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‘I Should Have Pushed Harder’: Ex-CNN Analyst Apologizes For Not Probing Into Biden’s ‘Decline’ Sooner

Screenshot/YouTube/Chris Cillizza

Former CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza expressed remorse Thursday for not investigating concerns about President Joe Biden’s mental and physical health sooner.

Corporate media spent years downplaying voters’ and Republicans’ concerns about Biden’s mental acuity before his June debate against then-former President Donald Trump. Cillizza, on his YouTube channel, acknowledged he was wrong to overlook those concerns during his tenure at CNN.

WATCH:

“As a reporter, I have a confession to make: I should have pushed harder earlier for more information about Joe Biden’s mental and physical well-being and any signs of decline. So let me explain. Joe Biden was president from 2020 to 2024. I worked at CNN through 2022,” Cillizza said. “During that time, the early part when I was at CNN, 2020 to 2022, people would regularly — Republicans would regularly ping me and say, ‘Why don’t you ask more questions of Joe Biden and how he’s doing? He’s [a] 76, 77, 78-year-old man.’ And I would sort of brush them off because what I would say is, ‘Well, there’s no obvious evidence that he’s declining. Yeah, he moves a little slower, he talks a little slower, but there’s no evidence that he’s declining.'”

“And the White House and the people around Joe Biden were absolutely adamant that suggesting anything — asking the question about whether he was in some physical, mental, or both decline — was offensive. ‘How could you? It’s age shaming.’ And I think that impacted me at some level because, while I did ask the question from time to time — not directly to the White House, but aides and people in that orbit — I didn’t really push on it if I’m being honest,” he continued. “Once I left CNN, and once it became a little bit more clear to me about Biden’s age, I think I did write pretty regularly and talk pretty regularly about how I wasn’t sure that this guy was up to it.”

The former CNN analyst noted recent stories published by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal about Biden’s “decline” prompted him to make the apology.

White House aides described Biden as weary, frail and moody to the NYT after he insisted for years that he was capable of a second term in office. Dozens of those close to Biden’s operations over the years told the WSJ how aides insulated the president and managed his duties amid increasing worries regarding his competence.

Cillizza previously published an analysis for CNN in August 2021, criticizing Republicans for proliferating a narrative that Biden was in a state of decline.

“This is the sort of gross, lowest-common-denominator politics that drive people away from public life,” he wrote. “If Republicans have some sort of proof that Biden is declining, they should bring it forward. If they don’t, they should stop doing what they’re doing. Immediately.”