Top Biden Aides Hid His Decline — Now They’re in the Hot Seat

Maxim Elramsisy / Shutterstock.com
Maxim Elramsisy / Shutterstock.com

As former President Joe Biden’s former team faces a congressional probe, a new wave of revelations is exposing just how deeply denial ran within his inner circle. According to author Chris Whipple, who interviewed top aides for his book Uncharted, Biden’s team essentially chose fantasy over reality in the face of his visible decline.

Whipple was stunned by the “fog of denial” he encountered during his interviews. Even after Biden’s disastrous 2024 debate performance—a moment many viewed as the end of his campaign—top aides like Ron Klain reportedly doubled down on their support, insisting Biden was still the best candidate to take on Donald Trump.

“Despite that devastating debate… Klain was still all in,” Whipple told America’s Newsroom. “They believed what they wanted to believe instead of their lying eyes.”

That debate marked a critical turning point. Biden’s inability to respond coherently on stage, combined with long-standing concerns about his memory and sharpness, forced him to step aside. But behind the scenes, Whipple says the reaction from Team Biden was almost surreal. Instead of reckoning with the president’s frailty, some aides clung to the idea that he could still win re-election.

Klain, Biden’s former White House chief of staff, has become a key figure in both the book and the congressional investigation. He reportedly told lawmakers behind closed doors that Biden had become “more forgetful” during his time in office. His frank comments to Whipple, however, have landed him in hot water with Biden loyalists. He’s now persona non grata among many in the president’s orbit.

While House Republicans are now ramping up a full probe—calling on Biden’s physician and other aides to testify under oath—many of those summoned have refused to cooperate, pleading the Fifth rather than answering questions about the president’s fitness.

Whipple doesn’t buy into the more extreme theories about Biden’s presidency being a covert operation run by aides behind closed doors. “The idea this was some kind of ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ situation is just silly,” he said. “There wasn’t a cabal running the government with an autopen.”

Still, he doesn’t deny that the internal culture was one of avoidance and self-deception. “This wasn’t a cover-up in the Hollywood sense,” Whipple said. “It was more like wishful thinking run amok.”

Whether that “wishful thinking” crossed legal lines is now the central question before lawmakers. Senate Republicans have already announced plans to hold hearings into whether the American public was misled during Biden’s final year in office.

And while Whipple believes the investigation won’t go far, critics argue there’s already enough to merit serious scrutiny. After all, a commander-in-chief’s capacity to serve isn’t a matter of political preference—it’s a matter of national security.

The ongoing probe could reveal whether Biden’s team was simply blinded by loyalty—or whether something far more troubling was kept from the American people.