A former official in former President Joe Biden’s administration admitted that they “gaslit” the American people about the condition of the elderly leader, practically throughout the duration of his term.
Michael LaRosa, who served as the press secretary to former first lady Jill Biden, spoke to Puck reporter Tara Palmeri at the Sine Institute of Policy and Politics at American University, where he admitted to the efforts they took to protect the former president from the media spotlight, Fox News reported.
He said that they had been aware of Biden’s cognitive issues from “Day One” and also admitted that they downplayed his crash in the polls.
“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 gaslight because that’s what they were doing the campaign, former colleagues,” he said.
“The message to everybody was to make sure that you tell people it’s too early. It’s too early. These polls don’t mean well; it became too early, and these polls don’t mean anything,” the former press secretary said.
The White House had been praising the polling when Biden was ahead, but suddenly, the polls were not to be taken seriously after most of them showed him falling well behind then-former President Donald Trump.
LaRosa said the White House made a mistake when it attacked liberal news organizations like The New York Times, which was reporting about concerns regarding the president’s age and cognitive abilities.
“I think if you were watching MSNBC, you probably believed [the White House] and were probably pretty shocked. But if you were, if you were consuming information, consuming data and looking at it objectively and trying to interpret it and process it objectively, then none of it was surprising,” he said.
LaRosa also said that the Biden team was terrified of the former president doing impromptu interviews or speaking to the press in a manner that was not scripted.
“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,” he said.
WATCH:
Fox News personality and former pro wrestler Tyrus previously offered a different take on the bombshell revelation that Biden’s severely hampered mental acuity has been covered up by his closest aides since the days of his 2020 campaign during a network segment on Friday.
Tyrus’ remarks came after anchor Shannon Bream referenced a Wall Street Journal bombshell published last week that cited dozens of sources who revealed that Biden’s closest aides and advisers hid his condition using various methods as best they could throughout the duration of his term.
Tyrus didn’t blame Biden for the scandal but rather those who worked behind the scenes to not only shield his condition but who also likely ran the country as unelected bureaucrats.
“Reported nearly 50 sources, Wall Street Journal, page after page after page of him not meeting with his Cabinet secretaries, people not being able to get in touch with him, no access to him, him being given pre-planned questions, all of this stuff, not one question about that in the briefing today was shocking to me,” Bream said.
“Interviewing him is criminal. It’s even more criminal to interview him to go down memory lane. It’s not a joke,” Tyrus began.
“This man, whatever he was, he used to be, Father Time is doing what Father Time does. He can barely walk. He’s not in these, we know now that the staffers are making decisions and this, that, whatever,” he continued. “His legacy is basically that they knew that he was unfit. We were talking during the break. If they, once they knew, if they cared about the country, they should have put Kamala in two years ago.
“Good, bad, or indifferent, she has her faculties together. Asking him now to come in and talk to Congress is criminal. He does, he cannot do it anymore,” Tyrus added.
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