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Are We Really Supposed to Believe James Clyburn's Answer About Joe Biden's Decline?

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  April 30, 2025 7:15 PM

Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) is a noted ally of former President Joe Biden. After all, Biden may have Clyburn to thank for winning the nomination in 2020. After a string of embarrassing early primary defeats that cycle, Biden went on to win South Carolina after receiving an endorsement from Clyburn, who was serving as the House majority whip at the time and who has been quite the force in Democratic politics in South Carolina, when it comes to. Biden agreed to pick a black woman as his running mate, which he ultimately did with now former Vice President Kamala Harris. South Carolina was even rewarded when the DNC upended the primary calendar for 2024 to put the Palmetto State first. Yet are we really supposed to believe that Clyburn wasn't aware of Biden's decline? That's what he seems to expect. 

On Monday, Clyburn spoke to CNN's Kasie Hunt, where he actually claimed that he "was not around Joe Biden enough to tell you anything about his decline," and then for good measure through in a dig that we can't actually evaluate Biden, despite how he was clearly going through before our very eyes, with video evidence to prove it. Clyburn isn't the only one to gaslight the American people in such a way, though, as then White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed examples of such video evidence amounted to "cheap fakes."

Before Hunt asked about Biden's issues, which she framed as him being responsible for President Donald Trump being elected to a second term, she played a clip of Alex Thompson speaking at last weekend's White House Correspondents' Dinner. Thompson and CNN's Jake Tapper have a book coming out about Biden's decline and the role it played in Trump being elected once more. 

As Hunt went on to ask, "With everything that has happened with Donald Trump, do you believe that President Joe Biden bears any responsibility for Trump's election because of that particular reality?"

Clyburn deflected, though. "Well, we all have some responsibility for this. The fact of the matter is Joe Biden on substance once again, was an outstanding president. You can look at his record, you can look at the records of all presidents, Democratic presidents going--going back. And you aren't going to find anything that matched his record until you get back to Lyndon Johnson back during his Great Society efforts." Such claims are laughable, considering how unpopular a president Biden was when we finished his term, according to the polls, even and including one from CNN. 

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The Democrat's answers only got worse from there, though. "Now, the fact of the matter is, whatever may have or may not have been the decline, I've never worked in the White House, so I was not around, uh, Joe Biden, uh, enough to tell you anything about his decline," he responded. "I talk to him on the phone a lot. I saw him at events a lot. I saw no more in his declination than I've seen in anybody else's. I'm two years older than Joe Biden. I just have a different style than he has. And so, people all age differently," he continued. While that last point is true, it doesn't absolve anybody. 

"And so, for us to sit here and talk about Joe Biden as if we are physicians and can make these kinds of evaluations a lot of us are interacting with him could not make an evaluation like that. And I still can't," Clyburn said as his final point for one more dig. 

Moments later on that same program, Scott Jennings weighed in about Clyburn's response about Biden's decline. He not only went after Clyburn, but also went after a post that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) grilling burgers in quite the epic fail, as he also mocked him for sending a letter to Trump. 

"Saying you are going to send a strongly worded letter in today's political climate is roughly the equivalent of putting a slice of cheese on a frozen hamburger patty on a grill, which Chuck Schumer is famous for doing. You've totally missed," Jennings shared, to laughter from his co-panelists.
"You like you have completely and totally misunderstood the way political communications work. Just the way you misunderstand the way grills work."

Jennings mentioned Clyburn as an aside, but it was a no less crucial point. "And by the way, Clyburn saying he had no idea Joe Biden was in decline and wasn't in a position to know whether he was in decline, his biggest supporter in Congress? Lord, have mercy. The scandal deepens, is what I took away from that," he mentioned.