In Hur Interviews, Biden Forgot Names of Jay Leno, Obama Sec Def, and Thought Africa Was a Country

Former President Joe Biden forgot the names of President Barack Obama’s former secretary of defense and comedian Jay Leno; referred to Africa as a country, not a continent; and was unaware he had in his possession a notebook with war advice in it for Obama during his interview with special counsel Robert Hur and investigators in October 2023.

The Daily Signal obtained and reviewed the audio of the two interviews conducted by investigators on Oct. 8 and Oct. 9, 2023, as part of an investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents.

Transcripts of the special counsel’s interviews with Biden were released on March 12, 2024, as Hur prepared to present his findings to Congress. But because the president was prone to verbal incoherence, those who questioned Biden’s mental fitness demanded the full release of the audiotapes.

Biden, however, blocked the release of the tapes by invoking executive privilege in May 2024.

Now out of office, Biden’s physical and mental health appears to continue to decline. Over the weekend, it was disclosed that Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. The recorded interviews do little to help Biden counter the allegations that the former president was mentally unfit while serving as commander in chief.

The First Interview: Oct. 8, 2023

During Biden’s first interview with Hur, he appears to refer to Africa as a country, rather than as a continent, without correcting himself.

“And I mean, we have a chance to fundamentally change and make [sic] different and more secure that part of the world which China’s influence is seeking to be profound the same way in Africa. I mean, we have plenty of people in Africa, but guess what? We’re going to build the first transcontinental railroad across that country,” Biden said, which appeared to be a reference to the Lobito Corridor railway project partially funded by the U.S.

Biden also seemed to not be able to recall when he ceased to be vice president of the U.S., which was Jan. 20, 2017. Someone in the recording has to remind him of the year.

“Well, if it was 2013, um, when did I stop being vice president?” Biden asks. A person in the transcript supplies the answer of 2017. 

“So, I was vice president. So, it must have come from [sic] vice president’s stuff,” Biden then said. 

Biden also had to correct himself about the government office—the presidency—that he was currently occupying when discussing fundraising for his prospective presidential library. 

“How could you raise money anyway while I’m a U.S. senator? I mean, [pause] a president,” Biden said. He failed to immediately recall that he was the incumbent president when discussing his future presidential library, which of course would only exist because he was a president.

The Second Interview: Oct. 9, 2023

During the first interview, Biden admitted that he did not know how he was still in possession of a letter written while he was vice president to Obama, one that contained information about the White House’s strategy in Afghanistan.

The letter was found in one of his notebooks in a drawer at his lake house.

“I don’t recall how it got back in the book, because I sent it to the president. I gave it to the president, and this looks like the original. I don’t think there’s a copy made of it,” said Biden.

Informed that he had faxed the letter and held onto the original, Biden received that as news.

“Oh, OK, that’s why,” he said. 

“OK, I got it. I wasn’t sure how I got—how I, whether I gave, handed it to the president. It was faxed to the president, which I had the copy?”

Hur responded, “Right, you had the original.” 

“Yeah, I had the original. I just put it in the book, and that was it.” said Biden.

This pattern of confusion over classified materials in his possession would continue throughout Biden’s exchanges with Hur.

The investigation began after troves of sensitive documents from Biden’s time as vice president to Obama were found at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., and Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home.

Though Biden had more than five decades of experience in Washington—during which Biden served as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vice president, and president—he told investigators that he was unaware of the distinction between “classified” and “top secret” material.

“Are you aware that among certain categories of classified information, there is ‘top secret,’ ‘secret,’ and there’s also a category of classified information called ‘confidential?’” Hur asked him. “Is that something that you’re aware of or not?”

“I guess,” Biden said. “I don’t ever remember.”

After a long pause, Biden said, “when I got any document that was confidential, that was meant for me to read and/or discuss with the people who sent me the memo.”

Asked if he had any other documents or memos in his possession after his vice presidential term with sensitive information about Afghanistan, Biden again could not give a definitive answer.

“Not knowingly,” he replied. “I mean, it wasn’t anything I consciously—there may have been something that was kept in the notebook or something, but I—unconscious.”

At another point in the interview, when discussing a document about the hunt for al-Qaida mastermind Osama Bin Laden and the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, Biden forgot the name of former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

When investigators presented Biden a document with notes from a meeting on Sept. 29, 2009, Biden struggled to remember the debate about nation-building efforts in Afghanistan once Bin Laden was caught and killed. Eventually, Biden tells the investigators that “the debate was with [now-retired Army Gen. Stanley] McChrystal and company that if somehow we defeated al-Qaida and killed Bin Laden in Pakistan,” would the United States continue its operations in Afghanistan. “The answer … was yes,” Biden said.

But Biden, though answering the question, forgets the question: “What was the question?” The former president asked.

When the investigators repeated the question and asked if Biden remembered the conversation, Biden replied, “Not per se, but it was a generic exchange. I remember the debate related to whether or not, um, uh, Pakistanis were—we got rid of Bin Laden in Pakistan and, uh … .”

An uncomfortably long pause followed Biden’s apparent confusion about the nature of U.S. operations in Pakistan versus Afghanistan. When Biden started speaking coherently again, he forgot the name of Robert Gates, who spent nearly five years as secretary of defense under both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

“What’s his name? From Texas, secretary of defense,” Biden asks before others in the room reply “Gates.”

Biden also forgot the name of comedian and car enthusiast Jay Leno during his Oct. 9 interview.

As Biden attempts to remember how and when the boxes of sensitive documents ended up in certain places in his garage, Biden starts to talk about how boxes may have moved around because his Corvette was undergoing repairs.

The “Corvette was being worked on because I had to do that show with um … ,” Biden says, failing to remember the famous comedian. “Jay Leno,” someone interjects. 

Remembering the name of Leno started the then 80-year-old president on another ramble. “Jay Leno—didn’t have to, but I wanted to do that show,” Biden said, then prattling on about how he would drive his Corvette to the bottom of his driveway and revving the engine.

The thought of revving the engine of his Corvette seems to have led Biden to yet another tangent. One of the “best parts of being vice president and president,” Biden said, was “you get to drive all these … electric vehicles.”

“Damn, they’re quick,” Biden continued. “Think about this. You had one of those big, um, uh, four by fours. The, uh, I think it’s a, uh, Ford Bronco, whatever it is, zero to 60 in 4.6 [seconds].”

“By the way, you know how it works? It’s, it’s really cool!” Biden said, but investigators tried to get him back to the subject at hand.

“I would love to hear much more about this, but I do have a few more questions to get to,” one investigator said.

“I’ll take 30 seconds,” Biden said, overruling the investigator.

“You put your foot on the brake, you hit, you hit, um, uh, a button, that’s in the … and it says, ‘launch.’ Step your foot accelerator all the way down until it gets about to six, seven grand, and all of a sudden, It’ll say ‘launch.’ All you do is take your foot off the brake. Vroom!”

In February 2024, Hur released his findings in a 345-page report. Though Hur found that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” upon leaving the Obama administration, the special counsel decided not to press charges because Biden came off like a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” which would make it difficult for a jury to convict Biden of knowingly keeping the documents. Furthermore, Hur noted that “significant limitations” to Biden’s memory became apparent over the course of the five hours of interviews.

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