A former adviser to President Obama broke his silence about President Biden’s mental state on Wednesday, just hours after actor George Clooney published a damaging op-ed in The New York Times calling on the president to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.
“It wasn’t a surprise to us at the fundraiser. I was there. Clooney was right and everyone I spoke to at the fundraiser thought the same thing, except for the people who work for Joe Biden. At least they didn’t say that,” Jon Favreau, a member of the group known as the “Obama Brothers” during his time in the White House, told CNN.
In his guest essay, Favreau referenced the same fundraiser as Clooney, and argued that the Biden who showed up there “wasn’t the ‘big’ Joe Biden of 2010. It wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. It was the same guy we all saw at the debates.”
‘Obama brothers’ attack Biden as rumors of long-standing tensions linger: ‘It’s painful to watch’
From left: former Obama adviser Jon Favreau, President Biden, and actor George Clooney. (Getty Images)
Clooney wrote that Democratic leaders needed to stop trying to convince the American people “that they didn’t see what we just saw” and accused them of ignoring “warning signs” about Biden.
Favreau agreed, telling CNN, “I remember my wife Emily asking me after the fundraiser, ‘What are you going to do?’ And I said, ‘Well, the debate is in a week. And if he does well in the debate, people will think he was just tired because he flew back from Europe and that’s the end of it. Or he’ll look like this at the debate and the whole country will be talking about it. So this is what we’re going to do.'”
Favreau’s candid comments came the day after he, along with two fellow advisers and members of the “Obama Brothers,” dedicated much of their time to the president. Latest ‘Pod Save America’ Episode They collectively attacked Biden following his poor performance in the first presidential debate and in subsequent interviews.
Biden’s campaign schedule reveals president’s plans amid calls to drop out of 2024 election
(From left): Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor pose at PolitiCon at the Pasadena Convention Center on July 29, 2017 in Pasadena, California. (John Sciulli/Getty Images via Politicon)
“It was awful and hard to watch at times,” Tommy Vieter, an adviser to former President Barack Obama, said on the podcast, referring to an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last week that was part of Biden’s efforts to quell critics who say he should drop out of the presidential race.
“The debate was a terrible night. We all saw it,” former adviser John Lovett said. “The explanation is vague. It doesn’t do enough to allay our concerns about what we saw that night, right? So it doesn’t offer any explanation.”
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Biden has said he has no plans to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, and his campaign remains “full steam ahead,” a source told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.
Fox News’ Christine Parks contributed to this report.
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