A former staffer for the Biden White House argued that then-President Biden’s campaign was “gaslighting” the public by denying concerns about his cognitive fitness for office.
Michael LaRosa, who served as press secretary for former first lady Jill Biden from 2021 to 2022, told Puck News senior political correspondent Tara Palmeri on Wednesday that the portrayal in “Original Sin,” a new book from CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson, of how the campaign addressed concerns about Biden’s age is at least somewhat accurate.
“There are some things that are true, I mean, like the gaslighting. There was a lot of denial of the polling,” LaRosa said at the event for the Sine Institute of Policy and Politics at American University, in comments highlighted by Mediaite.
“And I will use the term gaslighting because that’s what they were doing, the campaign, former colleagues,” he said.
LaRosa said the campaign’s message was to tell people that the polls showing the public’s concern about Biden’s age and mental acuity “don’t mean anything” because the election was still too far away.
“Well, it became too early. And these polls don’t mean anything for about a year and a half. The polls, the numbers never moved,” he said. “But by denying the data that was out there publicly, by denying the really insightful journalism… they were actually demeaning to a lot of the people.”
“But it was the data denial that really bothered me because we loved polling when we were running because we were always ahead,” he added, referring to the 2020 campaign.
Polling throughout the 2024 campaign regularly showed that many voters had concerns about Biden’s mental capability to serve another term. Surveys also showed some concern about President Trump’s mental fitness, but the concerns about Biden were consistently higher.
Biden and his campaign remained adamant that he could serve another term and would stay in the race, but a disastrous debate performance against Trump in late June further eroded remaining trust in Biden’s abilities. He regularly stumbled over his words throughout the event and at times struggled to form coherent sentences.
Pressure built within the party over the next few weeks for Biden to step aside, which he did in July, to be replaced as the nominee by then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
That process has left some lingering hard feelings within the party, with some close allies to Biden expressing frustration at how those weeks went with Biden facing widespread calls to end his reelection bid.
But LaRosa said the decision to run for reelection was a “misread” of the takeaway from Biden’s win in 2020.
He said Biden’s campaign team remained “scared to death” of him taking part in unscripted and unrehearsed “anything.” He said Biden was willing to take part in interviews, but his team wouldn’t allow it.
“It was his orbit that did not trust their own candidate,” he said.
