Newly released audio of President Joe Biden's 2023 interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur highlights moments of confusion, long pauses, and memory lapses as the president struggled to answer basic questions during a probe into his handling of classified documents. The recordings, published Friday by Axios, confirm previously released transcripts and offer a rare glimpse into the tone and pace of the high-stakes interviews that ultimately spared Biden from criminal charges.
The Department of Justice has authenticated the recordings, which span two sessions totaling approximately six hours conducted on October 8 and 9, 2023, in the White House Map Room. In the audio, Biden is heard stumbling when asked where he stored documents after leaving the vice presidency. "I don't know," he said after a prolonged pause, before veering into unrelated recollections about being urged to run for president.
At one point, Biden asked aloud, "What month did Beau die?" before pausing. Aides in the room responded, "2015," to which Biden replied, "Was it 2015 he had died?"
The tapes also captured Biden, when asked whether he remembered keeping a classified memo about Afghanistan, responding, "I don't know that I knew." He later added, "I guess I wanted to hang onto it just for posterity's sake." His attorney, Bob Bauer, quickly interrupted: "I just really would like to avoid, for the purpose of a clean record, getting into speculative areas.... He does not recall specifically intending to keep this memo after he left the vice presidency."
In his final report issued February 2024, Hur cited Biden's age and memory challenges as central to his decision not to pursue charges. He described Biden as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," asserting it would be difficult to convince a jury that Biden had acted with criminal intent.
Republicans, frustrated by the contrast with former President Donald Trump's prosecution for a similar case, have attacked the findings as evidence of selective justice. Trump said Friday, "Everybody understands the condition of him. I know people that are 89, 90, 92, 93 years old and are literally perfect. But Joe was not one of them."
House Republicans previously voted to hold then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for refusing to turn over the audio, though the Justice Department declined to prosecute. The White House defended withholding the recordings on grounds that they were "law enforcement materials" and susceptible to partisan misuse.
The publication of the audio adds pressure to a Democratic Party still grappling with Biden's candidacy at age 82 and the implications of a forthcoming book, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson. The book reportedly includes accounts from White House insiders and Democratic officials who questioned Biden's cognitive resilience during his term.
During the interviews, Biden also struggled to recall the year Donald Trump was elected, the nature of various stored materials, and the timeline of events around his vice presidency. While the transcripts had previously shown factual gaps, the audio adds a new layer - revealing a dry, whispering tone, extended silences, and the tick-tock of a grandfather clock echoing between Biden's pauses.
Despite his lapses, Biden showed flashes of engagement, storytelling, and humor. He spoke at length about topics ranging from his Corvette ride with Jay Leno to European history and even bow-and-arrow shooting in Mongolia. In one exchange, Biden asked, "Am I making any sense to you?"
Vice President Kamala Harris defended Biden in the wake of Hur's report, calling the descriptions "gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate." She said, "The way that the president's demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts and clearly politically motivated - gratuitous."
Biden's spokesperson, Kelly Scully, reiterated the White House's position in response to the release: "The transcripts were released by the Biden administration more than a year ago. The audio does nothing but confirm what is already public."
