Joe Biden flipped the script on the GOP’s constant attacks on his mental state, with the former vice president questioning President Trump’s own mental acuity.
In response to a question on what consequences the president should face if reports that he knew about a Russian government scheme to pay Taliban soldiers to kill American service members overseas were true, Biden said Trump “doesn’t seem cognitively aware of what’s going on.”
“This president talks about cognitive capability. He doesn’t seem to be cognitively aware of what’s going on,” Biden said on Tuesday afternoon during a press briefing in Wilmington, Delaware. “The idea that he didn’t know or wasn’t being briefed, that’s a dereliction of duty. And if he was briefed and didn’t do anything about it, that’s a dereliction of duty.”
Biden then proceeded to accuse Trump of being “unfit to be president,” before adding that he’d personally hold Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable for the move.
The controversy over whether Trump was briefed on the alleged Russian plot has caused a firestorm through Washington. The president has denied that he was ever told about the intelligence, and senior intelligence officials have told the Washington Examiner that Trump was never told about the supposed plot, which some intelligence officials dispute.
Toward the end of his press conference, Biden was asked about whether he had suffered any diminished mental ability since he left the White House in January 2017.
“I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive capability to the cognitive capability of the man I’m running against,” he replied.
