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Several top Democrats have deflected questions about former President Biden's cognitive decline, as alleged in multiple books about the 2024 election, telling the media that they're looking to move forward and not look back.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., dismissed the questions surrounding the latest book to come out with allegations of the president's decline on CNN, MSNBC and during a press conference on Tuesday.
During an interview with CNN's Kasie Hunt, Schumer was asked, "Did you really not have any idea that he was not fit to serve a second term?"
"Kasie, we're looking forward. We have the largest Medicaid cut in front of us. We have the whole federal government," he said as Hunt pushed back, noting the reason they were dealing with President Donald Trump now was because the Democrats lost in 2024.
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"Is that not Joe Biden's responsibility for deciding to run again?" Hunt followed up as the Democratic lawmaker repeated, "We're looking forward."
Hunt pressed, "That's it?" Schumer said, "That's it," before the interview ended.
While multiple books have come out about Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris and the 2024 election, the most recent excerpts from CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson's upcoming book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," detail several insider concerns over whether Biden could last a second term as president.
The senator was also pressed on Tuesday by MSNBC's Katy Tur, who asked him to respond to a specific portion of the book that mentioned the Democratic senator. "The book also reports that Biden put his hands on your shoulder and said, 'You have bigger,' I'm going to say huevos, it's not what the book said, 'than anyone I've ever met.' Do you think Biden deserves the blame for the loss in 2024?" Tur asked.
"Katy, we're looking forward. We have the largest Medicaid cut in history facing us. We are focused on the future and doing right for the American people, plain and simple," he said.
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Tur followed up and asked if Biden actually said what was reported in the book, and he said again, "We're looking forward."
The senator gave the same response during a press conference earlier in the day when a reporter asked if he was being straight with the American public in posting on X in June that the president was "in command and impressive" in meetings.
The reporter juxtaposed Schumer's post with an insider describing to Tapper and Thompson a "terrifying" moment that same month when Biden failed to recognize award-winning actor George Clooney at a June fundraiser.
Schumer dismissed the question, saying, "We're just looking forward."
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Asked by a reporter on Tuesday whether it was helpful for the Democratic caucus to have these books about Biden and the 2024 campaign, and whether he wanted Biden to help campaign for Democrats, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries deflected.
"We're not looking backward, we're looking forward at this particular moment in time," Jeffries said.
Gov. JB Pritzker, D-Ill., said the commentary about the president's health was "very backward-looking" during an interview on CNN on Tuesday, but argued that the former president should have either stayed in the race or not run for re-election at all.
He added, "So I don't know whether he should have been the nominee or not. I don't really want to review all of it because it's past history, and we live in a moment right now when 500,000 people in the state of Illinois are being told basically they're going to lose their healthcare because of what the Republicans are doing."
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Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., was confronted on Sunday by NBC's Kristen Welker about Biden's insistence that it didn't matter that he dropped out of the race in July, only giving former Vice President Kamala Harris about 90 days to campaign.
"You know, everything we look at in a rearview mirror after you lose an election. Yes, we would have been served better by a primary, but we are where we are. We're not on the History Channel right now, and I believe that President Biden can come out and speak and do interviews whenever he wants," Klobuchar said.
"But I will say this: We're not in the 'History Channel' and our Republican colleagues, instead of dealing with where we are now, think they're in some kind of a way back zone, that they can go bring time backwards and blame everything on Joe Biden. Donald Trump is the president right now, and we have to deal with helping the American people," the senator added.
After listing what she wanted the party to focus on going forward, the Democratic senator added, "So I'm not interested in going backward in time. I'm interested in going forward."
Some Democrats acknowledged that the president put the party in a tough spot when pressed on the book allegations, and on whether they should have held a primary.
Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Ky., told MSNBC on Wednesday when pressed on Biden's decline and revelations from the book that he shouldn't have run for re-election, as he said he was going to be a transitional president.
"I don't think he should have run for reelection. And I do think that it put the party in a much tougher spot to win, which we needed the best person on the field," McGarvey told MSNBC's Ali Vitali, citing Trump's policies and the high stakes of the election. "We knew the stakes were that high, and we needed to make sure we had the best person on the field for the Democrats at that time."
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that Biden "maybe" hurt Democrats in running for re-election. However, Buttigieg defended the former president against allegations of decline.
"The time I worked closest with him in his final year was around the Baltimore bridge collapse. And what I can tell you is that the same president the world saw addressing that was the president I was in the Oval with, insisting that we do a good job, do right by Baltimore. And that was characteristic of my experience with him," he told reporters in Iowa this week.
