Former President Bill Clinton, while acknowledging that one must "pay attention" to reports alleging a decline in former President Joe Biden's mental acuity, said Thursday that he did not notice anything amiss about him when they were together.
"All I can say is whenever I was around him, his mind was clear, his judgment was good, and he was on top of his brief," Clinton told ABC's "The View."
But Clinton said he does have questions about decisions the White House made in the days leading up to Biden's ill-fated debate with now-President Donald Trump, which led to Biden withdrawing from the race.
He noted that Biden had traveled overseas shortly before the debate, and questioned the decisions behind that happening.
"He was 80 years old," said Clinton, who is 78 years old. "Why was that allowed to happen? There's a lot of questions. I don't know. All I know is I think we should think less about that, more about the future."
A Biden spokesperson, speaking with ABC News, commented that the book, "Original Sin," which alleged the White House covered up Bidens' decline, said that there is "nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover up or conspiracy."
Clinton also had strong words about Trump, including claiming he is working to "implement that White House 2025 report that he said he never read."
Trump disavowed the report, Project 2025, a policy handbook written by the Heritage Foundation, but Clinton said Trump always says, "'Don't read that, don't pay attention to it.'"
"People pretty much knew what they were getting and get, you know, new and unprecedented actions against immigrants, legal and otherwise, and a few modest tax cut[s], but I think there's been more of what they thought they'd get on the tariffs, the taxes, and the immigrants and other things," Clinton said. "I think there's been more of it than they expected."
He added that he's nervous that the court rulings that have come against Trump's orders "won't hold until we have the midterm elections."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.