Former first lady Jill Biden recently claimed she thought her husband was having a stroke during his catastrophic 2024 debate with President Donald Trump.
But former Biden aides are furious at the former first lady and say she had a key role in the cover-up of Biden’s mental decline.
One put it simply: “She’s lying.”
The former first lady sat down with CBS News this week ahead of the June 2 release of her book, “View From the East Wing,” to describe her emotional state watching then-President Biden stammer, go silent, and otherwise embarrass himself on national television during the June 2024 debate.
“I don’t know what happened,” Jill told CBS. “When I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s having a stroke,’ and it scared me to death.”
She claimed her husband may had unknowingly taken Ambien or codeine cough syrup before the event, and that she pushed for him to take a cognitive exam in the aftermath but was overruled by his own advisors.
“Oh God — will people watching assume this is how he is all the time?” she claimed to have thought.
It has reportedly left aides furious, who insist Jill Biden was part of the cover-up of her husbands rapid mental decline while he was in office. One former senior Biden campaign advisor told NBC’s Dasha Burns that Jill’s comments is “revisionist history” to make her look innocent.
“She and a handful of other close advisors around President Biden kept gaslighting us, telling those of us on the campaign we were the ones who were wrong, and that he just had a ‘bad night,'” the advisor said. “I think she saw the reputational harm this caused her and is therefore taking a new position.”
Axios reporter Alex Thompson said he was flooded with angry responses from former Biden officials after Jill’s interview aired.
“A lot of Democrats, including several Biden aides that I’ve talked to since yesterday when this interview came out, just simply don’t believe her,” Thompson said, adding there is “significant skepticism that she is trying to rewrite this narrative right now.”
“Biden aides told Jake Tapper and me that they had seen him act that way before and after,” Thompson posted on X. “Those moments became more difficult to predict and conceal.”
Thompson said Jill had worked with Biden’s inner circle to gaslight campaign staff for months.
One former Biden official was even more direct, telling Thompson simply: “She’s lying.”