biden tried to bring up
01:58 time and time again. But the questions from reporters were all about his mental competency,
02:03 something that had been brought up time and time again within that Special Counsel report.
02:07 One of them said that Joe Biden could not remember when he was vice president, when his term ended.
02:14 And then another part really bringing home the emotion for Joe Biden when it said he couldn't
02:19 remember what year his son Beau died. And that was something Joe Biden really pushed back on.
02:24 He was visibly emotional when he said, "How the hell dare he mention something like that?" He
02:30 thought he said that when the Special Counsel brought that up, he thought, "How the hell dare
02:34 he say that to me?" It was quite a touching moment, but also something that he really
02:38 felt viscerally. It was very evident to see. But the reporters, again, questioning his mental
02:43 competency. And at one point, Joe Biden even had a bit of another gaffe. He's had a couple of them
02:50 over the last few days where he said two times just this week alone that he's had conversations
02:55 with European leaders who have both died many years ago. In some cases, he mistook Emmanuel
03:02 Macron for François Mitterrand, the former president of France, and Helmut Kohl as well for
03:08 Olaf Scholz. So it has been a bit of a gaffe-prone week. And it continued when Joe Biden called
03:15 President el-Sisi of Egypt, President el-Sisi of Mexico when he was talking about Gaza and Israel.
03:23 So it was a bit of a to and fro today. But Joe Biden insisting, quote, "My memory is fine,"
03:30 and bringing up his track record once again, insisting that he did not share classified
03:34 documents. Unlike Donald Trump, that's what he said. And this is obviously different to what
03:39 we've seen from Biden recently. He's been kind of hidden away from the press in recent days.
03:44 And this was more Biden off script, as it were, especially in that question and answer section,
03:48 in that late night, last minute address at the White House.