Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) claimed he wanted “to really defend” President Joe Biden after special counsel Robert Hur‘s scathing report cast serious doubt on the president’s mental faculties.
Phillips made a round of television interviews after Biden’s competence was called into question by Hur, who referred to the president as “an elderly man” with “poor memory.”
Hur’s office interviewed Biden last year but found he did not have a “mental state of willfulness” and therefore was not worth indicting over his handling of classified documents because “it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him.”
Most recently, Phillips appeared on Jesse Watters Primetime Friday to lament the president’s press conference following the report’s release. Biden blasted Hur, telling reporters “how in the hell dare he” question whether Biden remembered his own son’s death date.
“It was sad. You know, most patriotic Americans probably watched that press conference, saw a decent man, and I want to really defend him,” Phillips said. “He is a decent man, and to have to get in front of the country and talk about his son Beau, defend himself from these charges, I thought it was a sad day.”
Meanwhile, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) saw through Phillip’s sympathy as another campaign strategy. Phillips is running against Biden for the Democratic nomination, with no wins in the early primaries so far. Fetterman appeared on CNN NewsNight the same night to respond to Phillips’s statement.
“Actually, what’s sad is to have some guy with way too much money and he wants to piss it away and somehow help Trump at this point. So, he has the right to do that, but he’s just been humiliated again and again and again,” Fetterman said. “And if you really like that, I mean, I guess there’s different kinds of options available that might be cheaper and more private. But he’s irrelevant, as are any of the other third-rate kinds of campaigns now.”
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Fetterman had previously called out Hur’s report as “a smear and cheap shots.” The senator shared his prediction that the 2024 race would be between Biden and Donald Trump.
Biden has swept the Democratic primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.
