Former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said in a new interview he has “no doubt” President Biden is mentally capable of serving as president, amid growing concern among Democrats about the president’s standing as the party’s presumptive nominee.
“In my interactions with him, I have no doubt,” Fauci said about Biden, when asked on the CBS News podcast, “The Takeout” with Major Garrett if he has any doubts about the president’s “vigor and mental capability” to continue in office.
“And I can only speak in my own interactions with him,” Fauci added, in the interview released Wednesday.
Fauci — who, for nearly four decades, served as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — cautioned against drawing any medical conclusions just based on one event.
Asked if he saw anything “medically alarm[ing]” in Biden’s debate performance last week, Fauci responded, “You know, I can’t say. I think it would be inappropriate to say that, Major, because when you’re just looking at someone on a one-shot basis, you just don’t know what could happen.”
“Did he have a bad cold, you know? Did he take an antihistamine to make him, you know, groggy, or what have you? We don’t know what went on,” Fauci continued. “And I think it would be unfair and inappropriate to try and diagnose something from just a 90-minute clip.”
Fauci, who retired at the end of Biden’s second year in office, described the president as sharp and inquisitive in their interactions. When asked if Biden’s debate performance “at all” resembled what he saw in his interactions with the president, Fauci said, “No, I mean, obviously not.”
“I don’t want to comment about what happened that night, but you know, to me, it just looked like a bad night,” Fauci said, “because my interaction with him was what I described in the book and what happened even subsequent to what I described in the book, after I got out.”
He called Biden “very probing in his questions, very analytical, very calm about things,” and said during briefings, Biden always asked “very relevant questions.”
Fauci continued: “So my interactions with him, I have to say, have been very, very positive, in every way.”
The interview comes amid questions about whether Biden should stay at the top of the ticket after his difficult debate last week. Two Democrats have already called on Biden to step aside as others have expressed concern about former President Trump’s ability to defeat Biden in November.
Biden and his team have repeatedly stressed that the president is up for another four years in office, brushing off last week’s debate as a poor performance by the commander in chief.
“He knows how to do the job, not because he says it, because his record proves it. Because for three and a half years, almost four years, the president’s record has been unprecedented, delivering for the American people,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.
