Biden Aide Says President Was ‘Fatigued, Befuddled’ Before Trump Debate: New Book

Ron Klain, Joe Biden’s former White House chief of staff, reportedly believed the ex-president was “out of it” ahead of his disastrous presidential debate with Donald Trump.

According to a new book, Klain, who returned to Biden’s side to help prepare for last June’s debate, found the president to be “fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged,” and questioned whether the Democratic nominee believed he was in charge of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Klain gives his eyebrow-raising account of the Camp David debate prep to reporter Chris Whipple in the latest damning reporting on Biden’s cognitive and physical decline ahead of the pivotal clash with Trump, which saw the then-81-year-old withdraw his candidacy and hand over the reins to Vice President Kamala Harris.

The book, “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History,” will be published next week.

Per the book, excerpts of which have been reported by The Guardian, Klain had “never seen [Biden] so exhausted and out of it” when they met at the president’s cabin.

Whipple writes Biden “was unaware of what was happening in his own campaign,” and went to sit by the pool halfway through the session.

That evening, at a meeting with Biden that included his close aides, Klain was “struck by how out of touch with American politics [Biden] was,” and remembers the president appearing fixated with his interactions with NATO leaders.

Klain, Whipple writes, “wondered half-seriously if Biden thought he was president of NATO instead of the U.S. ‘He just became very enraptured with being the head of NATO,’ he said.”

At one point during the preparation, Biden suggested that he should look “perplexed when Trump talked” so that “voters would understand that Trump was an idiot.”

“Klain replied: ‘Sir, when you look perplexed, people just think you’re perplexed,’” Whipple wrote.

The first mock debate, scheduled for 90 minutes, was abandoned after 45 minutes, and appeared notable for Biden’s confusion over a policy to bring down child care costs.

At the second mock face-off, Biden declared he was “done for the day” after 25 minutes, and disappeared to bed. “The president was fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged,” Whipple wrote. “Klain feared the debate with Trump would be a nationally televised disaster.”

Per HuffPost’s report on the debate, Biden “fumbled his way through” an “alarming performance.” It ended his campaign.

Despite the account as told by Whipple, Klain took the news of Biden bowing out as a “gut punch” and told Jeff Zients, his successor as White House chief of staff, that the decision was “a mistake” and “an avoidable tragedy.”

Whipple’s book comes hard on the heels of another account of the campaign, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” by Jonathan Allen of NBC News and Amie Parnes of The Hill.