Warren pressed over defense of Biden's mental acuity in podcast interview

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) maintained in a recent interview that she shared what she "believed to be true" when defending then-President Biden's mental acuity during the 2024 presidential race.

Warren was pressed about her past comments in an interview on the "Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso" podcast, where the host asked the Democratic senator if she had any "regret" over defending Biden's mental ability.

“I said what I believed to be true,” Warren said in the interview released Sunday.

“You think he was as sharp as you?” Fragoso responded. 

“I said I had not seen decline, and I hadn’t, at that point,” the Massachusetts Democrat replied.

“You did not see any decline from 2024 Joe Biden to 2021 Joe Biden?” Fragoso questioned.

“Not when I said that, you know, the thing is, he — look, he was sharp, he was on his feet. I saw him, live event. I had meetings with him a couple of times,“ she responded. 

“Senator, ‘on his feet’ is not praise,” Fragoso shot back. “‘He can speak in sentences,’ is not praise.” 

“All right, fair enough, fair enough,” Warren responded.

Biden’s age and mental fitness were key issues during the 2024 presidential race, which Biden eventually exited amid Democratic pressure after a rough debate performance in late June that furthered concerns about his mental ability.

The Hill has reached out to Warren’s office for further comment.

In a previous interview on the “Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know” podcast that came out in July but was recorded in April, Warren had said Biden was “sharp” and that he “knows what he’s talking about.”

“I think people ask about age, they've got every right,” Warren said at the time. “Look, voters can ask about anything they want, they can make any decisions based on anything they want, that’s the deal.”

“It's a sharpness and a pointedness about what he is trying to accomplish, and to me, I get it,” she added, speaking about Biden. “It's like messaging. You can have other issues you want to look at, but the heart of it is, what does he deliver, and he is delivering.”

The Hill has reached out to a representative for Biden.