Former Vice President Kamala Harris blames former President Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate performance last year on his travel schedule from earlier that month, echoing talking points that his allies pushed unsuccessfully in the aftermath of his career-ending performance.
However, Biden’s schedule and the White House’s own statements in the debate’s immediate aftermath contradict Harris’s claim.
Recommended Stories
- Newsom highlights California's battle with federal government during state of the state address
- North Carolina GOP announces vigil in honor of Iryna Zarutska
- Appeals court orders reinstatement of Trump-fired register of copyrights
In an excerpt of her forthcoming book, 107 Days, published by the Atlantic on Wednesday, Harris said she did not believe “incapacity” was behind Biden’s struggle to form sentences during the June 2024 debate.
“I don’t think it’s any surprise that the debate debacle happened right after two back-to-back trips to Europe and a flight to the West Coast for a Hollywood fundraiser,” Harris wrote.
Biden traveled to France on June 5 and returned to Washington, D.C., on June 9 last year. During that trip, he celebrated the 80th anniversary of D-Day and met with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Although this was the first of the three trips Harris blames for Biden’s debate performance, the former president was already showing signs of confusion at the start of the visit. The White House said selective editing of videos that clearly depicted a struggling, elderly man was responsible for misleading the public.
On June 12, 2024, Biden left for Europe again, flying to Italy for the Group of 7 summit.
Biden spawned yet another viral moment on this trip when, at an outdoor gathering with other world leaders, he appeared to wander off aimlessly before the Italian prime minister gently guided him back to the group.
The White House again blamed video editing for the scrutiny that followed.
One day after returning from Italy on June 14, Biden flew to Los Angeles for a Hollywood fundraiser thrown by George Clooney and Julia Roberts. According to the book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, Biden’s physical and mental diminishment at the event shocked attendees.
“It was like watching someone who was not alive,” one “Hollywood VIP” told the authors.
Biden did not recognize Clooney, one of the most famous actors in the world and someone Biden had known personally for years, at the fundraiser, according to the book.
Biden returned to the White House on June 16.
Biden’s post-travel, pre-debate schedule
For the next 11 days, the former president’s schedule was light.
On June 18, Biden traveled to his family’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He spent two days there before heading to Camp David, where he remained for six days with no public events on his schedule.
Biden “was rusty and exhausted” when he arrived at Camp David on June 20, according to Original Sin, “essentially sleeping that whole first day” and “taking lots of naps” throughout his week at the presidential retreat.
Resting and preparing meticulously for the debate were the only two things Biden did leading up to the June 27 debate.
“At Camp David, a movie theater and an airplane hangar have been outfitted with lights and production equipment to create a mock debate stage,” the New York Times reported two days before the event. “At least 16 current and former aides, summoned from Washington and Wilmington, whiz back and forth on golf carts to join President Biden in strategy sessions.”
But catching up on sleep and practicing his answers did not help Biden muster even a lackluster debate performance. His inability to deliver coherent responses about his own policies was so disastrous that he was forced out of the race within a month.
Biden’s aides initially tried to downplay the debacle, first telling reporters that his soft, weak voice and overall confusion were the result of a cold he was battling.
When even the friendly legacy media reacted with skepticism to the claim Biden was sick, some of the former president’s aides went on to claim instead that he “was overprepared by days of lengthy prep sessions and got inside his own head,” as the Washington Post reported at the time.
The debate prep team was the top culprit for several days following the event.
“Biden allies and staffers have sought to blame a variety of factors in the aftermath of Biden’s dismal debate performance, including that the president was ill, was over-prepared and that the CNN moderators failed to fact-check former President Donald Trump,” read a Politico report from three days after the debate. “But as the crisis continued into a third day, the finger-pointing has turned inward toward some of Biden’s closest advisers.”
Eventually, Biden’s allies began blaming his travel schedule, and that excuse ultimately stuck more than the others, making its way into Harris’s book more than a year later. But it was far from the first justification provided for the debate disaster.
“Biden’s latest excuse: Blame it on the travel,” read one Politico headline from July 2024 about the new talking points.
“President Joe Biden is now chalking up his fumbling debate performance to a heavy travel schedule ahead of the face-off with Donald Trump — the latest in a series of explanations for an episode that has caused some Democrats to call for him to drop his reelection bid,” the report said.
HARRIS DEPICTS TENSE RELATIONSHIP WITH BIDEN TEAM IN NEW BOOK: ‘HIS TEAM DIDN’T GET IT’
Hunter Biden recently added another layer to the travel excuse. The former president’s son told a podcast host in July that his father had been taking Ambien to catch up on sleep while traveling, and that the exhaustion from the June 2024 trips had cost the elder Biden his ability to debate.
However, Hunter Biden later told ABC News he had no idea whether his father had actually taken Ambien while traveling and said he was simply making a point about the effect of his father’s travel schedule.