WASHINGTON — Ron Klain, a longtime aide to former President Joe Biden known for his intense loyalty, is insisting he “never doubted” Biden’s mental fitness — as a new book describes Klain’s distress ahead of Biden’s dismal June 2024 debate against Donald Trump.
In “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History,” author Chris Whipple writes that Klain viewed Biden, then 81, as “out of it” and even “half-seriously” worried that Biden thought he was “president of NATO.”
“I never doubted the president’s mental acuity,” Klain told The Post Wednesday after a report on Whipple’s book was published by The Guardian.
“He had become singularly focused on foreign policy and detached from Democratic allies in the pursuit of GOP support on Ukraine and Israel,” Klain said of his impressions of the 46th president.
“He thought that being a great foreign policy president was enough.”
Biden shocked a worldwide audience with his performance in the debate, appearing vacuous and struggling to make coherent points — even saying at one point that he “finally beat Medicare.”
Although Biden and his allies blamed illness for the weak performance, fellow Democrats forced him to end his campaign for re-election weeks later over concern about his perceived cognitive decline — setting the stage for then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful substitute candidacy.
Whipple writes that Klain, Biden’s White House chief of staff from 2021 to 2023, was “startled” when he arrived at Camp David to help with debate prep.
“He’d never seen him so exhausted and out of it,” the author relates.
“We sat around the table,” Klain told Whipple, who is an authority on White House dynamics and best known for his 2017 book “Gatekeepers” about the role of the chief of staff.
“[Biden] had answers on cards, and he was just extremely exhausted,” Klain said.
“And I was struck by how out of touch with American politics he was. He was just very, very focused on his interactions with NATO leaders.”
Klain, Whipple writes, “wondered half-seriously if Biden thought he was president of NATO instead of the US.”
“He just became very enraptured with being the head of NATO,” Klain said. “Domestic political leaders don’t really care what [French President Emmanuel] Macron and [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz think.’”
“Uncharted” hits bookstores April 8.
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