The press secretary for the former President, Joe Biden, admitted that she was unaware of his cognitive decline until his concerning performance in the presidential debate last summer.
Jen Psaki – the former White House spokesperson and now MSNBC anchor – made the extraordinary confession during Semafor’s Mixed Signals podcast.
‘I never saw the person on that debate stage. I was in the Oval Office every day… I’m not a doctor. Aging happens quickly,’ Psaki said
Following this revelation, Psaki tried to address the rumors of a potential cover-up. However, her attempts only fueled the existing political turmoil that began when Biden decided to step back from the 2024 election race back in July.
‘Cover-up is a very loaded term,’ she said referring to how some described the Biden’s health issues.
‘Some people are using terms like those used in Watergate or in cases where information about a war was being concealed… I believe using such terms can be quite risky.’
Psaki stood beside Biden for more than a year: serving as his public voice, managing briefings, shaping narratives, and defending his clarity and capability from the White House podium.
Her stunning admission rang hollow. Claims that she was blindsided by his mental decline sparked intense backlash and reignited questions about what the administration – and the press – knew about Biden’s condition.
Concerns grew as Biden appeared confused on stage multiple times, was falling up the stairs of Air Force One and mixed up names and as his gait changed to a stiff walk.
The Biden Administration continually denied the then-president was facing health issues.
But Psaki, by her own admission claims to have only realized the gravity of the situation in real-time during the June 27 debate.
‘This is a f***ing disaster,’ she recalled telling colleagues partway through the night.
The once-unshakable image of the ‘steady hand’ president collapsed in front of millions.
Biden stumbled, mumbled, lost his train of thought, and at times, seemed simply lost.
It was, in the words of The Daily Beast, ‘an embarrassing trip to the nursing home.’
Within weeks of that disastrous debate performance, Biden dropped out of the race, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, who was subsequently trounced by Donald Trump in November’s general election.
But the consequences of that night still echo loudly across political media, with journalists, voters, and lawmakers alike demanding accountability.
Many now believe the signs of cognitive deterioration were not only present but obvious and that the press, Biden’s aides, and even former officials like Psaki deliberately chose to look the other way.
‘Maybe the media missed a lot,’ Psaki conceded. ‘In retrospect, there were probably major stories missed. It’s always easy to play Monday-morning quarterback,’ she said, in an attempt to deflect blame.
For critics, especially conservatives, Psaki’s revelation was years of gaslighting, thin denials, and choreographed deflections coming apart in one unraveling moment.
When asked by host Ben Smith whether there had been a deliberate cover-up of Biden’s health, Psaki bristled.
At last week’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Axios’s Alex Thompson, co-author of an upcoming book on Biden’s fall, took direct aim at the media’s failures:
‘President Biden’s decline and its cover-up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception.’
‘We – myself included – missed a lot of this story,’ Thompson added during his acceptance speech for the Aldo Beckman Award.
‘Some people trust us less because of it. We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows.’
Even CNN’s Jake Tapper, co-authoring the same forthcoming exposé, has openly questioned the systemic failures that allowed Biden’s condition to remain under wraps until the campaign had imploded.
The upcoming book by Tapper and Thompson is expected to shed even more light on what really happened inside the West Wing during the months leading up to the debate, including who knew what — and when.
Leaks suggest that aides raised concerns privately about Biden’s memory and stamina, but were overruled or ignored by senior staffers and campaign officials determined to present an image of calm control.
And while some, like for NBC political chief Chuck Todd, have echoed Psaki’s rejection of the ‘cover-up’ label, others have gone further calling for formal investigations into whether the public was misled in violation of ethical, or even legal, obligations.
Psaki’s attempt to both acknowledge and deflect responsibility has only deepened the divide.
Critics say she’s trying to have it both ways: admit the debate was catastrophic while insisting she never saw any cause for concern, despite daily access to the most powerful man in the world.
‘I never saw that person… that was on that debate stage,’ she said again.
Supporters who once saw Biden as a stabilizing force now felt misled. His party scrambled and the Harris campaign floundered. And Trump, with ruthless efficiency, seized on the chaos to power his return to the White House.
Psaki may have thought she was closing a chapter this with her podcast confession but in reality have have only invited even sharper scrutiny.
Perhaps the first time the public started to become alarmed was when President Biden demonstrated his dramatic physical limitations, falling repeatedly on the stairs while boarding Air Force One on March 18, 2021 for a trip to Atlanta, Georgia.
By August 2021, however, Biden started to demonstrate real struggles in communicating and reacting to major public events.
And during the botched exit from Afghanistan, Biden continued keeping his remarks closely scripted for days, refusing to respond to shouted questions from reporters and staying on script with his talking points.
In December 2024 Biden’s alleged incompetency was put on fully display when the Wall Street Journal exposed the White House’s deliberate and years-long cover-up to shield the public from his declining cognitive health.
The President’s team hired a vocal coach, scrapped meetings on his ‘bad days’, and kept him at arm’s length from his own Cabinet members, the report alleged.
Biden, 82, allegedly leaned on a close circle of unelected advisers and officials who had been put into roles usually occupied by the president.
The administration would also gaslight those who dared to claim Biden’s abilities had deteriorated since he was Barack Obama’s vice president, according to the report.
At the same time, press aides who were tasked with compiling news clips were instructed by senior staff to leave out any negative stories about the president.
But despite the efforts of ‘eager beaver hand-holders’, by late June of 2024, Biden’s decline was on full display when he debated Trump.
Gaffes, fumbles and blank stares from the president filled the hour-and-a-half televised event. It ultimately proved catastrophic for him and his campaign.
