White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates complained about the press’ recent coverage of President Biden’s mental acuity after Special Counsel Robert Hur called out his memory for being "poor."
Bates took to X on Thursday to rip journalists for seeming more skeptical of Biden’s old age and cognitive abilities lately in the wake of the Hur report.
Hur declined to charge Biden for his mishandling of classified documents, in part because his "poor memory" would discourage a jury from convicting him. The document sent shockwaves through D.C. and the media, with prominent outlets covering Biden's cognitive abilities in a more skeptical light than ever before.
On the other hand, Biden's defenders in the Democratic Party and in his own administration insist that Biden is fine and any evidence to the contrary is "right-wing propaganda."
Bates trashed the press, saying its own "collective memory problems" prevented them from remembering Biden’s strong qualities and past "rightwing age attacks."
The deputy press secretary said this while sharing an X post from Puck News senior correspondent Dylan Byers, which said, "NEW @PuckNews: The Age of Biden: Many in WH press corps have spent the last couple years noticeably avoiding the topic of the president’s agility and acuity because it felt indelicate or irrelevant. Now, the Hur report has stirred some soul-searching."
The corresponding news article detailed how Byers noticed – post Hur’s report – "members of the White House press corps—reporters, on-air correspondents, photographers, etcetera" emphasizing "that the symptoms of Biden’s age had become more noticeable in recent months and a frequent discussion topic at the desks behind the Brady briefing room."
Byers noted that though talk about Biden’s age existed prior to Hur’s bombshell, it "was not reflected" in their coverage, "often due to the sense that it was sensitive or unseemly."
He continued, "The Hur report has obviously given the press corps greater license to cover the issue—in the same way, one journalist noted, that the Monica Lewinsky scandal gave the White House press corps greater license to talk about the flirtatious behavior they’d witnessed Bill Clinton exhibiting toward some women, but never felt like they had the freedom to write about in their pages."
The journalist added, "Whatever the case, Biden’s age is now a thing, an enduring thing, a challenge for the administration and campaign."
Bates took issue with this reality, claiming the scrutiny on Biden’s age and memory has been going on for years and is old news.
The White House official commented on the post, saying, "Bolsters my theory that starting in 2019 some in the press began suffering from collective memory problems. Can't remember their own coverage. Can't remember even 1 of the historic Biden wins since then. Can't remember that the rightwing age attacks they treat as novel are... old."
Last year, Bates was found to be implicated in spreading the now-discredited letter signed by 50 former intel agency officials saying that Hunter Biden’s laptop and its controversial contents were a hoax whipped up by Russian disinformation agents.
