OAN Staff James Meyers
8:19 AM – Friday, February 28, 2025
A senior aide to previous President Joe Biden has admitted the administration was “gaslighting” Americans when it repeatedly did not acknowledge concerns about Biden’s age and ability.
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Michael LaRosa, a former White House aide and longtime press secretary for first lady Jill Biden, admitted that the campaign was aware from “day one” that the 81-year-old’s age was a concerning issue.
He also claimed that other aides were “scared to death” of letting him do off-the-cuff interviews ahead of the election, Puck reported.
“Cover-up to me is a little hard, a little harsh. Every politician, everybody, every human being tries to cover up age. We were always, from day one, cognizant that age was an issue,” LaRosa said Wednesday at a Science Institute at American University seminar.
“There are some things that are true, I mean, like the gaslighting. There was a lot of denial of the polling. And I will use the term gaslighting because that’s what they were doing, the campaign, former colleagues. The message to everybody was to make sure that you tell people it’s too early.”
Biden was hit with multiple negative polls in the lead-up to Election Day and fears that his verbal gaffes, moments of confusion and physical decline were signs of cognitive decline.
From behind the scenes, the Biden campaign was scared to leave him alone, according to LaRosa.
“The president’s team was scared to death of impromptu, unscripted, unrehearsed, unpracticed, unchoreographed, anything, they couldn’t compete for the attention economy,” he said.
“They just couldn’t do it. They didn’t have any idea. And they didn’t have the vessel either in Biden, by the way, who would have done anything. He loves TV. He loves doing stuff. It was the orbit that did not trust their own candidate.”
“Biden needed the press. When he needed them the most, they didn’t trust him, they gave him the back foot of the doubt and they put their foot on the gas and never took it off. And he was politically dead.”
Ultimately, the pressure from the Democrats caught up to him after a horrendous first debate against President Donald Trump, which caused Biden to be forced out of the 2024 race and endorse his then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
The former aide made the claims after being asked by Puck journalist Tara Palmeri, about a new book CNN’s Jake Tapper co-authored that details the lengths to which the Biden administration and its allies went in a “cover-up” of his mental decline.
Meanwhile, people have heavily criticized Tapper on social media after the CNN anchor repeatedly dismissed claims about Biden’s decline about the then-president’s age during the campaign.
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