On Tuesday, CNN host Anderson Cooper said that President Joe Biden “was just sort of speaking out loud” about what year his son Beau died “in a much more conversational way, as opposed to sort of really stumbling over what year it was.”
CNN Contributor and Biden biographer Evan Osnos said, “Look, it’s really kind of remarkable to compare it to where we were five weeks ago. That was a time when Americans were genuinely wondering, is this guy no longer able to remember the date of one of the most significant moments of his life, the death of his son? And what we see in the transcript is this essential nuance, the context for all of those interactions that really makes it much more, frankly, sort of normal and much more lucid, I think.”
Cooper then said, “It’s interesting on that question of the date, because, in the transcript, which wasn’t in the special counsel’s report, he remembered the day and the month. He was just sort of speaking out loud, saying what year was that? And I was — in a much more conversational way, as opposed to sort of really stumbling over what year it was.”
Osnos responded, “Yeah. It’s a crucial distinction, it’s something that I think was not really visible at all in the special [counsel’s] report. What you see in the transcript — and your term is right, he was essentially sort of thinking out loud. He’s saying, all right, you’re asking me about my data handling practices at a certain point in the post-vice presidency. So, when did I stop being vice president? Alright, well, then, here’s how I handled documents back then, here are the people who were moving boxes for me.”
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